LITERACY PROBLEMS OF ROMA CHILDREN FROM POLAND IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS

The project is financially supported by the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland.

The Study

The Roma children are bilingual or multilingual. Very often together with their mother tongue Romani, the children speak also the official language of the country where they come from and the official language of the country where they live. The research question which I am trying to answer with this study is the following:

Helps or creates obstacles the bilingualism/multilingualism of Roma children when they must gate literacy in a third/ forth language.

The study will focus on 1 grade primary school Roma children from Poland studying in Berlin primary schools and the process of their integration in the educational system of Germany will be observed. For this purpose, a questionnaire for the teachers and another questionnaire for the parents of the children will be created.

With the children will be conducted research on their literacy abilities in German language using a specially created Tests.

Why this study is important?

Whit this study I hope we will get a new information of the literacy process of Roma children, when the children come form very traditional and conservative families, such is the Polish Roma families.