Meeting the language needs of tertiary NESB students

With the numbers of international and local non-English-speaking background (NESB) students steadily increasing in most university programs in Australia, teaching staff in all disciplines cannot now avoid issues surrounding the support of such students in their English language and learning development. This article is based on a needs analysis project undertaken by the author explores the language needs of NESB students in the context of a first year undergraduate engineering program at a university in Western Australia. It is argued that an on-going language-across-the-curriculum program, where language learning is integrated with discipline learning and facilitated teaching staff, is essential to support and empower NESB students in their language development. It is further argued that channelling mechanisms must clarified and streamlined in order to make additional, specialist language facilities clearly accessible to those NESB students who req