Read Write Now is proud to celebrate Australia’s cultural diversity by encouraging inclusiveness, respect and belonging for all Australians and by acknowledging that 62% of our students are culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) and of non-English speaking background.

In order to best support our CaLD students, RWN volunteer tutors are trained in cross-cultural communication and teaching strategies tailored to students’ needs and backgrounds.

Although it can be a daunting task to work with someone from another culture and language background, the learning experiences are joyful and enriching as the tutor/student role is so often reversed, with the tutor learning as much as the student.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Nearly half of Australians were born overseas or have at least one parent who was.
• Mandarin continues to be the most common language other than English used at home, followed by Arabic and Punjabi.
• The number of people who used a language other than English at home has increased by nearly 800,000 from 2016 to over 5.5 million people
• More than 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were spoken in 2021.
  (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021)