New language skills help migrants feel at home

Last week's Business Extra featured articles on issues Northland employers need to be aware of when they invest in recruiting skilled people from overseas for their businesses. It also included details of Settlement Support Whangarei's new employer information pack.

Settlement Support co-ordinator Ellen Altshuler said understanding the language, cultural and social issues faced by many migrant families, not just the new employee, is crucial to the success of the placement and maximising the investment the employer has made in bringing the skilled worker to Northland.

Jenny Huddleston, manager for English Language Partners Northland, endorses and adds her organisation's perspective to what Ms Altshuler says:

"It is often the partners of skilled migrants who need most help with their English so that they can feel more confident about participating in our community. Lack of fluency in English can be a major barrier to accessing services within the community, such as making an appointment with the doctor, ringing a repairman and coping with an emergency.

"Once communication improves we see a marked difference in their confidence in dealing with different situations.

"A challenge for some migrant workers is feeling comfortable in the workplace especially at 'smoko' and other break times. Their technical knowledge and language is fine, but being able to take part easily in everyday conversations is another matter.

"Our informal language is full of pitfalls for a non-native speaker, which can be real conversation-stoppers.

"Think 'it's raining cats and dogs', 'howzit bro?', 'gotcha sammies?'.

"By the time a learner has understood what is being said, the speaker has usually moved on to another topic, so the learner often smiles politely and takes no further part in the conversation, or talks in his or her own language to a co-worker.

Mrs Huddleston said ELP Northland ran a programme to develop workplace language skills called English For Employees, which was free to permanent residents in work, flexible, and tailored to meet individual needs.

Workers could be full-time, part-time or self-employed. Classes were usually small groups of three or four and where possible times were arranged to suit learners' work hours.

Topics included communication in the workplace; reading, writing and numeracy for work; workplace vocabulary and expectations and cultural issues in the workplace.

The 280 paid staff and 3000 volunteers of English Language Partners (formerly called ESL, English As A Second Language) works with 8000 migrants and refugees in 23 locations around New Zealand, providing a range of one-to-one and group English language tuition and settlement support services. For information contact Jenny Huddlestone on (09) 438 2512, 027 7251101, or go to http://www.englishlanguage.org.nz and northland@englishlanguage.org.nz. The office is at 10 Rathbone St (upstairs), Whangarei.