Teeqoz said:
That's not true. Where I work, we have multiple Poles that don't speak Norwegian, and the one I work with the most, a Bulgarian woman, is perfectly capable of making herself understood, but with a broken accent. She's still a better worker than probably any one else that work here.
You don't learn a language by sitting on a school bench. You learn it by using it in day to day situations. Except they never are in those say to day situations because they aren't allowed to work before they get their apllication approved (regardless of how well they speak the language), and they also don't have circle of non-refugee friends because like I said, the workplace is the average person's most important social arena.
We've also had a Belgian exchange student who lived with us for a year (we were the host family), do you think he learnt Norwegian by taking those two classes each week? No, it's because he was placed in a classroom with no choice but to learn. Bam, two weeks and he knows enough Norwegian to get by, and the learning only goes exponentially further upwards after that.
If we are able to get these refugees into the work force so that they can contribute to the value creation in the west, they'll be an immense resource, especially because the part of our population that are elderly is exploding (look at Japan. That's where every western country will be in a decade.) |
I agree that learning a language requires more than sitting on a school bench. I am not sure shoving unprepared individuals into the work space is the best way to do it.
I don't know what you do for a living. English is not my native language, and I am always asked to provide evidence of English fluency whenever I apply to work in an English speaking country.