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Our chairman for tonight Terry introduced our guest speaker Doreen Risby, who spoke on the topic of 'English support for overseas workers'.
Doreen is well qualified to speak on this subject having qualifications that include:
A Bachelor of Arts in Management Communication from Deakin;
A Graduate Diploma in Education from Melbourne University ;
Degrees of Master of Education in International Education from RMIT & Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Deakin.
Doreen also has a CELTA qualification which stands for 'Cambridge English Teaching of Adults.
Doreen's vast experience has been obtained throughout her working life, having spent 20 years with South West TAFE in Warrnambool, teaching Business Studies and Marketing. While there Doreen undertook extra study to teach English as to be better able to help her students. With the TAFE funding slashed in 2012 this extra study enabled Doreen to switch over to English teaching and for the past 5 years has taught at the Waterfront Campus of Deakin University in Geelong as an English for Academic purposes teacher.
Doreen spoke about the how difficult it was for overseas workers to come and work in Australia. It all depends on the type of work they want to do, of how much English they need to have. They have to sit for written and aural tests.
Midfield employs over 450 temporary workers and over 400 working holiday/backpackers from China, Taiwan, Korea Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Uzbekistan.
It is difficult to learn English when you are working long hours. She gave the example of Ming who works in Midfield and is from China and is now an Australian Citizen.It took him many years teaching himself English by way of a dictionary at night. Her other guest Jun has just completed year 12 with an atar score of 98.5. When he arrived with his family he had to do all the translating for his parents , a big responsibility for a young child.
Doreen explained how the tests they sit are not relevant to the work they are applying for which makes it difficult and also very expensive. Each time they sit an exam it is $300.
The test comprises of listening, speaking, reading and writing. There are 2 types of IELTS exams - academic and general.
The scale how Immigration classifies the results are as follows:
Functional - 4.5
Vocational - 5
Competent - 6
Proficient - 7
Superior - 8
Most workers are 4.5 or below.
On weekends Doreen helps the overseas workers with their English, how to rent houses, buy a car and understand car registration and road rules, fishing laws, school matters and anything else they are having difficulties with.
She tries to encourage them to attend local events and teaches them about our public holidays and culture. The workers find it hard to become inclusive in our community as they are shy to speak to the locals. It would be good if they could meet and chat with Australians and get to know how we live our lives. Most of them have never been invited to a local persons home. Maybe the Rotarians could look at this.
The Backpackers/ Holiday makers like to spend their money on fun activities and will travel to try new experiences and not save their money like the temporary workers.
Anything that we could do to include these people into our community would be most appreciated.
Terry thanked Doreen for a interesting talk and presented her with a certificate and a RAM badge.
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