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“Sorry, my English no good,” Buray said. “No, I’m sorry,” I replied. “You speak English better than I can speak Burmese.” Buray’s from Kachin State. He arrived 10 years ago from Malaysia as a UNHCR-processed refugee in Wollongong (80km south of Sydney). He spoke only Burmese and a smattering of Malay when he first arrived. Today, he gets by with functional English as a cleaner in a local school.

Migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds possess what native English speakers seldom don’t recognise - the capacity to learn and speak a second or third language under extenuating circumstances.

In 20 years of teaching journalism in Australia, I have met many foreign students who unnecessarily apologise for their lack of fluency in English. “Don’t apologise,” I say to them. “You speak more languages than the locals who can only speak English.” I’ve had students from Hong Kong, brilliant professional broadcasters in Cantonese back home, who stopped short of showing off their bi-lingual eloquence when they present their class projects in English.

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