A broken arm in multicultural Queensland (Source:antilogic.co.za) I recently broke my arm by ignominiously falling in my own living room and landing on my elbow. The force of the impact…
"Imported Teacher", the British Council's new campaign in Thailand As a language educator in Thailand my in-box is always full of invitations to conferences devoted to ASEAN and English language…
"Wir neuen Deutschen" and "Growing up Lebanese Muslim in Australia" A little while ago, my daughter, who attends Year 5 in an Australian public school, received a “Resilience Award” for…
Carla Hackett, Neukölln Hipster (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cood/6065684573) Recently, I asked my German-speaking, Berlin-based daughter Nanna whether she was able to understand our English-speaking neighbour when he talks with his daughter, Nanna’s…
Michael Clyne, Australia's Language Potential. UNSW Press, 2005. ***Update 03/10: Program and all details now available at https://www.languageonthemove.com/linguistic-diversity-social-inclusion**** ***Update 25/09: RSVPs are now open. Attendance is free but you have…
Postnatal depression (Source: rcpsych.ac.uk) Last week I was interviewed for a publication intended to showcase the achievements of women in research. When the interviewer, Meryl Hancock, asked me about the…
Plaque commemorating the work of migrants in the construction of the Mundaring Weir In response to my blog post about the disparity between educational qualifications and employment outcomes faced by…
Average employment outcomes of the tertiary-educated (Source: Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 647) The labour market integration of migrants presents a persistent conundrum. The Australian story – as that of other migrant…
Dr Butorac (middle) and her supervisors, Prof Piller and Dr Takahashi The Language-on-the-Move team is delighted that the 2012 Michael Clyne Prize has been awarded to one of our supervision group, Dr…
Pakistani flour mill workers recovering from a near-fatal lung infection due to poor occupational health and safety conditions, West Ham Hospital, 1960s (Source: Qureshi 2012, p. 7) To be transnational…
Mehrsprachige Buecher - multilingual books - ketabhaye chand zabane The release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 Census of Population data is an invitation to reflect on the composition…
Saul Tello Jr., Orestimba High Valedictorian 2012 (Source: CBS Sacramento) When US high schools make international headlines, it’s usually because of a school shooting. But Orestimba High in Newman, a…
Receptionist: Help yourself to a cap! Shiva: Pardon me? Receptionist: Help yourself to a cap! Shiva: This was a conversation I had in the reception area of a storage company on…
Meat workers, Fletcher Abattoir (Source: SheepCRC)The next seminar of the 2012 series of Applied Linguistics seminars at Macquarie University will be held on Tuesday, June 12: English in the meat works…
Many things have changed in Australia since I first came here in the mid-1990s. One of these is a noticeable increase in displays of national ardour: for instance, there is…
Inside Story has a must-read article about language testing for citizenship in Australia today Citizenship for beginners The Howard government made it harder for some nationalities to become citizens, and…