UQ study finds migrant students face "audible discrimination"

Migrant high school students learning English are often hindered by "audible discrimination" and intolerance, a University of Queensland study has found.

A key finding of Dr Jennifer Miller's education PhD research was the significance of ?audibility' - she found that how migrant students were heard by other speakers was just as important as how they spoke.

"Is the speaker being heard with tolerance or do people simply abandon listening because it's hard and they've got to make an effort? If there's an accent or language difficulty, a lot of Australians will just give up," said Dr Miller, who taught French, German and English before becoming an English as a Second Language (ESL) specialist.

"Once some people hear an accent they shut off. For second language learners this is a serious problem - in some cases it just makes them give up and withdraw."

The study followed 10 newly-arrived migrant students from initial intensive English language programs through to their integration in mainstream high schools. Dr Miller said the study found that the students' acquisition of English had a close relationship to their social identities. Institutional practices also affected learning.

"Learning English equals ?getting in' to social groups. Using English is a prerequisite to being accepted as a member by the group, hence its importance for social identity," she said.

"People are judged according to their English language proficiency and that's always the case at school. Some people will differentiate between or discriminate against people on the basis of accent or other language features. It's not something we think of - we know about visible difference and racism, but I think we also need to be aware of audible difference and discrimination.

"Students and teachers need to understand that if we make judgements on the basis of the way someone sounds, it's just as obnoxious as discrimination on the basis of looks."

Dr Miller said it was important for migrant students' skills in other languages to be valued. "We talk about English as a ?second language' but for lots of these kids, English is a third or fourth language. And although these students have totally mastered another language and possibly more, their teachers sometimes say they have a language problem. Clearly they don't have a language problem; the fact that they speak two other languages is not valued."

Dr Miller said high schools could boost ESL students' progress with programs that actively promoted interaction between native English speakers and ESL students. She plans to write a book based on her research.

For more information, contact Dr Jennifer Miller (telephone 07 3720 0202 or email j.miller@mailbox.uq.edu.au).