This paper discusses the Welcoming Languages (WLs) project, with a specific, critical focus on the elements of decoloniality as de-linking embedded in project’s aims, objectives and processes. The WLs is a 12-month proof-of-concept project funded by the UKRI (AHRC, funding Ref n. AH/W006030/1) between Jan 2022 and Jan 2023. The project was collaboratively designed and carried out by an international team based at the University of Glasgow (Scotland) and at the Islamic University of Gaza (Palestine).

 The project explored the potential for inclusion of a ‘refugee language’ in Scottish education as a way to enact the idea of integration as a two-way process that is at the heart of the "New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy" (Scottish Government, 2018). It did this by offering a tailored beginner Arabic language course to education staff in Scottish primary

Schools. Arabic is a language spoken by many children and families who make Scotland their home (who we call here, in line with the Strategy, the ‘New Scots’). Arabic was also chosen as it is the language in which the international team has a long history of collaboration, having previously designed an Arabic course for beginners.   

The WLs project started from the premise that, by learning language useful in a school setting, education staff can make Arabic speaking children and parents/carers feel welcome, to see that their language is valued and that staff in their school are willing to make the effort to move ‘towards’ them. Throughout, the project sought to ‘delink’, that is to “[…] change the terms in addition to the content of the conversation” (Mignolo, 2007: 459) in order to “[…] reorient our human communal praxis of living” (Mignolo, 2018: 106). The project pursued a delinking in several ways. Firstly, it challenged the expectation that it is the (sole) duty and it is the sole responsibility of New Scots to make themselves understood. This meant ‘delinking’ the role of language in Scottish education from the unquestioned teaching of the national/majority language(s) and of a smattering of standardised named European languages. Secondly, by grounding the course content on the linguistic needs identified by Scottish staff and by Arabic speaking children and families, the project delinked language learning from the accumulation of an object/system to be ‘had’, instead grounding learning in the “analyses of local language practices and assemblages” (Pennycook, 2019).  Thirdly, the project made a deliberate (and deliberated) choice of teaching the Levantine Arabic dialect spoken by most New Scots, rather than opting for the standard variety of the language. This meant delinking the target language from the colonial assumption that official, standardised varieties of a language have higher status, and thus are more worthy of being taught/learnt (Macedo, 2019). Fourthly, through the crucial expertise of the Palestinian members of the team, who took leadership in developing and delivering a tailored course, the WLs project delinked international research with LMIC countries from widespread assumptions around who has needs and who provides solutions (Fassetta and Imperiale, 2021).

The WLs project shows that it is possible to build a culture of hospitality that includes language as a crucial component, to make space in Scottish education for the many languages that New Scots bring with them. It argues schools can accommodate a greater number of languages, including those of the people and the communities who have more recently settled in Scotland (Phipps and Fassetta, 2015), and that learning the languages spoken by New Scots can be a way to act in favour “[…] of conviviality, harmony, creativity and plenitude [which] are some of the ideals and interests that decoloniality promotes” (Mignolo, 2018: 109).

The WLs project consisted of an intervention, which was carried out in four primary schools of the Glasgow City Council area. After having contacted the schools and identified 25 Scottish educators (class teachers, headteachers, EAL teachers, nurture teachers, etc) interested in being part of the project, the intervention was articulated into four different phases. Phase 1. Needs analysis. At this stage, the UofG team run focus groups with staff in participating schools to gather their language needs. Moreover, Arabic speaking children and their parents/carers were asked what language they thought it would be crucial to include in the Arabic course for staff in their school. For parents/carers this was done through multilingual (Arabic and English) focus groups. With children, the focus groups were both multilingual and multimodal, as they included group conversations and posters. Phase 2. The Palestinian team, with the support of the project's Research Associate, developed an online Arabic language course that took on board the needs that emerged from the language needs analysis identified in Phase 1. Phase 3. Staff in the participating primary schools took a 10-lesson beginners Arabic language course (20 hrs in total) designed by the Palestinian team. The course was divided into two blocks of 5 lessons each, one before and one after the summer holidays and was taught online by the Palestinian team. Phase 4. After Phase 3 was completed, the UofG team carried out individual interviews and focus groups with participating primary school staff who had been learning Arabic and a focus group with Arabic speaking children, to gather feedback and evaluate the extent to which the project achieved its aims. It also gathered feedback from the Arabic language experts at IUG through individual interviews.

The final evaluation shows that the WLs project managed to unsettle the terms and the content of the conversation in several ways. (i) Challenging the responsibility for communication. Scottish education staff were eager to find ways to communicate with ‘New Scots’ children/families in Arabic and expressed the need and willingness to move towards children/families to offer them ‘linguistic hospitality’ (Phipps, 2012). This meant learning Arabic to address immediate practical needs/concerns and to ensure engagement, but also as a symbolic gesture which was seen as having huge value in ensuring welcoming and inclusion. (ii) Reversing the teacher/learner dynamic. Being in the position of a language learner helped education staff to decentre their understanding, to see the challenges experienced by language learners, both children and parents/carers, and to critically reflect on their own teaching approaches. (iii) Questioning the dominance of European languages. Scottish staff noted that their language learning resulted in an increased interest towards all languages in all pupils. Some Scottish educators, moreover, openly challenged the need to learn exclusively European languages in schools where they are not spoken nor likely to be of relevance. (iii) Re-locating expertise. Arabic speaking children reported feelings of wellbeing knowing that staff are learning their language, and gratification at being in a position of expertise. Scottish staff agree on the importance of a language course that was built on needs they had identified and believed that this was crucial in maintaining motivation. Moreover, the project drew on the huge amount of knowledge, skills and expertise of the Palestinian team, which was invaluable to redress the needs of the Global North partner. (iv) Challenging stereotypes. An unexpected outcome of the project was the way in which for some participants, the Arabic lessons challenged portrayals of the Gaza Strip as a place of devastation, grief, and desolation.

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