Language Chats

Moving to a new country is never easy (did someone say culture shock?), but it can be especially challenging if you need to learn how to live your life in a different language when you get there. How will you buy groceries or make a doctor’s appointment? How do you get a job and then, once you have one, navigate the workplace? Our guest for this episode of Language Chats, Dory Wang, understands this all too well from her own first-hand experience of moving to Australia. However this also makes her particularly well-suited for her role as a Senior Digital Content Producer for SBS Learn English, a free service to help Australian migrants improve their English and live well in Australia. Dory shares with us her personal story of moving to Australia as an adult, learning English and how she has gotten to where she is now in her life and career. She also tells us about SBS Learn English, the type of content that SBS Learn English provides for the newest members of our community and what makes it different to other resources available for English-language learners in Australia. Have any questions for Dory or for us? Get in touch or join our Facebook group, Language Lovers AU Community, to connect with us and other like-minded language lovers in Australia and abroad. Episode Links Language Chats Ep #093 - Informing and entertaining Australians in over 60 languages: A chat with David Hua from SBS Australia Australian Government - Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) IELTS Monash University - Master of Communications & Media Studies SBS Chinese SBS Learn English - Podcasts | Videos | Articles Language Chats Ep #103 - Researching language to make society better: A chat with Dr Howie Manns SBS Learn English - Pronunciation with Janice Petersen Facebook - SBS Learn English Find Dory on LinkedIn

In this episode, we’re chatting with Dr Howard (Howie) Manns, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Monash University. We were so excited to have the chance to speak with Howie, because we are fascinated by his language story and his academic work - from growing up in a monolingual environment and then (unexpectedly) becoming a linguist through joining the US Navy, to working as a researcher who now studies Australian English, Indonesian, tactile (deafblind) Auslan and intercultural communication. We hope you enjoy this great Language Chat - we could have spoken with Howie for hours (but have made sure that we didn’t take up more than an hour of his precious time)! Have any questions for Howie or for us? Get in touch or join our Facebook group, Language Lovers AU Community, to connect with us and other like-minded language lovers in Australia and abroad. Episode Links Howie has kindly provided us with an excellent set of notes and additional links for those interested in finding out more! We have included these below in addition to any relevant links/work referenced in the episode. US Defense Language Institute, Monterey, Ca Howie’s plane in the US Navy (ES-3A Shadow) Howie discusses language and idioms and how they impact our view of the world on Episode 1 of the SBS Audio podcast The Idiom, hosted by Rune Pedersen Our interview with Rune Pedersen: Language Chats Ep #098 - Hit the nail on the head: A chat with Rune Pedersen, host of The Idiom podcast An open-access book Howie co-wrote about language in post-Suharto Indonesia: Style and Intersubjectivity in Youth Interaction by Dwi Noverini Djenar , Michael C. Ewing and Howard Manns Some downloadable papers Howie has written on language in Indonesia: https://monash.academia.edu/HowieManns Howie and colleagues reviews the decline of Indonesian, what Australia gets wrong about language and what we can do about it: https://theconversation.com/the-number-of-australian-students-learning-indonesian-keeps-dropping-how-do-we-fix-this-worrying-decline-216348 Howie and colleagues report on discussions with Victorian Indonesian educators and argues for more collaboration in the second language space. He also points to successful second language efforts in other parts of the world and how these might hold some answers for Australia: https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/invigorating-indonesian-studies-in-australia-through-collaborative-online-education-practices/ Howie promotes multilingualism and community language-learning on ABC Radio National with Hoang Tran Nguyen, project manager, community advocate, co-founder, ViệtSpeak: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lifematters/languages-of-our-community/103163890 ViệtSpeak - a community-based, non-profit advocacy organisation situated in Melbourne's west An Auslan-interpreted introduction to Howie’s Deafblind communication project (led by Louisa Willoughby): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIu7ltZ51R4 Here’s a written introduction to Australian Deafblind communication (behind a paywall but get in touch with Howie for a pre-print version): https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_15 This is a 30-minute lifestyle documentary about the amazing Heather Lawson, who Howie mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjFOtIqjmxg These are a pair Auslan signs Howie referenced, which sometimes cause confusion for Heather: “pub” https://auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/pub-1.html “know” https://auslan.org.au/dictionary/words/know-1.html *Errata: in the podcast, Howie said it was “pub” and “think”. This is incorrect. It is “pub” and “know” that cause confusion. “Pub” and “know” are clearly differentiated in visual Auslan, but this distinction is not always clear in tactile Auslan. Howie presenting on the hidden power of language and misconceptions about English “errors”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjC39sfgbrY&t=376s Howie reviews the history of Standard English and how the collective grammar of World Englishes may be challenging the standard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUry0z_BVU4 Howie, Kate Burridge and Simon Musgrave present on “Truth, truthiness and public science discourse”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktsFxREFZU8 Howie’s articles on Australian language and society for The Conversation (many co-written with Kate Burridge): https://theconversation.com/profiles/howard-manns-111255/articles Howie and colleagues introduce their project on Australian slang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPhb-_52XGc Howie and colleagues write about their project on Australian slang: https://auslanguage.net/slanguage/ Howie appears on the ABC Kids podcast “Imagine This” to answer the question, “Where do words come from?”: https://www.abc.net.au/kidslisten/programs/imagine-this/how-people-make-words/13929010 A few Indonesian language articles from Howie: Howie menulis tentang menurun Bahasa Indonesia di Australia dan bagaimana bisa diatasinya: https://theconversation.com/jumlah-pelajar-australia-yang-belajar-bahasa-indonesia-terus-menurun-bagaimana-mengatasinya-217444 Howie menjelaskan mengapa orang-orang di negara lain berbicara dalam bahasa yang beda: https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-mengapa-orang-orang-di-negara-lain-berbicara-bahasa-yang-berbeda-133940 Find Howie at Monash University | The Conversation

About this Language Chat In this episode, we’re chatting with Canadian-Australian Andrea Plawutsky - currently based in NSW - who has brought her interest in tourism, China and Asia together across her career. From teaching English in north-eastern China, living and working in Thailand and then working in the travel & tourism industry in Australia, we loved hearing about Andrea’s experiences with learning and enjoying language around the world, in both professional and personal contexts. Have any questions for Andrea or for us? Get in touch or join our Facebook group, Language Lovers AU Community, to connect with us and other like-minded language lovers in Australia and abroad. Episode Links Haymarket HQ Find Andrea on LinkedIn | [email protected]

Penny is a long-time travel lover and in this episode, she tells us about her most recent international trip which was actually a bit of a reconnaissance mission… As she will soon be helping others to discover new cultures, languages and adventures through her new venture, Pip & Co Travel. We chat about Penny’s history of embracing language and culture through travel, how we can all enrich our travel experiences with even the most basic openness and interest in the language and culture of your destination, the challenge of getting locals to engage with you as a traveller, the beauty of people-to-people connections, as well as the upcoming trips in Asia and the Pacific that Penny has planned for small groups later in 2024 and in early 2025. Do you love mixing language, culture and travel? Have a question for Penny? Get in touch or join our Facebook group, Language Lovers AU Community, to connect with other like-minded language lovers in Australia and abroad. Episode Links Language Chats Ep #016 - Language Travel - What is it and how to get the most from it Pip & Co Travel Pip & Co Travel - Việt Nam - FAMILY Southern Vietnam Explorer Trip

100 EPISODES of Language Chats have now made it out into the world! To celebrate this exciting occasion (and the start of a new year, hello 2024), we’re going back through our archive to reminisce about some of our favourite episodes. We’ve had so many great chats over the last five years, it wasn’t easy narrowing down our top eps! But it has given us an opportunity to think about some of the great discussions we’ve had between the two of us and with many others across the last 99 episodes. If you’re a long-time listener of this podcast, then this may prompt you to go back and re-listen to some of these great chats! Alternatively, if you’ve joined us recently, then consider this a hitlist of episodes to scroll down to and enjoy :) What’s been your favourite episode of Language Chats so far? What would you like to hear more of on this podcast? Get in touch or join our Facebook group, Language Lovers AU Community, to connect with us and other like-minded language lovers in Australia and abroad. (PS: Bec apologises for her somewhat grainy audio quality in this episode… Sadly, at-home podcast recording setups are not always foolproof. Coming back to you with cleaner audio in Ep #101!) Episode Links Language Chats Ep #047 - The power of podcasts for language learning: A chat with Pete from Aussie English Language Chats Ep #006 - From Third Culture Kid in France, to teaching French in Australia: Interview with Devy Baseley Language Chats Ep #003 - Foreign Language TV Series - What We’re Watching Language Chats Ep #077 - A fresh approach to PD for languages teachers: A chat with Kelly Harrison from Languages Roadshow Language Chats Ep #024 - The Language Learning Landscape in Australia: Our observations Language Chats Ep #025 - The Language Learning Landscape in Australia: how it’s changed for adults and independent learners Language Chats Ep #085 - Creating Australia’s first comprehensive language policy: A chat with Prof Joseph Lo Bianco Language Chats Ep #039 - Enthusiastic about linguistics: A chat with Gretchen & Lauren from Lingthusiasm Language Chats Ep #020 - Bite-sized language podcasts for busy people: A chat with Mark from Coffee Break Languages Language Chats Ep #050 - It’s language trivia time! Celebrating our 50th episode Language Chats Ep #055 - Leading a bilingual school: A chat with Stanley Wang, Principal of Abbotsford Primary School Language Chats Ep #093 - Informing and entertaining Australians in over 60 languages: A chat with David Hua from SBS Australia Language Chats Ep #060 - Low pressure, low commitment: Let’s dabble together in March (2022)!