Guide for Students: Understanding Australia's Immigration Language Policies

In the contemporary world, there are only a few languages that are considered acceptable on a global level and are widely used for global communication. It has been reported by Piller et al. (2020) that among the 291 global languages, only fifteen of the languages have more than one million entries in the global databases and are recognised on an international level.  In the world of extreme and rapid globalisation, the need to use an internationally recognised standardised language is indisputable. Business professionals, clients, teachers, students, workers etc., use English as an international language which is also applicable in the areas of international import and export, mass entertainment, telecommunication and scientific research publications (Rao, 2019). However, according to Piller et al. (2020), it has also been found that English is the only language that accounts for 2.5 times higher entries among the highly used languages in the world. However, there are still a few countries that consider their national language to communicate interculturally, such as China. Interestingly, China also uses the English language as a mediating language to teach the Chinese language to the people.

It has been found that English has also been considered as a requirement for migrants in various countries (Fernández Reino, 2019). However, it has been mentioned by Daar (2020) that learning a foreign language is a difficult task for foreigners, as it requires effective oral communication and the ability of the learner to use the language properly in a context or in a social setting. This report also revolves around the context of sociolinguistic concepts. The report mainly focuses on the language needs for the employment of skilled workers who migrate to Australia, requiring them to learn the English language as a compulsory language while working in the Australian professional context.

The case that has been chosen for discussion in this report, is to work as an advisor for the national government of Australia, as the migrants and refugees complain about the employment sector of Australia, which demands migrants and refugees to learn the English language as a condition of employment in Australia, however, this report will only focus on the group of skilled migrant workers. This report seeks to discuss the (socio)linguistic literature on the language needs for employment of skilled migrants and the particular language learning challenges that are or need to be faced by the chosen group. Moreover, at the end of this report, a detailed section of recommendations has also been provided, which will help the potential stakeholders to overcome the issue and will also prove to be viable for the chosen group, striving to learn the English language as a migration requirement.

Socio linguistic literature on the language needs for employment of skilled migrants

According to the Department of Home Affairs (2024), it has been found that people who want to migrate to Australia, in order to find employment, should prove themselves eligible to speak fluent English language, to obtain a work or study visa. The Australian Immigration and Citizenship Department has made this a mandatory requirement and only considers English language scores of international testing systems, such as IELTS, PTE, OSR, CAE, TOEFL, OET etc. According to the case, migrant workers and refugees complain of hearing the English language as a mandatory requirement for jobs in Australia. This has also been reported by Zainuddin et al. (2019) that the skilled migrants in Australia complain that their skills and experiences are not recognised, and are often overlooked on the basis of English language proficiency. This results in a lack of jobs and lowers the chance of the migrants getting employment in the work industry of Australia.