Language learning for refugee women in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: Restorative pedagogies for integrating to place—Perspectives from Scotland

Cox, Sarah; Phipps, Alison; Hirsu, Lavinia

doi:10.3389/fcomm.2022.982813

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Commun., 11 October 2022

Sec. Culture and Communication

Volume 7 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.982813

This article is part of the Research Topic Towards 2030: Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education. A Communication Perspective View all 5 articles

Language learning for refugee women in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: Restorative pedagogies for integrating to place—Perspectives from Scotland

$\nSarah Cox$ Sarah Cox^*

Alison Phipps

Lavinia Hirsu

School of Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

As we reflect and learn from the lessons lived during the COVID-19 pandemic that severely disrupted our ways of being in the world, in this article we call for restorative pedagogies which can reconnect us to each other and to the places we live in. We present the language learning needs and experiences of four newly arrived refugee women in Scotland. A language learning study was designed using ecological methodological approaches, an iterative spiral of critical participatory action research (CPAR), and the emergent framework of permaculture design of “earth share; fair share; people share.” The 5-month study included fourteen 2-h learning sessions starting with an initial pilot spanning across four 2-h learning sessions. The innovative restorative pedagogy, as we propose it here, connects language learning to translanguaging practices, processes of acclimatizing into a new environment, into new rituals and embodied experiences, moving inside and outside of the “classroom” and with the understanding of “layered simultaneity” of languages brought from and lived in multiple places. We conclude this article with reflections on the impact of these language experiences not only on designing language programmes for the integration of refugees in new communities, but also as an ethical practice for all of us in moments of crisis, when our most profound relations and habits are threatened or broken. A restorative pedagogy builds on language that respects human dignity, acknowledges the importance of place and land we walk on, and cultivates sustainable human connections in a vulnerable and unstable world.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the lives and learning opportunities of schoolchildren (UNESCO, 2021) and adults alike, particularly those from marginalized groups, such as refugee women and their families who already faced significant barriers to learning (Scottish Government, 2018). In Glasgow, where this research took place, during the pandemic face-to-face community English for Speakers of Other Language (ESOL) classes were canceled or replaced with online learning which necessitated digital literacy, confidence, and sufficient English language skills to be able to access learning. Learners also required access to a device and data to be able to attend online classes which created further barriers. Third sector organizations rapidly adapted their community ESOL classes to online learning, providing a valuable lifeline and ways to connect with others to combat social isolation and digital disconnect during lockdown (Vidal et al., 2021). The move toward digital learning as the main solution for providing language support and keeping communities connected during the pandemic resulted in learning which was disconnected from the world “out there,” i.e., the context and physical surroundings of the host community. This physical context is key to integration, particularly during the initial stages of arrival when the context is often one of disorientation, loss and recovery from trauma. The somatic—sensory dimensions of physical touch and grounding are critical in recovery and restorative integration (Phipps, 2021; Yohannes, 2021). “Restorative integration” is a term we are using to signal the problematic, contested and often arbitrary ways in which the term “integration” can be used, and to highlight to intention for work within the field of language learning to be offering a restorative environment as part of the work.

To understand how we can move forward and what lessons we may draw from the COVID-19 crisis, in this article we share pre-pandemic refugee women's experiences with language learning and intercultural communication. By looking at the experiences of those who are well used to adaptation to change and crisis, we can identify viable and sustainable ways of reconnecting with each other and our environment—relations that have been broken or altered significantly during the pandemic. The lessons learned from refugee women as well as the need to rethink the role of our environment during the pandemic contribute to current debates on how to develop responsive and responsible approaches to integration attuned to people's needs.

The research was designed as a five-month teaching study carried out in 2019, a few months before the pandemic began in Scotland, with newly arrived refugee women in Glasgow who came to Scotland with the support of the British Red Cross (BRC) to be reunited with their husbands who were already living in the city. Sarah Cox used a Critical Participatory Action Research approach to capture the complexity of the participants' experiences. To explore the potential of restorative pedagogies, we adopted an ecological theoretical framework that was underpinned by decolonising methodology, a permaculture design framework, human geography and translanguaging to closely investigate the connections between place, land and language, the absence of which has been keenly felt by all during the pandemic. Our interdisciplinary approach sought to enact permaculture principles of “earth share; fair share; people share.” We introduce and elaborate on these principles in the following sections, demonstrating why they have linguistic and cultural relevance, and how the methods bear the hallmarks of permacultural work and permacultural justice in this regard.

Permaculture is a practical integrated philosophy developed from observations of the ways in which indigenous cultures work to grow food and cultural life in sustainable ways. It works to design flourishing environments of living and learning based on patterns found in nature, and which support sustainable systems not just for those in need, but for all of us in an inter-connected world (Mollison, 1978; Holmgren, 2017). To conclude, we put forward suggestions for how we can move forward from the pandemic and create restorative pedagogies within an ecological permacultural design framework to answer the questions: What does quality language education look like for refugee women post-Covid?, and How do we build creative restorative relationships to place?

Language learning for newly arrived refugee women in Scotland—An ecological approach

For newly arrived refugee women, the need to learn the language/s of the host community is often a priority (Scottish Government, 2018). In Scotland, the importance of language learning for refugee integration is recognized at policy level through the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy which highlights the importance of integration from “day one” (Scottish Government, 2018). This need to learn the language of the host community is met by ESOL classes provided by Further Education colleges (for which there are long waiting lists which have been exacerbated since the pandemic begun in 2020), or through informal community ESOL classes provided by a range of third sector organizations and local authorities. These informal classes provide an invaluable lifeline for newly arrived refugees, not only to learn English but also to connect with others and attend activities in the local community (Hirsu and Bryson, 2017). Programmes, such as Sharing Lives, Sharing Languages (SLSL), have recognized not only the need for linguistic integration, but also the more critical role of language learning through collective action and peer-to-peer support. This approach dismisses the assumption that refugees are the only ones responsible to learn English for integration. Instead SLSL calls for the “response-ability” of entire communities to work on languages together with newly arrived refugees in the shared places where they live (Hirsu, 2020).

To enact this response-ability, we need to turn to an ecological approach to language learning viewed as a human holistic experience. As Van Lier (2004a) notes, language ecology is different from other theories that decontextualize language for the purposes of studying individual linguistic features or grammatical structures. With an ecological approach, language and context are inextricably linked and cannot be separated as without context “there is no language left to be studied” (Van Lier, 2006). Context is everything (Levine, 2020). Levine (2020) also recognizes when planning a curriculum, the first step should always be to identify aspects of the local context and authentic situations on which the learning can be based. An ecological approach encourages reciprocity between classroom learning and the real-world (Levine, 2020). Classroom learning should respond to the context (Kramsch et al., 2010), and learning should be locally meaningful (Tudor, 2003) to respond to “local realities” (Duff and Van Lier, 1997).

An ecological approach was chosen for this study due to the need to prioritize the context of the women's lives during the early stages of integration into the physical context of Glasgow. The content of the teaching study was developed from this need at the participants' request. The study drew on two key elements of an ecological approach, namely:(1) the relationship between language and environment and (2) the interaction between languages in the mind (Haugen, 1972). This connection between language and environment was particularly important due to the need for highly situated and contextualized language learning which would be of immediate use in the participants' daily lives. The work toward “restorative integration” works metaphorically with ecological approaches, again, signaling the need for care, some restoration and adaptation due to loss and damage and the importance, in research, of “doing no harm”, especially when research proceeds practically and produces interventions.

Translanguaging

As language ecology is also based on the internal interaction between languages in the minds of bi- and multilingual speakers (Haugen, 1972), it is compatible with multilingual approaches to teaching such as “translanguaging”. Translanguaging refers to the everyday practices of multilinguals to “shuttle between languages” (Canagarajah, 2011), regardless of socially or politically defined boundaries (Otheguy et al., 2015). Translanguaging is also a recognized pedagogy based on the concept of “linguistic repertoire” (Lewis et al., 2012; García and Wei, 2014; García and Kleyn, 2016) where learners use their full linguistic resources for learning and connect new language forms to their existing knowledge. As linguistic items are not categorized within separate internal systems, they form a unitary system which speakers draw on selectively and strategically to communicate, a concept compatible with the interaction between languages in the mind on which Haugen's language ecology is based.

The proliferation of research around the framework of translanguaging has led to a shift from understanding its primary terms (i.e., linguistic repertoire) to identifying different types of translanguaging. Cummins (2021) differentiates between unitary TL theory and cross linguistic TL theory; García and Lin (2016) discuss the differences between a strong and a weak version of translanguaging, while Jaspers and Madsen (2019) take a critical view of the notions of linguistic fixity and fluidity. Instead of taking a particular stance along the lines of these typologies of translanguaging, what we find productive from discussions of translanguaging is the focus on “languaging”, the active use of and activation of language(s) in response to and in synch with the environment in which language(s) are embedded. From an ecological perspective, translanguaging is a powerful framework when it is understood as the co-construction and real connections of language and being in the world, or, in Wei (2017) words citing Becker (1991), “there is no such thing as Language, only continual languaging, an activity of human beings in the world” (p. 34). “Languaging” connects with the concepts of change and reconstruction of identity through communication and context as it refers to the ongoing process of “becoming oneself through the use of language and interaction in one's linguistic and environmental surroundings” (Prada and Turnbull, 2018).

We do recognize, that by writing about our participants' experiences with language(s), examples from our project may be read against typologies of translanguaging. However, we encourage the reader to explore these learning experiences as examples of what a translanguaging framework can do, i.e., unraveling learning and living in language(s). An understanding of “languaging” as co-constructed, relational and dialogic activity (Wei, 2011) is particularly relevant to this research due to the necessity to make meaning with limited shared verbal language as we illustrate in the discussion section.

Our commitment to translanguaging as a theoretical framework and “languaging” as a process of engaging with the world reflects the principles of social justice by placing learners at the center of their own learning and orienting toward the speaker, rather than the linguistic code alone (Simpson and Cooke, 2017). In this sense, Phipps (2012) describes languaging in asylum contexts as follows:

Languages, skilfully embodied and enacted, are part of the richness of (culturally and interculturally constructed) human being. Languaging, under our definition (Phipps and Gonzalez, 2004) is courageous; humble and humorous. And languagers are people who, when brought into relationship with different languages, will have a go, often in broken and fragmentary ways, at communicating and understanding not just at speaking, but of putting themselves into a position where they can make sense of the foreign language. When asylum seekers language it is from places of extreme experience where language is subject to extraordinary pressure: pressure of legal narrative, pressure of traumatic recollection; pressure of pain and desperation; pressure in another language that is not their mother tongue; pressure to speak through tears. (Phipps, 2012)

As the participants were at the beginning of learning English, it was important to build their confidence in their own skills and actions in the new environment. The examples we provide in the second part of this article demonstrate this understanding of translanguaging in action which brought forward the value and significance of participants' knowledge and experiences, as well as the social responsibility toward each other when communicating under pressure.

Layered simultaneity

In addition to the reciprocity between language and the external context, an ecological approach also refers to the layers of meaning carried within language itself which Blommaert refers to as “layered simultaneity”. Van Lier (2010) refers to the lithograph “Three Worlds” by Maurits Escher to illustrate this concept. “Layered simultaneity” (Blommaert, 2005) refers not only to the here and now, but also to the past and the future of those involved in the interaction, to the surrounding world, and to the identity projected by the speaker. Any utterance has multiple layers of meaning embedded within it, a concept illustrated by the three “worlds” in the Escher image which represent the layers of historicity, identity and presentness in every utterance (Van Lier, 2010). Blommaert (2005) also recognizes the fluidity and capacity for change within language as meanings adapt and become attached to language with ongoing use; “every utterance has a history of (ab)use, interpretation and evaluation, and this history sticks to the utterance”.

The reciprocal relationship between language use and change is particularly significant within our increasingly globalized world and within the context of refugee integration. Blommaert (2005) highlights that, “mobility is not mobility across empty spaces, but mobility across spaces filled with codes, customs, rules, expectation, and so forth”. In migratory contexts, the spaces which people move through “are always somebody's space”, they are not blank and without context, culture and history (Blommaert, 2005). It is therefore natural that new meaning becomes attached to language as language is not static in nature; it is ever changing and developing. Languages are not hermetically sealed units (García, 2007); they are fluid, shaped by their users, their experiences and the dynamic meaning which attaches to them over the course of time. This concept is central to this research and we return to it in the discussion section, as it recognizes the experience, language and knowledge that the participants brought with them to the project and all the layers of meaning contained within their home languages.

In using an ecological approach for this study, we want to do more than describing translingual practices and the many layers of meaning that participants need to disentangle in order to understand and live in their new environment. We draw on permaculture as a design framework underlying the ecology of human experiences and we call for new ways of enacting cultural justice through the development of restorative pedagogies that make life sustainable and liveable for all (cf. Butler, 2009). Our project is therefore not only a project on language learning and translanguaging practice, but a project on sustainable and just living. It is for this reason that we now turn to the design framework and concept of “permaculture”, in ecology itself, for our theoretical and practical approach.

Permaculture as a design framework for cultural justice

Permaculture is a restorative, regenerative and reparative framework to designing ways of living according to principles of fairness, as love of and in the land, and its many lines and edges of relationship. This somewhat poetic description echoes many of the principles and also the discourse for pedagogy used by Freire (2003) and Hooks (2003) in their work on pedagogies of love, freedom and of hope (Op. Cit.) It also finds resonance with the principles of the Conference of Parties 26 Climate Summit, held in Glasgow in 2021 (United Nations, 2021), which resulted in The Glasgow Pact, as well as with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the Preamble to the Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2030, the following statement is made:

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. (United Nations, 2015)

This Resolution of the General Assembly paves the way for multilateral action on sustainable development in all member states and at all levels of society. It also calls for design principles which share these goals. Permaculture—as observed and documented by Mollison (1978), through observation of sustainable land use and human habitation practices in indigenous peoples, provides such a framework and has key potential for considerations of language and culture ecologies. In particular, with its three-fold framework of “earth share, people share, fair share, permaculture design principles incorporate justice conceptions from the outset, rather than determining a set of goals or rights, but not bringing in measures for just redress, reparations or restoration and healing such as are acknowledged in the preamble to the SDGs.

The principles of permaculture elaborated by Mollison and Holmgren have developed since their first publication in 1977 and now constitute two different but complementary frameworks for designing ecologically in such a way as to enable a flourishing, restorative human ecology (Mollison, 1988; Holmgren, 2017). What they require is that when embarking on new designs, for pedagogy or for cultural work, and in particular for working with the land and horticulture or agriculture, then the following should be taken into account:

1) Work with nature rather than against it

2) Make the least change for the greatest possible effect

3) The problem is the solution

4) The yield is only limited by the imagination

5) Everything ‘gardens”

6) Take responsibility

7) Cooperation not competition (Mollison Principles)

1) Observe and interact

2) Catch and store energy

3) Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

4) Use and value renewable resources and services

5) Produce no waste

6) Design from pattern to detail

7) Integrate rather than segregate

8) Use small slow solutions

9) Use and value diversity

10) Use edges and value the marginal

11) Creatively use and respond to change. (Holmgren Principles)

Whilst the principles developed by Mollison are apt in our context, it is those from Holmgren which emerge as most adaptable, from observation and research, to the designing of a human ecological language pedagogy which is restorative in its intent, and grows from the work undertaken previously in language pedagogy (Levine and Phipps, 2011; Levine, 2020).

Sustainability, cultural rights, and cultural justice

The SDGs and permaculture design principles require a focus on cultural rights and cultural justice, which are often separated from questions of language and ecology. It has almost become a commonplace to point out that the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated “lockdowns” have been especially hard for women who are still the primary care givers for the elderly and for children, as well as for cultural workers. Without culture, the mental health of the nation would be in a far more parlous state than it already is; without the care for children and the elderly we may have experienced a full societal collapse and much higher levels of mortality even than the extreme highs experienced in the UK. Women of refugee background are carriers of language and culture which are interrupted and reconfigured by the experience of leaving home under duress, pain and pressure, and of moving life again in a context where culture and language need to be learned afresh and then shared. Cultural Rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under Article 27:

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

To establish cultural justice and cultural rights as the foundation of language ecologies means to create pathways for ensuring that human rights are protected. When such rights are endangered or strained under the pressure and disruptive nature of refugees' journeys, the principles of “fair share, earth share, people share”, as established by the framework of permaculture, can be applied toward the development of restorative pedagogies which, as we discuss in the following sections, restore, regenerate and transform human-environment connections.

Defining “place” within an ecological approach

The theme of language being connected to the “environment” and “context” is present throughout the literature on language ecology. This begins with Haugen's (1972) initial definition of language ecology as “the study of interactions between any given language and its environment” (p. 325). Similarly, Van Lier (2006) reminds us that with language “it's context all the way down” (p. 20). Kramsch and Vork Steffensen (2008) also refer to “holism” as a keyword in ecology and emphasize that “language is not studied as an isolated, self-contained system, but rather in its natural surroundings, i.e. in relation to the personal, situational, cultural, and societal factors that collectively shape the production and evolution of language” (p.1 8). Through the process of carrying out the fieldwork, Sarah Cox began to consider how understandings of “context” and “environment” might differ and how the project could remain true to Haugen's definition of the “social and natural environment” (Haugen, 1972), understanding physical place from an ecological and sustainable perspective in which language learning is embedded.

To understand “place” in these terms, we turned to human geography and the work of Kale et al. (2019) in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Exploring the notion of “place”, Kale et al. (2019) argue that we need to take into account all the multisensory experiences through which former refugee and host society residents develop, maintain, negotiate, and co-construct feelings of homeliness. Understandings of “home” have become increasingly significant within responses to the international humanitarian crisis (Kibreab, 2003). Kale et al. (2019) note how the need to belong and to feel at home in a known social and geographic space is fundamental to identity. This understanding of “place” allows for the weather, the walk, the park, the greenery, the scenery, the “Dear Green Place” of Glasgow and all the connections that people make with place in a human and embodied way. Our understanding of “place” goes beyond the notion of “context” which focuses on aspects of integration linked to supporting people to access and manage the system of integration in navigating benefits, work or study options. The goals of “work”, “study” or “progression” are difficult to reach within these first tentative weeks when people face challenges with a different climate and finding their way around a new city.

A more connected understanding of “place” as a physical environment incorporates elements of embodiment and sensory experience. It allows for “languaging” (Phipps and Gonzalez, 2004) within the physical environment, in this case Glasgow, a superdiverse and multilingual city, and recognizes that language learning is a dynamic process in which there is a reciprocal relationship between place and language. Phipps (2009) notes how the concept of “languaging”, is different from learning in classroom contexts to “the effort of being a person in that language in the social and material world of everyday interactions”. The learning takes place “out there” as “language being learned in the whole social world, not just in the classroom” (Phipps, 2008). This understanding of the agency of place also has implications for how we understand “integration” and what is needed to support the human aspect of settling in and making this new physical setting feel like “home”. As Phipps (2019) notes, “any decolonising foreign language learning endeavor worth its salt will need to remember the intimate connections between land, language and its need of the air for speech, anywhere to find articulation”. In the spirit of permaculture design, as we will present in our findings sections, this translates into an approach to language learning intimately connected to a liveable “place” that recognizes the shared response-ability we have toward each other and the places we inhabit (Hirsu, 2020).

Research design

The teaching study and the data collection were conducted by Author1, drawing on her 20 years' experience in English language teaching in the UK, Germany and Japan (including 15 years working with refugees in Glasgow). The study combined a multilingual, ecological approach, with collaborative, decolonising methodology to explore the language learning needs of refugee women during the initial stages of integration with a specific focus on orientation to the physical context. The teaching study took place in Glasgow from February-June 2019 and consisted of fourteen 2-h learning sessions which included an initial pilot (4 × 2-h learning sessions). The pilot provided an opportunity for the participants to decide if they wanted to participate in the main study and to evaluate the teaching methods/materials. The main study directly followed the pilot at the participants' request not to lose momentum.

Sarah Cox participated “as learner” (García and Wei, 2014) of the participants' languages (Tigrinya, Tamil, Farsi and Arabic—all unknown languages to the researcher), as well as teacher/facilitator and participant-observer within an interpretivist research paradigm, using qualitative methods (audio-recorded semi-structured interviews, observations, autoethnographic fieldnotes and participant feedback) to carry out the research and gather data. Due to limited shared verbal language, Sarah Cox wrote detailed fieldnotes after each session to record her observations. Sarah Cox's fieldnotes tell the narrative of the research and are autoethnographic as they draw on her role and reflections as an integral part of the fieldwork. Sarah Cox is written into this narrative as a participant-observer, allowing her to illustrate the nature of the multilingual interactions and the human, imperfect languaging of this work.

We also connected to the outside world by traveling together, initially to support the participants with finding their way to the first meeting and later to local places which the participants requested to visit. Woitsch (2012) refers to the appropriacy of “ethnography on foot” as a method for intercultural work as it “underlines those moments of intercultural learning which are centered in orientation” for example “the first strolls in an unknown town; walking with maps in search of specific places; or moments of getting lost and suddenly remembering the way”. These mobile, intercultural experiences grounded in orientation and sensing were highly relevant to our work.

The research was framed as an iterative spiral of critical participatory action research (CPAR) which Kemmis et al. (2014) describe as “practice changing practice”. CPAR was chosen as it was compatible with the decolonising approach as it takes an epistemological and ethical stance on who produces knowledge and how this knowledge is produced and used (Stoudt and Torre, 2014). The approach is methodologically eclectic, which complemented the emergent nature of the project, the inclusion of translanguaging and allowed for practice and critical reflection on practice.

The data included the fieldnotes described above, interview transcripts from three group interviews which were carried out with the support of interpreters, Sarah Cox's observations and participant feedback which Sarah Cox recorded after each session. Interview transcripts were returned to the participants for member checking. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke (2006) six-step thematic analysis which provided a framework to identify the key themes. Sarah Cox applied the six-step process by: (1) becoming familiar with the data by reading and engaging with it in an active way, whilst searching for meanings and patterns, (2) generating initial codes which Braun and Clarke (2006) note is also part of analysis. Step 3 meant searching for themes, collating the codes into potential themes and gathering all data relevant to each theme. In Step 4 Sarah Cox reviewed the themes and checked them against the coded extracts and the entire data set to generate a thematic “map” of the analysis. In Step 5, Sarah Cox defined and named the themes and generated clear definitions for each theme then completed Step 6 by writing up the findings which included a final opportunity for analysis. Sarah Cox created a key findings document which was returned to the participants for member checking with the support of interpreters.

Sarah Cox operated as an interpretive “bricoleur” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008). This is strategic and self-reflexive method of analysis which allowed Sarah Cox to respond to the research and adapt methods and “data collection” in a pragmatic way. Denzin and Lincoln (2008) note bricolage is a process of creating dialogical text which presumes an active audience with “give and take” between reader and writer.

Denzin and Lincoln (2008) use two metaphors to explain bricolage. The first is of a “quilt maker” drawing together different materials to create a patchwork quilt. The second is that of a filmmaker assembling images into montages. Both metaphors describe the process of drawing together different, eclectic fragments of data. Piecing the data together in this way allowed Sarah Cox to apply the interpretative framework at a theoretical and methodological level and respond to the research as it emerged. Data were compared using crystallization (Richardson and St Pierre, 2018). Richardson and St Pierre (2018) describe the crystal as a central image for validity in qualitative research as it allows for “an infinite variety of shapes, transmutations, multi-dimensionalities, and angles of approach” (p. 822), rather than the triangle, which is a rigid, fixed, two-dimensional object more suited to positivist approaches. Crystallization also deconstructs the traditional idea of “validity” and the idea of there being one “single truth” (Richardson and St Pierre, 2018). This approach allowed Sarah Cox to generate “a deepened, complex interpretation” (Ellingson, 2009). This was useful as much of the data were observational data, due to limited shared language. Sarah Cox reviewed the data, compared all sources many times and continued to delve deeper into the themes during the data analysis stage.

Learning sessions

The participants chose the content of the learning sessions and requested to focus on “everyday” topics to support them with settling into life in Glasgow (using the bus, shopping, healthcare and things to do in the local area). Sarah Cox designed materials and activities from these topics. Some of these activities took place in the classroom and others outside the classroom to connect with the local context, in keeping with the ecological approach, and to provide an orientation to Glasgow. These “real world” activities included traveling on the bus together, visits to three local museums and walks in the local park. Sarah Cox and the participants also delivered a workshop at the University Spring School entitled “Bringing the Outside in”. Sarah Cox was careful to make these experiences as authentic as possible, moving participants into “places” other than the classroom which can function as a “ecological niche” (Kramsch et al., 2010). Van Lier describes the classroom as a “niche” and recognizes that although this can be a safe environment it can create a “barrier between education and the rest of living” (Little, 1991 in Kramsch et al., 2010, p. 39), a key idea that we will return to in the findings section of this article.

We fostered a translanguaging “stance” (Simpson, 2020) as a general openness “toward language and language difference” (Horner et al., 2011) inviting words or phrases on the smartboard in Tigrinya, Tamil, Farsi or Arabic and asking participants to work together with their own words to complete tasks and then share their ideas in English as much as this was possible (Celic and Seltzer, 2011). Sarah Cox relied on the participants and used online translation tools to support her with these activities, meaning she could not always understand what was being said which limited her agency and gave participants a more active role in their learning. These practices encouraged fluidity in communication and meeting halfway between languages which supported the “languaging” as an ongoing dialogical practice. From an epistemological position, these translanguaging activities created opportunities for new ways to understand how knowledge is produced which the more recent literature on translanguaging recognizes (Moore et al., 2020).

These practices also complemented the decolonising methodology (Ngugi Wa, 1986; Smith, 1999; Phipps, 2019) by decentring power away from Sarah Cox and her role of researcher/teacher and reducing the position of English. Sarah Cox worked with the participants to foster a co-learning relationship based on mutual respect and on a more balanced emplacement of languages into the shared place of learning, where all knowledge was valued and participants learned from each other (Brantmeier, cited in García and Wei, 2014).

The participants

The participants were invited to join the project by the British Red Cross (BRC). The project sought to support women and their children who had arrived in Glasgow in recent weeks and were at the beginning of learning English, as the BRC identified that this group face particular challenges with language learning in the early stages of settling into the host community. Participants were all roughly at the same stage of learning English (beginners), all able to read and write, and knew most of the Roman alphabet.

Semira

Semira is from Eritrea and speaks Tigrinya. She has a ten-year-old daughter. They were separated from Semira's husband for 5 years before reuniting in Glasgow 2 weeks before the pilot. Semira attended Primary School in Eritrea for 3 years then stopped due to the war.

Rushani

Rushani is a Tamil speaker from Sri Lanka. She attends the learning sessions with her 17-year-old daughter, Lakmini. Rushani learnt English as a foreign language for a few years at school. Their family was separated for several years and reunited in Glasgow a month before the pilot.

Kamila

Kamila is from Sudan. She arrived in Glasgow 2 weeks before the project started. She speaks Arabic and attends learning sessions with her two sons aged 10 and 12. Kamila only attended the pilot study.

Yasmine

Yasmine is from Iran. She joined the project after the pilot. She has a 5-year old daughter who also attends the sessions. Yasmine finished high school in Iran and is also studying ESOL at college. She was separated from her husband for several years. They reunited in Glasgow 5 months before the project.

Finding(s) (in) the place

Situating the learning within Glasgow in an obvious way was important and this was supported by taking our learning out of the classroom as much as possible. This was fundamental in terms of language learning, it also introduced participants to places of local interest that they could visit with their families to support the New Scots theme of “integration from day one” (Scottish Government, 2018) and help them to contextualize their lives “here”. It made the learning specific to the physical ecology of Glasgow with its place names which are unique and difficult for non-Glaswegians to know how to pronounce and spell, e.g., Sauchiehall Street, Buccleuch Street, Buchanan Street.

We chose local places to visit by looking at leaflets, maps and checking online together. To facilitate our learning outside the classroom, we sometimes needed to change the day we met as the museums were closed on Mondays. Their enthusiasm to do this echoes the collaborative nature of the research mutual respect discussed in the methodology section as it required everyone to turn up on time. We also had to work together to make arrangements which necessitated good communication. In the following section, we highlight the key themes which emerged, and explore how these were woven throughout the fabric of the project.

“Day one”

As the participants had been in Glasgow for just a few weeks it was necessary for Sarah Cox to meet them at the BRC office for the first session to support them with traveling to the University. Three women and four children were waiting for Sarah Cox when she arrived. She was struck by how shy and unsure of themselves the participants seemed. Her impressions of meeting the participants in the BRC waiting room on the first day served as a baseline for understanding their “progress” and developing confidence for the rest of the project. None of the group could speak more than a few words of English and outside each family group the participants did not share a language which limited their interaction with each other.

For the first session we focused on the practicalities of getting from the BRC office in central Glasgow to the University where we planned to hold the learning sessions. This also served the purpose of introducing participants to bus numbers, the location of the bus stops and how to use the travel tokens which the BRC had provided. These orientation activities situated the learning within the context of navigating the city of Glasgow.

Working with the participants in real-life situations and physically being on the bus with them allowed us to use language to connect and learn how to be “in place”. Local bus stops became significant zones within our project, we began our journey on our first day together at the bus stop on Bath Street in the city center, we ended our first session by waiting together in the cold, dark evening at the bus stop outside the School of Education on Eldon Street and we said goodbye back at the same bus stop when we finished the project on a drizzly afternoon in June.

Practicing the language of “Travel by bus” scenario in a classroom is a fairly common lesson incorporated in the initial language lessons for the newly arrived. However, as van Lier points out, these lessons provide a safe and smooth navigation of space (Little, 1991 in Kramsch et al., 2010, p. 39), and do not reflect the lived complexities of body movement and language. In contrast, an ecological approach “responds to aspects of the context and the context is also created out of learning, teaching and language use” (Kramsch et al., 2010, p. 8). These experiences became an embodied way of learning, being, communicating and interacting with the physical ecology. These methods became our way of knowing each of the places and understanding their physical location and how to get from each of these places to the other. These shared experiences bonded us as a group and the approach supported the porosity between our work in the classroom and the participants' daily lives in Glasgow.

The participants and Sarah Cox had to negotiate the bus journey to and from the class multiple times, and this proved to be a significant challenge which formed an important part of the learning as it enabled learners to practice skills that would help them in their daily lives. For the initial sessions Sarah Cox supported this process; at first, by accompanying the group of women and children on the bus to the University, checking the bus number and seeing them on to the bus at the end of the first session, then gradually reducing this assistance to ensure a balance between support and creating dependency. Learning to use the bus including recognizing the bus number, timetables, tickets, the location of the bus stop are major barriers for those newly arrived, not only in terms of language but also cultural differences. Support at this stage proved to be vital, as were the travel tokens provided by the BRC as the participants were not yet receiving benefits and would have struggled to cover the bus fare (£4.60 for an all-day ticket).

In the initial information session, interviews and ongoing dialogue, the participants confirmed that they wanted to explore the local area and that practical orientation style topics were what they needed. Semira told Sarah Cox she needed help with language for “everyday life”. Rushani and Lakmini needed “basic information… how to get the bus, how to go to the doctor…” What this meant was not just a need for the language to express one's needs, but an environment-aware language, the language that would speak about one's location and needs “in place”, in relation to the signs and objects that a person comes into contact with and through the experiences lived, past and present.

Ritual and familiarity

The sense of security and confidence that came with learning how to navigate the city, both through language and physical movement, was also sedimented by learning languages in a familiar place- the same room at the university that we shared for our sessions each week. The kettle and making hot drinks together at the start of each session was important to create a welcoming physical space in which to learn together. This ritual connected us to the feeling of our classroom being our physical “home” for the learning sessions, the importance of which Kale et al. (2019) recognize within human geography and refugee resettlement. The idea of feeling of “at home” is also associated with embodied, sensory experiences such as making coffee to enable a feeling of familiarity through “sensory stimuli that provoke memories or positive associations” (Kale et al., 2019). By making tea and coffee together we connected this ritual to which hot drink everyone drank in their home country and how these drinks were made. Sarah Cox learnt the importance of coffee making in Eritrea from Semira and tea in Sri Lanka from Rushani and Lakmini. These simple rituals incorporated all of our senses; touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, and hearing which served as a “link to familiarity and security of home(lands) and also provide comfort, building on a homely sense of community and belonging through recollection and remembrance” (Kale et al., 2019). The importance of such associations cannot be overlooked in making people feel at home as part of a more human understanding of integration way from “day one”.

Shuttleworth (2018) notes the significance of these embodied experiences and how connecting such experiences to pre-migration lives becomes important as refugees and asylum-seekers settle' into their new communities. Shuttleworth (2018) also notes that spaces in which such gatherings take place can be viewed as a “space of care”, helping to overcome community boundaries and providing a space in which to share and learn about others (Piacentini, 2008 cited in Shuttleworth, 2018).

Shuttleworth (2018) found understandings of home to be fluid and dynamic within the context of refugee integration and that people find multiples sites of initial connection which can endure and lead to a sense of belonging. These places may not necessarily reconstitute lost “homes,” but may instead be places where people are able to share aspects of their identities, to inhabit new ontologies that they gradually come to understand and connect to. Working through our languages together encouraged a growing sense of belonging to the physical ecology of the room at the University. All of these aspects were grounded in increasing familiarity and settling in Van Lier (2004b) also recognizes this process of adapting to a host community within an ecological approach noting the impact this has on identity; “when people find themselves in a new culture with a new language, they need to develop new identities to reconnect their deep sense of self to the new surroundings” (p. 96).

Acclimatizing to Glasgow as orientation to place

Weather, and challenges with weather, formed a key theme in our work and presented genuine difficulties for the participants when traveling to and from our sessions. It was frequently cold, wet and dark when we met. Throughout the project we often talked about the weather by way of introduction at the start of our meetings. On several afternoons we had extremely heavy rain and the participants arrived soaked and windswept. Arriving at our usual room and feeling comfortable enough to remove wet layers of coats and scarves and dry them on radiators in our all-female group showed the impact and discomfort caused by a climate that is very different to their home countries.

We quickly covered a variety of language to describe the weather, heavy rain, drizzle, dreich, windy, stormy, cold, brighter, lighter, warmer. The language we needed shifted as the weeks went on, as we moved from winter to spring to summer. We experienced these changes as an “embodied geography” (Kale et al., 2019) because, as Gibson reminds us, “one sees the environment not just with the eyes but with the eyes on the head on the shoulders of the body that gets about” (Gibson 1979, quoted in Woitsch, 2012; p. 207). Such things can only be experienced as embodiment as they incorporate the use of all senses in seeing the darkness as we waited for the bus, feeling the cold wind on our faces, the rain against our skin and the smell of the grass being cut as we walked across the park together. We watched the rain from the classroom as we listened to it hammering so loudly against the window one afternoon that we could not hear each other speak in any language. The significance of these embodied experiences of place and the impression made by them is mirrored in the first two lines of the poem which participants and Sarah Cox wrote:

‘Scotland Cold, dark and wet'

As the project came to an end, it was no longer dark when we finished our sessions. The passage of time from winter to summer, albeit a Glaswegian summer where coats are still necessary, also mirrored the easing of the participants' process of settling in. By summer, they had become more familiar with their surroundings and the journey. It was warmer and lighter and being in Glasgow, in this new place, was also now easier as they had started to become more acclimatized to life here.

The idea that intercultural language learning is not detached from being and living in this world is a key premise of Woitsch's (2012) research, “Walking through the Intercultural Field,” and it connects with the question Ingold (2011) raises in his book, “Being Alive. Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description”:

Why do we acknowledge only our textual sources but not the ground we walk, the ever-changing skies, mountains and rivers, rocks and trees, the houses we inhabit and the tools we use, not to mention the innumerable companions, both non-human animals and fellow humans, with which and with whom we share our lives? They are constantly inspiring us, challenging us, telling us things. (Ingold, 2011)

Our experiences of learning ecologically acknowledge the significance of the physical aspects that Ingold describes. They also bring into focus the critical dimension of cultural justice: the right to learn how to share, name and live in a place in the company of others—“language lessons” not only for the refugee women, but also for the researcher herself. Our total sensory participation was part of our embodied experience. It was part of “languaging”. We were indeed “alive in the world” ourselves and together, as an intrinsic part of the physical ecology.

Being here and there—A layered simultaneity

The agency of place for refugee integration and the need for language learning can be seen in the “being here and being there” (Pöyhönen et al., 2020) of refugee resettlement, a layered simultaneity (Blommaert, 2005) that synchronizes different meanings. Sarah Cox's fieldnotes from the trip to Kelvingrove Museum illustrate this concept of layered simultaneity:

We walk across the park together on a beautiful sunny afternoon, chatting as much as we can. We notice the blossom, how green the grass is, the trees, and the squirrels and give the word for these in each of our languages. I explain that it's a 5-minute walk across the park, holding up my fingers to indicate ‘five' and I try to remember the word in Tigrinya, Farsi, and Tamil. We turn along Kelvin Way and along the road which takes us to the back of Kelvingrove. I open the door to the museum for them.

I stand back as we enter the beautiful main hall and watch Semira, Lakmini, Rushani and Yasmine look around smiling and taking in the new surroundings. Our communication is limited but I hope that this will introduce them to Kelvingrove so they know how to get here, that it's free to get in and when it is open.

We have prepared for our visit today by talking about what we might see inside Kelvingrove. I simplify the contents of the museum and indicate that upstairs are ‘paintings' and downstairs are ‘animals'. I show the floor plan and ask ‘what would you like to see? We agree to start on the ground floor and then go upstairs.

As the museum starts to close, we head out to the other side of Kelvingrove Museum onto Argyle Street, facing Kelvin Hall. We take a photo together in front of the museum and I send it to Semira, Rushani and Yasmine on WhatsApp. They receive it straight away and seem pleased to have it. I hope they can use this to show their husbands, their friends and maybe come back together.

We begin walking along Kelvin Way just as the bells at the University chapel start to ring out at 5pm. Semira grabs my arm in excitement and exclaims ‘Sarah! Church!' and then she points to me. ‘Yes – University Church' I tell her, she tells me the word in Tigrinya, “ yes beete krstyan”. She is telling me she is Christian, I think. This is important to her, she wants me to know this part of her identity. It also connects her life, her religion to this place. It contextualises this place for her in a way that is personal and meaningful.

Semira telling Sarah Cox that there is a church is significant. Kale et al. (2019) recognize the need to create familiarity and to connect the previous known place with the new. At this stage, Semira's vocabulary in English was limited to just a few words of very basic greetings and a handful of words for food and basic communication. It is significant that she knew the word for “church” in English and that she wanted to tell me she knew this, noticing the sound of the church bells within the physical place. This echoes the “layered simultaneity” which Blommaert describes to illustrate “layers of historicity and identity, as well as presentness in every utterance” (Van Lier, 2010). Kramsch (2008) also recognizes that meaning is “multiscalar”, “reflexive” and “historically contingent”.

Within an ecological approach language is connected not only to the physical environment, it is “the enactment, re-enactment, or even stylized enactment of past language practices, the replay of cultural memory, and the rehearsal of potential identities” (Kramsch, 2008). Kramsch (2008) notes that such encounters are not “discrete, bounded events” but instead are “open-ended and unfinalizable patterns in a web of past and future encounters” (p. 392). Semira's utterance connects not only to the here and now but to the cultural memory to which Kramsch refers.

Semira's utterance contains several layers of meaning, it connects this place to her previous place and lets me know that she knows this word in English. She knows this is a church, she recognizes the sound of the bells ringing within this new landscape and importantly she wants to share this with me. She looks at me “Sarah—church” and her meaning is ambiguous to me at first. At first, she is telling me that she has noticed the church and she then repeats the words again with raised intonation, pointing to me. “Sarah—church? “Yes” I say. Is she asking me if that is a church? Or is it more personal, is she asking if I go to church? If this place has significance for me too? It is important for her that I know that she knows what this sound is and it seems she is seeking to find the common ground between us in terms of whether I also go to church. Kale et al. (2019) found that such “multi-layered connections enabled individuals to (re)construct cultural identities in their new city, which was significant in enhancing a sense of homeliness and belonging” (p. 1). The physical gesture of grabbing my arm highlights our embodied way of being together in this space, the growing sense of trust and familiarity between us and the “intercultural body” which Woitsch (2012) describes.

The layered simultaneity here also connects to Pennycook and Otsuji's (2014) idea of spatial repertoires. Levine (2020) notes how language is dependent upon both spatial and temporal context which includes the person, place, time and purpose of the interaction. Rather than being individual, biographical, or something that people possess, “repertoires are better considered as an emergent property deriving from the interactions between people, artifacts, and space” (Pennycook, 2016, quoted in Levine, 2020, p. 41). Instead we should consider who we are to each other in this place, this context, in this particular moment.

Kale et al. (2019) recognize that “the aim of resettlement should not be to encourage former refugees to simply start over and create new attachments to a new place, but to enable them to inhabit past, present, and future experiences, needs, and desires so that they can maintain valued aspects of their identity, manage grief, and regain a sense of safety and stability” (p. 3). The process of connecting old and new, known and not yet known, runs throughout the project and is mirrored through our multilingual approach as we connected known language with new language through our multilingual practices.

Bringing the outside in

Just as it was important to create a comfortable, well supported place in which to hold our learning sessions, it was also important to connect our classroom learning with the physical ecology in a meaningful way. This meant preparing for our trips in advance by supporting the participants with useful vocabulary, showing images of what to expect and then reviewing and learning from these experiences once we returned inside. It was important to make the connections between the classroom-based learning and the physical ecology as direct as possible. The extract from Sarah Cox's fieldnotes below illustrates how we connected our work inside the classroom with the physical ecology through our trip to Kelvingrove Museum.

We started this session by chatting about our trip to Kelvingrove last week. I ask ‘where did we go? What did we see?” Everyone is engaged and can tell me ‘Kelvingrove Museum”. We go over to the window and look out across the park towards the museum to confirm the direction we took last week.

We stand at the whiteboard together with board pens and make a multilingual list of everything we can remember from the museum with the children drawing pictures when they don't have the word. This openness to recall the items in whatever mode suits each person best works well and we quickly have a long list on the board. When a word is unknown we check using the computer or phones to translate from Tigrinya, Farsi, and Tamil:

Through this activity, we piece together an account of our trip, a picture of Kelvingrove through their eyes. I am impressed by how much they had taken in and I feel this confirmed the trip as a worthwhile activity. ‘What did you like?' I ask and we each make sentences and ask each other this simple question. (Fieldnotes, session 12)

The observations from the “classroom” above could be read as a successful delivery of a language lesson in situ; however, this set of interactions reveal more than the language learned: they confirm that shared language is shared world. The visit to the Kelvingrove Museum is now part of the women's lived geography of Glasgow and gives women visibility in place.

Preparing to take the inside back out again

We discuss the upcoming event, the University ‘Refugee Integration through Language and the Arts' (RILA) Spring School and use a previous activity on dates/times as a basis to check arrangements for meeting. I write the meeting place, date, day, and time on the board and take Rushani, Semira, Lakmini, Yasmine and her daughter downstairs to the entrance to show them exactly where to meet.

We move on to work on developing a poem for the Spring School based on the topics we have worked on for the past few weeks and the Spring School themes of ‘Labour and Resting' which we interpret into the labour of learning a language. I take their comments and the key themes from the interviews as a starting point, and we weave together the lines to create a poem in all of our languages. We call it ‘Learning a language is hard work'. (Fieldnotes, session 9)

In addition to the multilingual poem, we also plan to hold a “languages café” as part of the workshop with Semira, Rushani and Lakmini taking turns to teach a few key phrases in Tamil and Tigrinya. We prepare for this by taking turns being the “teacher”, coming to sit in the seat where I usually sit and teaching each other the phrases we have prepared together in Farsi, Tamil, and Tigrinya.

The spring school

We arranged to meet at 9 a.m. on the morning of the Spring School. After an anxious wait on my part and numerous attempts to call Rushani and Semira, they arrived at 9:40 a.m. and we set off together. Sarah Cox's fieldnotes pick up from this point:

9.40. Rushani, Lakmini and Semira come around the corner, they smile when they see me and I ask if they're ok – they say ‘yes, ok' and we hug each other.

‘Let's go' I say. Lakmini asks – ‘bus?'. I tell them ‘no – today - taxi' and point to the waiting black, shiny, seven-seater taxi. Rushani's eyes widen and she says ‘wow!'. She smiles at us all and raises her eyebrows. I ask again if this is ok for them. I turn to catch Semira's reaction too and see she looks impressed. The door opens automatically and I reach out my hand saying, ‘after you'. They pause, then step into the taxi and sit next to each other in the back seat, I perch on the seat opposite them, facing backwards and explain to the driver where we are going.

We drive past the University and turn left along Kelvin Way. ‘The park' Semira says, then we turn right along Argyle Street past Kelvingrove. Rushani recognises this and points and says ‘Kelvingrove Museum', we all nod.

We arrive at Heart of Scotstoun community centre and start to set up. I am aware that they cannot really know what the session will hold, and I'm concerned that it might be intimidating for them.

The room quickly fills up and I watch Lakmini's, Rushani and Semira's faces, smiling reassurance although inside I'm feeling nervous. I quickly count – 35 people. The chair for the session introduces us – my first slide says ‘welcome' in Tamil, Tigrinya and Farsi – ‘Khosh amadid, Verruga, Merhaba' I say and I watch Lakmini, Rushani and Semira's faces. I see smiles and recognition as we connect our ways of working in our other place, our classroom to this new place in the workshop. I introduce myself and turn hopefully to Lakmini, Semira and Rushani, gesturing that it is their turn. I am silently willing them on but I know this act of asking them to introduce themselves to such a large group has the potential to either make them feel shy or to empower them. I ask Lakmini first as she is the most confident….

I need not have worried, there is a slight pause then Lakmini is on her feet, she is standing, tall and proud and she shouts out to the room, in a voice much louder than my own introduction: ‘I'M LAKMINI! I'M FROM SRI LANKA!' (I am stunned and proud, to see her jump up with so much confidence, her voice so loud). Rushani follows her daughter's lead ‘I'm RUSHANI, I am from Sri Lanka' (this is confidence I have not seen before in Rushani) and then Semira. Semira who is usually so softly spoken…. she looks across at me, I nod to her, she stands up, with such pride, follows Lakmini's lead and shouts louder than anyone to the full room: ‘I AM SEMIRA, I am from ERITREA!' Her volume rises as she shouts ‘ERITREA' and I hear the pride in her voice. I am stunned and delighted by this confidence and momentarily my mind flashes back to the image of Semira sitting alone, looking scared and not making eye contact on the first day in the BRC waiting room.

The Spring School combined our collaborative, decolonising ways of working, by embedding participants' languages within a new place. This movement and visibility in an unknown environment, beyond the learners' comfort zone of our regular classroom, became possible only because of the trust and respect that we built throughout our language learning in various other places. All the elements of our co-learning relationship were present during the workshop; the mutual respect in working together to deliver the session, by the comparative luxury of taking a taxi together and having it paid for by the University, and the sense of being valued and important that accompanied this, as well as through the collaborative approach of delivering the session together.

Watching Lakmini, Semira and Rushani shout out their introductions also challenged Sarah Cox's own perceptions of their confidence in other physical settings. Sarah Cox came into the session concerned that they might not feel confident introducing themselves to a full room of people and acting as “teacher” of their own languages. She was wrong about this as she underestimated the agency of places in which the group of women built their language repertoire.

An ecological approach to language learning allows for the learning to be localised, “pedagogical decision making therefore entails studying situations “locally”, in their terms” (Tudor, 2003). Tudor (2003) refers to this concept as “local meaningfulness” allowing for the role of “environment” to be much more than a passive backdrop for language learning. “It replaces these views with a conception of the learning environment as a complex adaptive system, of the mind as the totality of relationships between a developing person and the surrounding world, and of learning as the result of meaningful activity in an accessible environment” (Duff and Van Lier, 1997). As Moore et al. (2020) note, this concept is also present within translanguaging pedagogies as they respond to local realities, and as a result look different within each specific context.

Traveling to the Spring School together and noticing the places visited was also significant as Sarah Cox could see the participants' recognition of Kelvingrove Museum and the park. Finding their way through the city was a clear indication that Semira, Rushani, and Lakmini were starting to develop a better sense of themselves as part of their surroundings. In line with the permaculture principles, the experiences of languaging in place in ways that honored their languages and knowledge of other places created a far more equitable space for connecting to the world than exploring the same sites on a map in a classroom alone. The visit to the Kelvingrove Museum followed by the participation in the Spring School are just two key events in a chain of shared language learning experiences which demonstrate how we come to be part of a restorative human ecology that brings people together with care and responsibility toward each other and the environments which we live with.

Conclusion

The findings presented in this article demonstrate the importance of connecting to each other and to place in meaningful, ethical and culturally just ways within the period of settling into a host community. We have contrasted definitions of “context” and “place” within an ecological framework and highlighted the need for orientation-style “languaging” activities. The findings illustrate the need for the agency of place, as defined in human geography, to be taken into account within language learning for newly arrived refugee women within their first tentative weeks as New Scots adjusting to new lives in Glasgow. The two-way reciprocal relationship between language and environment offers an understanding of the agency that the physical ecology has on language learning and is particularly relevant within the early stages of integration. We found during the fieldwork that there was a necessary but often overlooked stage of settling which may not be encompassed within current understandings of “integration” and the findings point to the need for a restorative pedagogy based on and connected to “place”.

A restorative pedagogy attends to engaging newly arrived refugees in acclimatizing into a new environment, in new rituals and embodied experiences, moving inside and outside of the “classroom” and with the understanding of layered simultaneity of languages and lived histories, past and present. These are part of what Hyab Johannes calls “restorative integration”—a whole culture approach (Phipps, 2021) which observes that all rights are protected, including the right to language, to connect to new communities that one is placed in, to be visible and acknowledged as a full human being. A restorative pedagogy ensures that newly arrived who may feel being out of place live experiences that makes them be(come) of the place. This vision of being and learning are part of the nascent framework of cultural justice through the theory of permaculture design where the principle of “earth share; fair share; people share” is seen through the simplest yet profound experiences, such as watching and feeling the rain together or hearing the church bells.

A restorative pedagogy is at the basis of cultural justice. The principles of Sustainability, Cultural Rights and Reparative Justice are central to UNESCO's own work, especially with marginalized groups, and in this article, we presented them embedded in direct experiences and interactions with the physical environment. In 2020, UNESCO launched its work with ArtLab and the concept of cultural justice was proposed by the UNESCO RILA Chair as a way of developing work with both the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of those of refugee background (Phipps, 2021), but also as a methodological framework for developing trauma-informed, ethical practices for ensuring and protecting cultural rights during the arrival phase.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave us all the chilling experience of putting on hold or restructuring our relationships with each other and the places we love. Some of us had to withdraw to silent rooms while we waited for the pandemic to run its course, away from friends and family and without the possibility to go out and enjoy our regular routines. For some, this meant sharing in the kinds of experiences common to those seeking refuge for the first time, and gaining a deeper empathy. During all this time, our language suffered as well—our words stopped at the doors of our house. For others, the past 2 years were an exercise in creativity as we took to new rituals of long walks in small groups through the woods or sitting in gardens, a privilege that not everyone could afford. As an alternative, we opened up zoom rooms, we began learning online, and sent messages via our phones but, as we learned during the pandemic, the profound disruption of our lives left us longing for movement, for somatic meetings with loved ones, for being able to engage with the world around us beyond the walls of our homes. As we come out of this phase of the COVID pandemic, it is important that we build restorative pedagogies that allow people to reconnect with their physical environment. Throughout our study, we showed the power and potential that this type of pedagogy has on weaving a form of sociality that makes life sustainable and liveable for all (cf. Butler, 2009). It is important to note that a restorative pedagogy is not so much a process of “going back” to past habits and experiences, as current discourses around the post-covid recovery seem to suggest under the motto: “build back better.” A restorative pedagogy commits to principles of restoring human dignity, (re)generating human ties and connections to place, transforming and making new discoveries together—response-abilities that we all share.

While our actions and language may not repair experiences and memories of loss, trauma, and isolation, a restorative pedagogy for human integration opens up the place for new human connections, hopeful yet vulnerable as the ground on which they tread. It is here that the indigenous practices of permaculture can assist us, building on our observations of our physical habits; watching and caring for our work with language, the words we discard, the new words we coin; allowing us to soar with the words of the poets and grimace at the words that wish death upon the good things in our lives. We can watch and mimic the quirky habits of the peripheries in the ecological world; their medicinal qualities and understand that there is rich language available in the translanguaging practices on the margins of dominant speech. Perhaps most of all, as we allow a porosity and care to the rich world of words, we might find a restoration and regeneration of understanding and meaning, which can assist us in the grave challenges the world faces for its planetary survival.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Glasgow University College of Social Sciences Ethics Committee. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

SC conducted the teaching study described in this manuscript and collected and analyzed the data excerpted here. Some sections of the discussion section are taken from SC Ph.D. thesis. AP contributed to the theoretical framework, the discussion of findings and the conclusion, providing the lens of the permaculture design. LH contributed with theoretical insights around the notion of response-ability, the discussion of findings and the conclusion section of the article. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Funding

This research was funded by the College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow and supported by the British Red Cross.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the research participants who generously gave their time to this study and the British Red Cross who enabled this research.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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