The idea for this book came to light when I was trying to find a job as a TESOL teacher (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). I am an experienced adult educator and believe I am well-placed to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). Having completed a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD), Master of Education (Workplace Education), and Diploma of TESOL, as well as having over twenty years of experience in training and assessment with trainees and apprentices - most of whom were migrants who needed additional support with language, literacy, and numeracy skills - I am an ideal candidate to work as an ESL teacher. I thought that it would be easy to find a job where I could put all my skills and knowledge to practical use.
I had been working tirelessly and studying around the clock for over twenty-five years. I managed my career carefully to ensure that, when I reach my fifties, I could spend the rest of my career teaching migrants how to speak, read, and write in English. You can imagine how disappointed I was when I received rejections from all potential employers. All the rejections were based on "technicalities." Essentially, while it would have been fine for me to teach TESOL in another country, my PhD, Masters degree, and Diploma of TESOL were not recognised as sufficient qualifications to teach ESL in Australia. This was devastating news for me as I had dreamed for years about this point in my life and was sure I could make a difference in the lives of many migrants who needed support with ESL.
What to do? I couldn't travel back in time and make different choices. Equally, after more than forty-five years of formal education, at that point in my life, I couldn't justify spending two more years of full-time study to obtain a Masters degree in TESOL. Unfortunately, that was not going to happen, regardless of how eager I was to help other people. I wrestled with this predicament for a few months. It was hard to let go of my dream but the more I looked at the situation, the more it became clear that this wish of mine was not meant to be.
I negotiated with myself at length and eventually reached an agreement that instead of persisting with a career as an ESL teacher, I would be better off writing books, including a book about my experience learning English as an adult migrant. Once I reached this agreement with myself, the format of the book started emerging from the archives of my subconscious. This book consists of two distinct sections. The first section is concerned with my experience of learning English as a second language for over twenty-five years. The second section is a science fiction story that I wrote at the end of this learning journey. As an introduction, I have included a short story about our family dog, Joltz, which inspired the title of the first section - Barking in a foreign language.
I hope that readers will find this book an interesting and useful reference, regardless of whether you work as a teacher for ESL, are a migrant trying to find your way around an English-speaking country, or are simply curious about what it is like to be a migrant in a foreign land.