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Indonesians Help Make Australian English World #1

2015-06-23 14:27 2176

SYDNEY, June 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Australian English has become one of the most popular choices for English learners in Indonesia - with more than 77,000 Indonesians joining an Australian-based Learn English Facebook site since its launch in 2013.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) which manages the Australia Plus Learn English page, it now has more than three million fans in more than 50 countries making it the most popular learn English site in the world - ahead of the established English language providers such as the British Council and Voice of America.

The Learn English Facebook page provides a community environment for people to engage in conversational English tips and language resources. Participants are encouraged to comment on each post in order to practise writing in English, and are then corrected by the page moderator. Sometimes, corrections are contributed by other members of the Learn English community, including English teachers, native speakers, or fellow learners.

One of the page's three million fans, Darryus Lim, from Indonesia said, "I have learnt everything, about the verbs, idioms, phrasal verbs and many more that I can't mention all of them."

The ABC's international division has a long history of producing English language learning materials across radio, podcasts, television, and online.

One of the earliest iterations was Radio Australia's English for You series, which was first broadcast to millions of people in Indonesia in 1959. By 1982, five million copies of the English for You booklets had been distributed across Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The ABC's international television service, Australia Plus Television has also produced a variety of English learning programs, with the first program, English Bites, launching in the early 2000s. Australia Plus Television can be found on First Media, Indovision and Telkomvision.

The Facebook page can be viewed here: www.facebook.com/AustraliaPlusLearnEnglish

John Woodward
+612 8333 2084 
+61 418 971302 
woodward.john@abc.net.au

Source: ABC International
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