ABSTRACT
Migrants arrive at all ages with diverse motivations, backgrounds and life situations. For the majority, however, proficiency in the host language is likely to be a priority as an important means of accessing the education and employment pathways they will need to succeed in their new environment. In this chapter, we take an ecological perspective to explore the factors that facilitated or impeded the English language development in the early years of migrants’ settlement in Sydney. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews conducted over five years, and both self-report data and language assessments of their spoken English proficiency, we explore the relationship between the backgrounds, skills and motivations they brought to the learning of English, their experiences of life in the city and their progress in spoken English over this period. The findings suggest that those who made the largest gains were those who were able to exploit the educational, employment and social opportunities available in the city and to use these as extended affordances for language learning. We thus make recommendations for policy-makers and language professionals on how they might be able to support migrants to access these opportunities at this crucial stage of their language learning.
