Abstract:

According to Unicef, in 2019, 33 million children were international migrants. This situation has been intensified due to Covid-19 pandemic. Among the reasons to leave a country, we can find poverty, climate change, economic reasons or the hope of having a better life.

Migrant children in school age can face many challenges: language barriers, lack of understanding of social norms, limited resources from the school, and psychosocial issues. These challenges can produce long-lasting psychological and physical effects leading to a halt on the developing of their full potential along their life. So, an early intervention is crucial to boost migrant children’s educational language acquisition and understanding of culture and social norms to their educational achievement.

This paper discusses the advantages of mlearning to foster language learning and facilitate a cultural integration by migrant children with the support of translanguaging strategies and intercultural approach.

The role of mlearning to foster language learning has been discussed by Azevedo-Gomes & Sartor-Harada (2020) with a mlearning model with four guidelines: the construction of meaning, the interaction between peers, a focus on previous experiences, and formative feedback. Mlearning seeks to integrate learning theories, especially constructivist and behavioral theories to also create collaborative working environments (Crompton, Burke & Gregory, 2017). Despite the fact the design is focused to improve a minority language, the concepts about psycholinguistic factors are similar to migrant children's needs. Furthermore, mlearning allows to involve parents in language instruction and provide flexible education pathways, both considered good policy practices by OECD (2021) to support the lifelong integration of immigrant children.

The report examines the role of an intercultural approach with the support of translanguaging strategies. The first one considers the child’s heritage and could help to expand awareness towards both cultures in gamified activities. Plus, translanguaging strategies “leverages the fluid language of learners in ways that deepen their engagement and comprehension of complex content and texts” (García & Vogel, 2017, p.2) and could help children to transfer language competencies to a new language, speeding up their target language learning and fostering their self-esteem by valuing their previous knowledge. The authors base their assumptions on the thesis that the formula translanguaging and intercultural approach can contribute to a positive mixed identity construction. Finally, the authors present their strategy for gamified activities with mlearning support including translanguaging strategies and intercultural approach in order to ease integration and a full educational achievement of migrant children.

Keywords:

m-learning, translanguaging, intercultural approach, migrant children, integration.