Syrian students partner with tutors from Mount Saint Vincent University

A Halifax elementary school has partnered with Mount Saint Vincent University to run a special tutoring program for Syrian students.

With hundreds of new students from Syria arriving at schools across Halifax over the last few months, educators are finding ways to help the newcomers settle in.

• Syrian refugees adjust to new life in Nova Scotia school

At Duc d'Anville Elementary School in Clayton Park, Syrian students meet with their tutors in thelibrary everyMondayafter school.

The tutors are volunteer university students in the school psychologist program at MSVU.

Practicing language skills

Christine Doe, an assistant professor of Teaching English as an Additional Language at MSVU, helps coordinate the tutoring sessions.

"There's one group working on sight-word reading ... It's kind of an on-the-spot assessment of what we can see and where their language is at and perhaps what they might need," said Doe.

Most of the new students from Syria speak very little English. Doe saysthe tutors, most of whom don't speak Arabic, find a way around the language barrier.

"You need the student to be patient and try to communicate, but for us as tutors, we just find different way to explain something. That's just what we do, right? In normal conversation, you'll re-phrase something or you'll use a lot of gestures.Thankfully with technology, we have tablets that have GoogleTranslate ...[We're using] everything possible."

Students helping out

Duc d'Anville was amulticultural school even before the new students from Syria arrived. Many of the students at the elementary schoolspeak Arabic and several have stepped forward to be translators, helping their teachers and fellow students.

"I like to help. I just speak the language ... I do it every day," said 10-year-old Waled Musa, who's in Grade 5 and arrived in Canada last year from Sudan.

Musa sayshe translates for "a lot" of kids.

"It's good to help people to know English and to make them happy."

Teachers at the school don't know how they'd be managing without the help of student translators.

"Thirty-ninestudents have come here and so that's almost two classrooms essentially so there needs to be extra support for that,"said JenniferGriffiths, who shares a Grade 4 class with Sandra Labor.

Added Labor, "beyond the students we also have the families and so while we have had some things put in place so we can have translators at different times we just had parent/teacher interviews and that was a bit of a scramble....Things have gone well. We're making it work."

Families thankful

Parents of the newly arrived Syrian children are appreciative.

"It's great because they're very helpful and it helps students. They really care about the students here and they're very thankful for the effort that they're putting into it because it's helping students here," saidWasalAlMasalmeh, a parent,through a translator.

Al Masalmehsays he'simpressed his 11-year-old daughteris starting to help him with translation on family outings. He said she was able to use her English skills to help the family register to go swimming last week.

Al Masalmeh says his children are getting a lot of help at the school and that the family would like to pay it back to the community one day.

Determined to help

Principal Ken Rutley sayshe's determined to help the Syrian students feel at home.

"As with any student in education, you want their first experience in a school system to be a positive one and that's the unique thing about being in an elementary school is that you're given the responsibility of creating a foundation of learning but also a foundation of comfort," he said.

"You want the students to be able to come to school and feel like they're going to have a successful day and enjoy their time while they're here."

Duc d'Anville also has a YMCA newcomer support site, run by Mile Mitrovic, who came to Halifax from the former Yugoslavia in 1999.

"It's not easy to move from one country to another country. It's not easy to start a new life from scratch. We came here with no English, no friends and no relatives ... so I do understand all these people from Syria," said Mitrovic.

"The education system over there was completely different than here. Rules here are different than there. So you have to explain to them how to adjust and it's not easy and you cannot do that in a few days."