Since the Russian invasion and the war in Ukraine, approximately 10,000 young people have been received and educated in France, including 4,000 in primary school. Children who do not speak French and who have a Cyrillic alphabet, different from the Latin alphabet. Meeting with Anna, a little Ukrainian girl from Odessa, at the Paul Langevin primary school in Les Lilas, near Paris.
Something happened at the Paul Langevin primary school: the arrival of a little Ukrainian girl in the CP class. Ribbons in her hair, lively little squirrel eyes, a smile that opens on growing teeth, 6-year-old Anna left the city of Odessa and a country at war.
Her classmates and teacher Nelly Augérias welcomed her warmly. “Me, I like people who have blond hair, so I like Anna “says a student. The teacher asks what has changed since her arrival. One of the students raises his hand and replies:when she arrived she was crying sometimes “replies little Nicolas. “Because she wanted her mom“, he adds.
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“The separation with his mother was difficult at first. She cried a lot in the morning. It must be said that in class, the main thing was not learning, it was that she felt good“, explains Nelly Augérias.
“She learns a lot by watching what others are doing”
The little girl arrived three weeks ago and immediately the children were able to communicate with each other. “We wave to her, we taught Anna French words“, tells us a student. We risk a demonstration by entrusting the microphone to the schoolchildren. Anna repeats the sentences spoken by the students, not without collective laughter filled with tenderness.
All methods are good for learning French, recalls Nelly Augérias. “We see the letters of the alphabet, sounds and small words with the help of images. The acquisition of vocabulary is done essentially by all the rituals of the morning and the afternoon, through the activities, the sport. She learns a lot by watching what others are doing.»
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The role of school for refugee children
At the beginning of the afternoon, Anna is accompanied by her mother. Of the exodus, of everything that happened before, the teaching team knows very little. Faced with uprooting and trauma, the school can act as a cocoon, a parenthesis for the child.
“The children know that it is difficult for Anna to start from scratch. She didn’t want to be here in France. We work a lot at the beginning of the year on the difference and they know the children that it is a real wealth to have someone different“, emphasizes Nelly Augérias.
When leaving, a drawing by Anna challenges us, it is a huge heart colored in red, the little Ukrainian girl wanted it to be displayed on the door.