The English Use of Indonesian Students in Australia: Expectations, Perceptions, and Strategies

This paper explores the use of English in Australia based on the perspectives of Indonesian students. Studies on perception, expectations, and strategies on social experience have been carried out. However, most of these studies have not established models that consider the relationship among the three elements of expectations, perceptions, and strategies of Indonesian students in the host country, particularly in Australia. This paper attempts to capture the holistic picture of English varieties in the Australian higher education context to draw upon the three elements. Demographic questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews were employed to obtain data from fifteen Indonesian students studying in three universities in Melbourne, Australia. This paper's findings suggested that Indonesian students' expectations, perceptions, and strategies varied due to limited awareness regarding English varieties, culture gaps between Australia and Indonesia, and the prominent role of individual self-reflection. It is hoped that this paper may shed light on people’s understanding of the challenges, experiences, and the general wellbeing of international students who choose to study in Australia for their tertiary education.

THE RELATION BETWEEN SCHOOL CULTURE SUB-CATEGORIES AND EXPECTED RESULTS OF LEARNING PROCESS

The aim of the research was to find out what factors of school culture affect the expected results of teaching and learning processes in basic schools. The research evaluated current and desired school culture in selected basic schools to identify culture gaps. Research using School Culture Inventory explored relations among selected sub-categories, namely between the sub-categories focused on shared objectives, trust in school leadership, and on managerial approach and the important sub-categories focused on innovation process and expected results of teaching and learning processes. The independent evaluators were final year students of the Faculties of Education from two universities in the Czech Republic who assessed schools after one month of their position at the selected schools (the research sample included 182 basic schools). The findings provided the evidence of current culture gaps and of a positive association between higher positive evaluations in the sub-category leadership and management and the sub-category expected results of teaching and learning processes. The results brought by the research will help school leaders when they plan to shape or change the culture of the schools they manage. Keywords: culture gaps, school culture, school culture inventory, shaping school culture.

Interpretation and the ‘Culture Gap’

Presumably it is not necessary here to offer a potted history of discussions of ‘cultural relativity’ and supposed ‘culture gaps’ … we can press the story back through Professor Dennis Nineham, (and other contributors to The Myth of God Incarnate,) to T. S. Kuhn and to suggestions from Alasdair Maclntyre, and others such as Peter Winch claiming the support of Ludwig Wittgenstein. We can go. back beyond them to Rudolph Bultmann, as does Professor Joseph Runzo in his ‘Relativism and Absolutism in Bultmann's demythologising Hermeneutic’ recently in this journal. We can go back even further to Albert Schweitzer (‘Jesus as a concrete historical personality remains a stranger to our time’) and then behind him to the Enlightenment — or at least to its immediate heirs' assessment of it.