When I just arrived in Melbourne, Australia, I spent some time in the State Library. It is a very clean, very cozy and very quiet place with all kinds of books.
Since I am a language nerd, I simply read some books relevant to the English language. I still remember a book called “World Englishes”. It discusses how the English language has been taught or used around the world. For example, every subject is taught in English at the universities in the Netherlands. English language learning in Japan is called “English as an international auxiliary language”, which means that English is used to learn “the international” knowledge. In Korea, English language learning programs seem to integrate in their local culture, where people favor knowledge-based conversation. The market of Australian English is in nearby countries, such as Indonesia.
I later started to study at one of the Australian universities and started to have more understanding about English language learning programs. There are some terms for English language learning programs, such as study overseas, study in home countries, study overseas but in non-English speaking backgrounds or adult migrant English program.
Studying overseas means to study in English speaking countries, such as the US, the UK, Australia or Canada.
Study in home countries indicates that students study English in their home countries.
Studying overseas but in non-English speaking backgrounds means to use English to earn a degree in non-English speaking backgrounds, for example, many international students doing their English degree in Germany, Austria, Spain, or in Japan.
Adult migrant English program, or AMEP, is an Australian government-based English language learning program and is designed for refugees and some immigrants. Their goals are to help refugees or some immigrants to settle down in Australia and enhance their employability by customising English courses. According to what I heard, I heard that learners can learn some vocabulary relevant to cleaning in some adult migrant English programs.
In terms of studying overseas, the effect of studying overseas can be categorized into two major aspects. One is proficiency; while the other is pragmatics, or the actual English use. Proficiency is like a measurement and shows how much our English proficiency is. Pragmatics, for me, is like a code. The higher our English proficiency level is, the more likely we can decode the pragmatic use ourselves.
We may start to question: does studying overseas work out well? My answer will be that it depends on an individual’s motivation. Some second language socialisation studies already proved that studying overseas may have little to do with improving English language proficiency. English learners need to manage to enter some “communities”
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