-
Refugees Cultural integration Starts With Language
•
The West wonders “why and how could some of the refugees we welcome with open arms still manage to dislike us or even hate us?”. Why do they remain refugees instead of evolving into normal citizens of the country that has so generously bestowed upon them a new life? Though not a refugee, my…
-
Quality English Education in Australia? Think again.
•
You would think when an industry is heavily regulated, quality is upheld. Alas, that is not quite true in the ELICOS and VET education sectors in Australia. For those who don’t know the jargon, ELICOS is English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students and VET is Vocational Education and Training. ASQA (The Australian Skills…
-
Australia’s Racist Multicultural societies
•
Racist yet multicultural! This sounds quite contradictory, doesn’t it? Well, there’s no such thing as a racist multicultural society, it’s rather a multicultural policy that is ironically leading to racist behavior. How is Australia multicultural? Australia is home to people of all races, colors and languages. That’s a fact. The country welcomes everyone in,…
-
A New Voice, A New Life
•
That’s not always true, but 80% of the times it kind of is, a new voice is a new life. The idea here is not for you to go to your nearest hospital and start shopping for a new throat with new vocal chords, we’re talking about speaking another language, a second or third…
-
How to fail a job interview because of English!
•
Having taught hundreds of adult learners of English, many of whom were desperately looking for work in Sydney, one of the most expensive cities in the world, I have come to notice a number of factors that lead the students to bomb a job interview. To apply for jobs looking for “bubbly” personalities Be…
-
I hate pronunciation!
•
Don’t worry, I’m neither possessed nor schizophrenic and I haven’t lost my mind! It’s not the field that I hate, just the actual term itself. Why? Because the term “pronunciation”, as it is understood now by ESL specialists and schools, does not do justice to the actual concept of pronunciation. Ask an average ESL…
-
Me, no English, but you, no Japanese!
•
I wrote the title so just to make it short, so do not think that I’m taking the piss out of Japanese people or anything like that. Japanese people are quite embarrassed about the fact that they cannot speak English and they (well, many of them I guess) have begun to realize that they’re…