Abstract:

University students who would like to be teachers of English are expected to be aware of different varieties of English as their future students will be naturally exposed to these varieties through mass media and therefore they will probably use words, phrases and grammatical patterns that are relevant in the Australian context and acceptable by native speakers of English. As far as pre-service teacher training academic courses are concerned, it seems to be justifiable that attendees should be exposed to different varieties of English, despite the fact that they as teachers will have their own preferences or will be bound to use the variety required by the national curricula.

Our research is based on an analysis of contemporary literary prose written in Australian English, focusing on particular words and phrases as far as vocabulary is concerned and specific grammatical patterns that were used mostly in speeches of characters, not excluding those that were significant and used in the speech of a narrator. The idea behind this research is to find out typical features of English used on the opposite side of the world.

Research findings based on excerpts provided by master-degree students whose major is English will be systematically presented and analysed to help non-native speaking teachers of English to use words, phrases and grammatical patterns accurately and naturally and be able to recognise that the language used by other speakers is still native and should be considered linguistically and culturally appropriate. Our analysis is based on 100 samples concerning both vocabulary and grammar, taking into account the fact that grammar is considered more standardised in all the varieties.

Future teachers of English should be aware of cultural aspects referring to Australia and knowledge of different aspects can be achieved through reading authentic materials. Our study will present what kind of information concerning Australian culture learners of English were able to discover themselves, justifying its specificity in selected samples. This learner-centred approach enables students to be active and broaden their knowledge focusing on those aspects they are aware of or to learn something entirely new for them.

Keywords:

Australian English, vocabulary, grammar, culture, learner-centred approach.