The number of international students enrolled in Australian universities has grown over the last decade. At the same time, concern and anecdotal reports indicating that many non-English speaking background (NESB) students experience considerable difficulties in their courses have increased. There are two important issues in relation to this: the admission procedures implemented prior to student enrolment; and, what is done once students are enrolled. These two aspects will be explored in this presentation using evidence from two large scale and recently published studies.
Rhonda Oliver works in the School of Education at Curtin University. She is an active researcher and her work has appeared in a number of international journals. Her research focuses on studies of second language acquisition and has included a number of small and large scale projects about international students who have English as an additional language. More recently her work has involved exploration of second language/dialect acquisition for indigenous learners in Australia.
