Many people say “language is culture” or “culture is language”. (Nau. n.

a) This
statement is true but not comprehensive. Language is not the only way to express
the culture and not all expressions of language depend on the culture. Australia is a
multicultural country and many oversea people come to Australia to engage in study
or work. Base on this phenomenon, a huge amount of students reflect that language
and culture become a major problem for them to study and live in Australia.
Comparing with the local people, English is not some international students’ first
language, which may become a barrier for them to communicate with others. Since
local students and international students have cultural differences, the attitudes or
opinions toward various things may have conflicts. It will result in a barrier of
communication and international students become outsiders of Australian society.
This issue reflects the inequality and social exclusion, and it is highly likely to impact
on international students’ further development. However, we shouldn't accept the
statement of “too often a child’s life chances are shaped by where they went to
school and where they’re growing up”.

Since Australia becomes increasingly globalized and diverse, language has an

important role in becoming a part of element of Australian multiculturalism and
multicultural identify. (Ferfolja, Jones Diaz, Ullman, 2015, 111p) The research in 2016
reflects that more than half of million international students from 200 countries
studied in Australia and this statistic increases gradually. The University of Western
Sydney enrolled an additional 764 international students in this year and around
4800 students chose to study in university’s ten campuses. (Taouk. 2017) The data
reflects that Greater Western Sydney becomes a key choice for international
students. However, Great Western Sydney also causes various problems regarding
language and culture. Prior research demonstrates that International students have
serious learning difficulties and are lack of confident to speak and be active to
participate in the classroom, (Sawir. 2005) especially for those, who come from Asian
countries. Many students from Asian countries have difficulty to communicate with
others in English. They reflect that the English exam in their countries do not focus
on speaking skills, which will lead to the lack of practice of speaking. The low ability
of speaking English makes international students to have less communication
opportunities and confidence with others. The research of one student reflects,
“'cause we wanna say but … (inaudible) shy. And i’m afraid sometimes I'll make a
mistake, so I don't want to like that’ (Hellstén. Prescott, A. 2004) They choose to
listen to others, rather than expressing their own ideas in English because of lack of
confidence or English proficiency. However, there are some of international students
reflecting that listening is also a problem for them. Australia is a multicultural
country, so the situation in Australia may be different. Around 60 students speak
language other than English in schools in the south and south west of Sydney. About
60 per cent of students in schools in Sydney's south and south-west speak a
language other than English. (Singha. 2017) This may lead to different accent in this
part of area, such as American accent, Chinese accent and Aboriginal accent, etc.
These factors all become the barrier for international students to develop strong
listening skills and bring the inequality and disadvantages for them to continue
learning in Australian schools. Ms Pretlove said "Compared to a school with less
diversity, it brings a whole lot of depth to people's life experiences." (Singhal. 2017)
The Australian government has to make a policy to solve these problems. The
research in 2017 reflects that about 1417 schools need to receive the funding from
the government, such as specialist teachers, learning and supportive programs and
interpreters, to support 166,000 students. The government opens a special language
courses for international students. Multicultural education contains various
programs, which are inclusive curriculum, language other than English and
community language, etc. Because it does not only meet the needs of LBOTE
students but also ensures all students develop capacities in successfully navigating
cultural complexity in Australian context. (Ferfolja, Jones Diaz, Ullman, 2015, 155p)
However, the amount of Australian international students is huge, The unavailability
of part-time staff poses a further problem for international students due to the
pressures imposed by their timed candidature. (Hellstén. Prescott, A. 2004) This is
unfair for international students to learn English. However, the initial professional
development is to exam teacher’s teaching strategies and pedagogies critically.
Moreover, the effective teaching policies include inclusive teaching pedagogy in
schools and universities, but this policy seems to become uncertain factor to impact
on the teaching applicability. There is a widespread call for implementation of
various bridging programs to prepare international students better in their transition
to the Australian study environment (Jones et al., 1999; Leask, 1999; Ryan, 2000).
Practically, considering to improve and to deliver the culturally sensitive curriculum
and communication through developing an inclusive teaching culture is effective for
Australia to become more equity for international students. Language is the first and
key step for international students to get into the study and work in Australia. While
students have self-development, the government and schools should implement
more inclusive and equal policies to help students to enhance language ability and
show Australian social inclusion. Schools are supposed to create more learning
opportunities and more equal learning environment for international students and
local students to learn equally.

In terms of international students, who come from other English background

countries can easily acquire the knowledge in the classrooms. However, they must
have different cultural backgrounds with local students. . Culture includes everything
that makes one group or community within a society distinctive from another:
language, values, literature, worldview, food, religion, clothing, holidays, beliefs, and
behavior that construct a specific group’s lifestyle (Perso, 2012). The schools
become more multicultural and teachers have to face new challenges. Witsel (2003)
noted that teaching and learning are not easy work, even if students and teachers
are of the same societal, economic, and cultural background. Therefore, teachers
will have various difficulties to deal with the students, who have different family and
cultural background from them. This situation will have negative impacts on
students’ academic achievement. Students may have difficulties to express
themselves because the multicultural classroom has different types of nonverbal
communication. This can lead to low academic achievement. (Bohm, Davis, Meares
& Pearce, 2002). It is unfair for them because their expressions are not understood
correctly. In short, it will be more effective for teachers to pay more attention on
multicultural teaching and learning and teachers will be more reliable to support
students to integrate their culture to others to connect with students, who have
different cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, different background culture
makes students to be hard to get into local people’s groups. Some international
students reflect that they have to spend many years to adapt new life and learning
environment. Some of them may spend a few months, some of them may spend a
few years, even much longer. Different language environment causes many
difficulties for their life and different cultural background also let them feel exclusive
of foreign environment. International students make more friends, who speak the
same language and have cultural background as them, instead of local people. In
addition, they expect to face the challenge and solve the problems with people, who
have same background as them, rather than seeking helps from experienced people
or teachers. This phenomenon let them get involved into local life slowly, even
cannot get involved. This makes them think that they do not belong to this country
and the society does not include them. Some of the students also think that
teacher’s attitudes towards white people are different from them. In Australia, as
White people is a dominant culture, the teachers’ attitudes towards multicultural
and diverse education has close relationship to local community and this will have
huge impact on students’ academic achievements. (Bodkin-Andrews, Denson
&Bansel, 2013; Ryan, 2003). Therefore, we have to critically reflect on how teachers’
pedagogy and practice relate to multicultural and diverse students in NSW.
(cf.Middlekoop, Meerman & Ballafkih 2014; Wiggins & Follo, 1999) According to that,
NSW begins to do the research on the development of multicultural education and
provide regional trainers to train teachers about how to make the development of
multicultural and diverse students become successful and how to implement anti-
racism policy effectively in schools. The inclusion of anti-racism strategies in school
plans is a requirement of the New South Wales anti-racism policy (NSW DET, 2009),
committing the department and all staff to rejecting all forms of racism. (Forrest.
Lean. Dunn. 2017) As a teacher, we need to know different cultural background
students to satisfy individual needs and interests. More important, different cultural
groups have diverse aspects need to be aware. It is significant to consider from
various aspects to involve all background students in an appropriate way.
(Department of Health and Ageing. 2012) Engaging parents and careers is helpful for
students to overcome the language barrier. Teachers are able to teach about the
cultural diversity in the classroom to help them learn in a multicultural learning
environment. Being open-minded to learn different cultural knowledge and
enriching oneself are beneficial for people to understand and engage with the
cultural diversity. Providing the disadvantage or discriminations according to
students’ background can be countered by racism. We as teachers need to use our
pedagogy to be inclusive for multicultural and diverse backgrounds and to create a
safe environment for them.

Overall, teachers need to ensure that they have the quality teaching and provide
equal learning opportunities for diverse students, especially for international
students, to achieve learning outcomes successfully. Teachers have responsibility to
know more about students’ cultural backgrounds, experiences to meet individual
needs and to be efficient and professional to teach multicultural students. Teachers
should work continuously to improve the lives of their students (Landsman & Lewis,
2011). In addition, teachers need to prepare the teaching strategies to overcome the
problems or challenges of students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
Teachers have to learn to be flexible because it is more important than only teaching
knowledge. It will be more helpful for dealing with the multicultural students’ issues
and help them to be better included in the schools and society. Therefore, teachers
need to solve the problems in the multicultural classrooms that are raised by diverse
students. As a qualified teacher, being creative and flexible in teaching practices to
enhance students’ academic opportunities and achievements is important and
necessary. In addition, building professional relationship with multicultural students
is another good way to help them feel a sense of belonging to school community.
We have duty to create an equal teaching environment and assist students to be
involved into Australian learning life and broader society.

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