Social connectedness in a community-based language and culture programme: voices of volunteer tutors

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the roles of local volunteers in developing social connectedness among culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) parents seeking to gain English language and cultural confidence in a regional community in Queensland, Australia. Interview data from a case study of nine non-specialist tutor volunteers identified characteristics of their interactions with the CALD parents during informal language learning sessions. This case study analyses characteristics of the types of interactions reported by the volunteers teaching English and Australian Culture to a group of CALD adults. The nine interviewees had not completed formal TESOL qualifications at the time they engaged in the informal language learning sessions. Their reported perceptions highlight the range of ways in which social connectedness emerged during contextualised dialogic sessions in a regional community English learning setting. The study found that the volunteers’ common interest in advancing a sense of parents’ social connectedness accompanied an increased confidence using English in the safe learning space that the volunteers created. The results of the study advocate an outcomes-based dialogic approach to support the expressed social connectedness needs of newcomers into a regional community.