March 2, 1014

We were very successful in our initial student sign-up in the downtown Hyde Park center. We will start three Career classes next week. It’s pretty exciting, but also a little daunting in that we are starting classes before we are really fully informed about all the ins and outs of the Australian employment rules and regulations. I guess the best way to learn is one step at a time, right?

I’ve been learning about the rules and regulations related to obtaining citizenship this past week. There are several different kinds of visas issued, I decided to concentrate on the most commonly issued types since that is what (hopefully) we’ll be dealing with the most. It’s surprising how many people come to Australia on student visas. The country increased the number of student visas they usually issue by 25% this past year because there are so many foreigners, especially Chinese, who want to study here. Many students, once they’ve studied here and have adjusted to the Australian way of life, don’t want to go back home to live, so they end up staying here and working through the citizenship application system. There are several steps to citizenship, but one that has great interest to me is the language test they have to pass.

Unless you are interested in the language test, skip down to the pictures and start reading there! I’m not sure this part will be very interesting to anyone but English teachers.

The language portion of the Australian language test is called the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) comprised of four parts: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The citizenship test is broader and includes more social, everyday situations in the reading and writing sections than the academic IELTS test which everyone who hopes to go to university (they NEVER say college over here, it’s university or uni) must pass. The academic test is much more in depth in the reading and writing sections; they are focused on academic topics and educational settings. The academic IELTS is hard, some of my former students who speak English as their first language wouldn’t have been able to pass it, and I find it very challenging too! I’m only going to write about the citizenship language test.

The first test is a listening test. It is 30 minutes long and you have to answer questions as the speaker talks. You can’t pause the recording or go back. There are four sections in the test. There are different types of questions too: multiple choice, short-answer, complete the sentence, labeling diagrams, classifying, and matching lists, phrases or pictures. The first section is usually a conversation between two people in either a social or academic section. You have to be reading the questions from the testing form as you are listening to the conversation and answering as you go. The example I listened to was a conversation between two students talking about their vacation. The questions were about the Eurailpass Youth ticket, where you were allowed to travel, whether or not the ticket included the train from London to Pars and how old you had to be to buy the ticket etc. You had to list four points that one of the speakers made about the pass and the advice he gives about the pass. The questions come pretty fast during the conversation. You have to be a pretty good listener as well as note taker in order to answer all the questions!

Part two is the reading section. You get 60 minutes to read the three sections and answer 40 questions. Each passage is more difficult than the one before it and question types within each passage become progressively more difficult. Part one is social English, part two is reading used in a college setting, and part three is just a high level academic type of reading. The readings reminded me a lot of ACT type reading and questions. Hard to do well on if you have any reading or language problems.

Part four is the writing section. You get 20 minutes for the first task and 40 minutes for the second essay. The first section is writing a business or personal letter addressing a particular issue (a letter of request, complaint, or provide information). You may have to explain a situation, take steps to address a problem, or ask for information based on the facts given. You must be able to express your opinion in the letter. You must have all the standard structures of a letter: date, salutation, subject line, body, close, signature, and name. The second section of the writing task is an essay that is either an argument (give your opinion or agree/disagree with a statement) or a description (describe a situation clearly and appropriately). The letter example I got was: you want to go camping for a week with a friend, write a letter to the campsite manager where you give details of when you would like to go, find out about the cost, and ask them to send you some information about the campsite. Part two (essay) I got was: “Action movies with spectacular car chases are very popular with young people. It is often said that these sorts of movies lead to an increase in car accidents among young drivers as they try to copy what they have seen I the films. Do you agree that such movies increase the amount of bad driving? What can be done to encourage young people to drive more safely?” You must give reasons and examples. All sections of this test are graded for content, spelling, and grammar. Seriously, I had senior students who grew up speaking English who would have struggled to do well on this part of the test.

The fourth section of the test is the speaking test. You must be able to carry on a conversation with a live person (tester) for 15 minutes. The first five minutes are introductory where the tester gets to know you. You must answer in grammatically correct sentences, questions about your family and home country as well as why you are in Australia and what you are doing while here. Then you have to talk about a topic the tester gives you for 4 minutes and then answer questions the tester asks you about your topic for another 5 minutes.

Pretty crazy stuff. I have a great deal of admiration for people who pass these sections of the test. The university level of this test is much like the ACT test sections covering reading and language except the reading sections are much longer. The questions are really hard. Plus there are charts and graphs you have to analyze. I’m glad I’m not trying to be a student or a citizen of Australia!

Both of these young men are from a village called  Banqiao Elder Smith opened in 1974

We went to church in the student ward last Sunday. It’s a melting pot of cultures and languages. There are about 17 nationalities that attend there. Dave met a young man from a village in Taiwan that he opened up as a missionary 40 years ago. When he left, there were about 40 members there. Today there are three wards of 200 plus members each there!

The Church owns two floors of the white building in the back.
It has a family history center, Institute, classrooms
and a chapel.

We spoke to a group of students downtown on Friday. We take the train downtown because driving downtown costs about $30 in tolls plus parking, so you’re looking at about $55 minimum to drive and park downtown. We can take the train for $7 each round trip, so it’s a no-brainer, $14 vs. $55. Driving and train both take about an hour to get downtown from where we are, but I’d rather spend my hour sitting on a train than sitting in a car fighting traffic! Speaking of driving, we are getting better at Aussie driving; we still have to concentrate the whole time we’re driving, I still haven’t reached the point where turning into the opposite lane from the one I’m used to is second nature. Everyone says after about six weeks it starts to become a habit and you do it without having to think about it twice before you do it. I’m not there yet.

Taking the escalators down to the platform

Students in general here are highly motivated to do well and succeed, especially the ones from China. We went to a student FHE social activity Monday night. Some students were LDS and some were not. Many of the students were from China. Of all the Chinese students, only one had any siblings. Most of these kids are a product of the Chinese one-child policy, so they had no siblings. These kids are under incredible pressure to succeed academically and to get a high paying job when they finish uni. Their parents were products of the effects of the Cultural Revolution in China and they never want their children to suffer from lack of food and resources like they and their parents did during Chairman Mao times. If you want to read a good book about the Cultural Revolution read Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng.

In their quest for academic success, studies become the most important thing these kids do. Typically high school hours are from 8 am until about 9 pm each day and then students have to do their homework after that. As a result, their social life is extremely limited and they don’t date. Romance just isn’t a part of their culture. They don’t even consider dating and marriage until they have graduated college and have a good job. Most get their masters’ degree, so the average age to begin dating is in their late 20s. I met a beautiful girl who is finishing her master’s degree here; she is 24 and has never been on date! Ever. Most of the boys there are in their late 20s and early 30s and have never been on a date. China’s culture is much different than the US to say the least! I’m sure there are parts of China where this isn't the trend, but apparently it’s more common than not. These kids’ parents are paying about $20,000 or more tuition a semester plus room and board for their kids to attend school in Australia, and honoring parents is a big deal in Chinese culture, so these students really try hard to achieve.

I wish I had some pictures to post about sightseeing we've done, but we really haven’t done any, sadly. Australia has been in a drought (have you been watching the terrible fires in Canberra?), but just our luck, the drought in the Sydney area ended when we arrived… it’s rained 3-4 days every week we've been here (all two and a half of them). Unfortunately, this rain has occurred on the weekends both times, so we haven’t gone out sightseeing. When it rains here, it pours. I’m kind of tired of it, but when the sun shines it’s beautiful. Hopefully, this coming weekend will be a sunny one and we will head out to see some kangaroos.

Grandkids:

Well, what did you think, ‘muck up’ meant? It means to make a mistake or do a bad job. This week’s language questions might be easier for you. What is a bloke? For example someone might say, “Give it to that bloke over there.” Also, what do you think ‘fortnight’ means? They say that a lot over here, for example, “I will be gone for a fortnight.”

Here is a map of the ‘states’ of Australia. Australia has six states and two territories. The states are New South Wales (where we live), Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania. The two territories are Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and the Northern Territory. The ACT territory is where their nations’ capital is, like Washington D.C. in the US, ACT is not a state, it’s a territory where the capital is. Sydney and Melbourne got in a fight a long time ago because they both wanted the nations’ capital to be in their city, so they compromised and made a territory between the two places and put the capital there!

This is a picture of the Australian Commonwealth Coat of Arms. Australia is a commonwealth, that’s an English word for a political unit formed for the common good of everyone who lives there. The United States means all of our states are united together for the common good. Both countries kind of have the same idea when it comes to how their country is run. Australia didn't form a commonwealth though until 1901, so it’s still a very new country. It borrowed its government ideas from both Britain and the United States. The shield has the badges of the six Australian states and shows that they are united. There is also a picture of a kangaroo and an emu. They are there to stand for the idea that Australia will always be moving forward, because kangaroos and emus can’t hop or walk backwards, they can only move only forward, so the Australians decided to put a kangaroo and an emu on their coat of arms to show that they will always move forward, never backwards.

Grandpa and I are going to try to go to a place we heard about where there are lots of kangaroos just hopping around. They are tame and will let you feed them. I hope we get to go there this week. Have a happy week!