Socio-Cultural Issues in ESL/EFL Teaching in Australia

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Socio-cultural Context for ESL/EFL
Teaching
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Summary of the Socio-Cultural issue
Australia is a linguistic democracy. The national language of the country is English, but there are
more than 32 languages spoken in the country because of the immigrants from other countries in
Australia. As the country has the existence of so many languages, the National Languages and
Literacy Institute of Australia has formulated several policies for the learning and teaching of
the languages in the country. The national policies of languages are expressed as four Es. The
four Es are Enrichment, Economics, Equality and External. This assignment is based on the
second E of the policy of national languages in Australia. Equality in the national policies of
language says that there must be enhanced participation of the people migrating from other
countries as well as the indigenous people of Australia. There must be the establishment of
teaching and learning schools for the students having language disabilities and for the Australian
sign language.
This policy is formulated for providing quality learning of language in the country to the
students, but there are certain issues relating to the socio-cultural context of language learning
and teaching. As Australia is a developed country, the people of Australia have a high living
standard. This is also applied to the immigrants who have been living in the country for a long
period of time now. But the issues are related to the immigrants who have just migrated from an
underdeveloped country to Australia (Guven & Islam, 2015). As different people have different
backgrounds and cultures, these can contribute to the socio-cultural issues in language learning
and teaching. Stereotyping is the major socio-cultural issue that prevails in the country in the
context of language learning and teaching. Students having English as their second language are
treated as aliens in the country. This can be understood by an example, a student named
Mohammad entered the junior school, and the student was from an Arabic country. After some
days of his entry, the other students murmured that Mohammad is a terrorist. Also, English was
the second language for Mohammad. The religion and language of Mohammad was the base for
his elimination from his class group (Ata, 2016). This is the perfect example of stereotyping.
People judge other people, by their nationality and religion. This is a major issue prevailing in
the country in language learning as a language has nothing to do with the nature or personality of
a person. It is required just to live and communicate in another country or region. The National
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Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia have framed the policy of equality in language
learning, but it is also important to measure its effectiveness. Strict actions must be taken to
resolve this key socio-cultural issue faced by the country in language learning and teaching.
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References
Ata, A., 2016. How Muslim Students Perceive Australia and Australians. Journal of
Intercultural Communication, (41).
Guven, C., & Islam, A. (2015). Age at migration, language proficiency, and socioeconomic
outcomes: evidence from Australia. Demography, 52(2), 513-542.
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