A Day in the Life: Mapping International Students' Language Learning Environments in Multilingual Sydney

Oct 15, 2026

The challenges of accessing opportunities to use a target language in study abroad, international education, and migration are addressed through a Sydney-based perspective on how access to English operates within an English-speaking but increasingly multilingual city. The study reconceptualizes “context” as spatial environmental circumstances of students’ everyday lives, shaped by both fixed conditions and learner agency. Using a narrative case study informed by online diary and stimulated recall interviews, it shows how spatial dimensions support language use and learning.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Sydney as an international hub for English language study

ELICOS students and their opportunity–risk context

Sydney: an English-speaking or multilingual city?

| | OPEN ACCESS
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics
ISSN 2209-0959
[https://journals.castledown-publishers.com/ajal/](https://journals.castledown-publishers.com/ajal/) | | | --- | --- | --- | | Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1 (1), 20-32 (2018) [https://dx.doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v1n1.21](https://dx.doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v1n1.21) | | | | A Day in the Life: Mapping International Students' Language Learning Environments in Multilingual Sydney | | | | PHIL BENSON a
PHILIP CHAPPELL b
LYNDA YATES c
a Macquarie University, Australia b Macquarie University, Australia c Macquarie University, Australia [Email: philip.benson@mq.edu.au](Email: philip.benson@mq.edu.au) [Email: philip.chappell@mq.edu.au](Email: philip.chappell@mq.edu.au) Email: [lynda.yates@mq.edu.au](lynda.yates@mq.edu.au) | | | | Abstract
The challenges of gaining access to opportunities to use the target language in contexts of study abroad, international education, and migration are well documented. In this Sydney-based study, these are reconceptualized as challenges of access to English in an English-speaking but increasingly multilingual, city. The notion of “context” in overseas study is also reconceptualized in spatial terms as the environmental circumstances of students’everyday lives, which are partly fixed in advance of their arrival but also shaped by their agency. A narrative case study of a recently arrived international student’s daily activities and language use draws on online diary and stimulated recall interview data. The case study illustrates both the importance of the spatial dimensions of her everyday life to her use of languages and the how she manages these spatial dimensions to enhance her access to opportunities for English language use and learning.
Keywords: international students, language learning environments, multilingualism, narrative, mapping | | | | Introduction
Like many other English-speaking cities around the world, Sydney is in the process of reinventing itself as an international hub for English language study. In the case of Sydney, this is linked to Australia’s relatively open policies on international education and professional migration, which mean that students are often studying English with longer-term goals of higher education and migration in mind (Robertson, 2013; Tran & Gomes, 2017) . The English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) sector includes privately owned colleges, university-attached language centres and vocational colleges, and courses are mainly designed to qualify students for higher education. The | | | Copyright: © 2018 Benson, Phil, Chappell, Philip, & Yates, Lynda. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within this paper. applied linguistics literature on study abroad tends to focus on short-term and university exchange programs. Research in the field of international education, on the other hand, tends to focus on students who are already enrolled in higher education institutes. There has been much less research on the students in focus in this paper, whose two main characteristics are that they are (i) recently arrived in the city and (ii) taking English courses in order to pursue further study or professional employment in Australia. ELICOS students are of considerable interest for two reasons. First, they make up a considerable portion of the international students in Australia. The 173,506 students enrolled on ELICOS courses in 2016 made up approximately one quarter of international student enrolments (English Australia, 2017). Following a decline between 2008 and 2012, ELICOS enrolments have increased steadily, and 2017 is likely to see the highest annual figure yet recorded.

FAQs

What problem does the study focus on regarding language learning?

It examines how international students gain access to opportunities to use English for study, education, and migration in a city that is English-speaking but increasingly multilingual.

How does the paper reconceptualize “context” in overseas study?

It reconceives context in spatial terms, treating students’ everyday environmental circumstances as both pre-shaped and influenced by their agency.

What data sources are used in the narrative case study?

The case study relies on an online diary and a stimulated recall interview to document daily activities and language use of a recently arrived international student.

Oct 15, 2026

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