This website has been developed for the NSW Adult Migrant English Service. It is designed to be a space where young refugees and migrants can improve linguistic and digital literacy. It is also designed to be a space for interaction, conversation and community. We hope that young people from around Australia (and the world) will use the site to communicate with each other, share stories and practise language in context.

The site is written at different levels of English, and has not been designed for a particular level of English language students. Our aim is to provide a range of material so that students at different stages of English learning can use the site.

The site includes a blog (or web-log) which will be updated regularly by our blog editor, George. Each entry will focus on a different topic, often to do with contemporary Australia and the refugee experience. The blog posts will be linked to discussion threads in the forum where students can comment, ask questions or add their own stories. Each post has a recorded version, so students can listen to what they read on screen.

Wherever there are difficult words, or culturally specific phrases, we have provided a pop-up glossary with a definition, a sample sentence and a sound recording of the pronunciation.

The forum is the space where we envisage the most interaction will occur. Students can register with their name and student email address. The forum will be moderated and monitored by the four administrators of the Nexus Website.

The media section includes an exhibition of short films produced by AMES and the Local Noise project from the University of Technology, Sydney. These short films feature Australian hip-hop artists performing and discussing hip-hop in relation to English language learning, multilingualism, education, cultural identity and contemporary society. These short films are subtitled.

We have not devised any structured lessons to go with the website. Instead, we hope that the site can be used in classrooms and at home as an online community and social space, and as a chance to practise language and online navigation skills. In a sense, the website itself is the lesson, and we hope that students find the material interesting, challenging and inspiring. However, it may be worthwhile to guide students through some of the initial processes of interaction in a classroom environment eg: setting up a forum login and password and posting a comment or story.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.