The English corner

Every Friday, at 5pm sharp, a small group of international postgraduate students gather together. They meet to practice their conversational English and bridge the cultural divide by sharing knowledge, experience and laughter.

Welcome to English Corner – an informal English language conversation group based in the Quantum Computation and Intelligent Systems (QCIS) Research Strength. English Corner is the brainchild of Maoying Qiao, a QCIS PhD student from China. 

Qiao, whose PhD investigates ‘diversified probabilistic graphical models’, was drawn to UTS because “I wanted to explore the diversity of practical applications for basic graphical models to solve real-world problems.

“Graphical models, which use graph-based representations as foundations for encoding a complete distribution over a multi-dimensional space, are applied in an enormous range of application domains, including speech recognition, natural language processing, web searching and image understanding. My research explores the diversity of their usage across a wide variety of practical applications to help either extend existing mature graphical models or guide the design of new graphical models.”

Qiao was inspired to start English Corner after attending the university’s Higher Education Language and Presentation Support (HELPS) Conversations@ UTS sessions last year.

“I had lived in Sydney for over two years and although I read English newspapers, wrote academic papers in English, communicated about my research in English and gave presentations in English, I didn’t actually speak much conversational English. I had no confidence to open my mouth,” explains Qiao. 

She enjoyed the daily HELPS conversation classes so much, Qiao decided to share what she had learned with her QCIS colleagues – a research centre with a rich mix of cultures and backgrounds. 

“Thanks to HELPS, I’m becoming more confident with my spoken English. I wanted to share what I’ve learned so I came up with the idea of a regular event where students could meet socially and practice their spoken English. QCIS and the School of Software welcomed the idea and encouraged me to start the group. 

The group, which started with 12 students, is growing every week and includes both English as a second language and native English speakers. 

“Each week we do something different. We’ve been introduced to some Australian games like pub trivia. We’ve been tested on our knowledge of Aussie etiquette and manners – especially on appropriate topics for dinner conversation – politics, religion and salaries are not good topics. We’ve also learned about pop culture and tried Australian food. I had Vegemite and avocado for my breakfast every day after I tried it once in our English Corner activity,” says Qiao.

“The activities that involve everyone speaking and having fun are the ones that help expand our vocabulary the most. We’ve also talked about our different cultures – exchanging cultural or personal experiences opens your mind and increases tolerance,” she says.

Teraesa Ashworth and Jemima Moore are Administrators in QCIS and the School of Software. They also double as English Corner’s volunteer native English speaking tutors. They say the group has been a fun and supportive way for students to develop their language skills, boost their confidence and make new friends.

“It’s given me the opportunity to get to know the students. It’s a small step to achieving the school’s aim of building a closer working relationship with QCIS staff and students so they feel they belong to their school as well as their research centre,” Ashworth says. 

“It’s great to see the students relaxing and feeling more confident with their English conversation skills whilst making new friends and learning about Australian culture. We also really enjoy learning about their cultures,” adds Moore. 

Qiao plans to continue with, and build upon, English Corner next year. “Everyone has so many great ideas that we’ll continue doing different things. We may cover more academic-related activities like mock presentation practice and conference networking. It’s a work in progress.”