Wenn sie nur den Kopf frei hätten ...

Abstract

Literacy courses for refugees in Austria mainly follow the same principles as offers for other migrants. The interests and wishes of the learners are at the centre of the course design. Empowerment is a major key word. Refugee learners are often traumatised, a fact that can be in the way of learning and has to be taken into consideration. A further important fact is that refugee learners quite often are literate in their first languages and thus in their first script. Hence special o!ers have to be made which include learning German without written input (at least initially) and work on developing the Latin script.