Did you know that more than 7.5 million people living in Australia, or 30% of its resident population, were born in other countries? Many of those are school-age children and they’re facing unique problems of their own. How are these immigrant children dealing with the educational system in Australia? How are their families adjusting to the educational system?
This article will discuss the educational experience of the children of immigrants in Australia. We will also explore how translation services are helping in their education.
How Immigrant Children Perform in Australian Schools
Some people might assume that the children of immigrants will have a hard time in Australian schools, especially those who have attended schools in the countries where they came from. In some ways, that might be true. They could end up having some form of culture shock.
Culture shock is the feeling of disorientation that someone will feel when encountering a culture or a setting that’s alien from the one he’s used to. It’s commonly accepted that children experience culture shock when they first attend schools, but immigrant children have a different experience.
Australian-born students might experience culture shock when adjusting to the school setting. Immigrant children face culture shock on a whole different level. A student who first studied in China has a high chance of experiencing culture shock when studying in an Australian school. Even if they did not attend a school in the countries they came from, immigrant children still have to deal with many changes. They have to face and interact with a whole culture different from the one they are used to.
According to research, around 30% of Australians do not speak English at home, and many of those are from immigrant families. That means they have different cultures and practices at home. When they attend Australian schools for the first time, they are faced with the challenge of dealing with the culture that comes attached to those institutions.
Fluency in English does not guarantee that immigrant children will adjust to the school environment. For example, there are certain expressions that are only used in Australian English. Sometimes, the Australian accent might be difficult to understand for someone unfamiliar with it.
How Translation Services Help in the Education of Immigrant Children
The children of immigrants in Australia need all the help they can get when transitioning into Australian schools. Professional translation services providers can assist these students and their families in several ways.
Translation Services Can Help Parents Understand the Australian Educational System
It’s not just the students who can have difficulty adjusting to a new school system. Their parents might find it difficult to understand the whole system too.
Let’s look at a specific example of how a professional translation services company can be helpful for immigrant parents. In the case of Tomedes, a translation services company that delivers multilingual solutions to multinational companies, it can also serve individuals, including the parents who want to understand how the Australian educational system works. Many of these immigrant parents are the products of foreign educational systems. By having the documents and papers translated and localised, the parents can better understand how the school system in Australia works.
Translating School Records
Students who went through schools in other countries will have to submit their school records to be accredited. If the records are not written in English, those will have to be translated. Diplomas and records are essential school documents that must be translated for students, but others might be required for them to be accredited.
Translation Services Can Assist Students Understand Their Lessons
Some students may have a hard time understanding their lessons because of a language barrier. For these students, they can benefit from having educational materials translated to the language that they are more familiar with.
Based on some studies, students can learn faster when using the language they understand best or their mother tongue. Of course, they can move on to learning other languages, but the foundation and the basis of their education should be their mother tongue.
Professional Translation Services Can Help Children To Be Multilingual
It takes a little less than 500 hours of studying a comparatively easy language to gain essential fluency. That means one has to be dedicated to mastering a new language, and students can use all the help they can get.
Aside from helping students transition into the Australian school system, translation services can also help them become multilingual or at least bilingual. When professionals translate written documents, students can learn a new language faster and more thoroughly.
It’s an indirect way of teaching language, but it can help a lot.
How Immigrant Children Are Performing in Australian Schools
Even though they face specific language and cultural barriers, statistics show that certain groups of immigrant children perform better in schools when compared to students who were born in Australia. This is especially true with children of immigrants from the Philippines, India, and China. There is an indication that those who grew up using a different language perform better in spelling and other aspects of learning.
The facts mentioned show that children of immigrants can excel in Australian schools given all the support they need. They just need help in transitioning and getting used to the new setting. The good news is that the families, communities, the schools, and professional translation services can all help students to achieve their academic goals.