The presence of students of non-English speaking background(NESB) in Australia's higher education system has increased dramatically over recent decades. Less than 20 years later.internationalisation of the tertiary education sector in Australia has witnessed a tenfold increase in the number of overseas students. This phenomenon is taking place in universities where learners are participants in "a range of modes of instruction requiring students to take a more active role in the learning process (where) the …showed first 75 words of 358 total…

…showed last 75 words of 358 total…situations. James and Devlin (2001) found 29% of overseas students felt uncomfortable in group discussions. The finding of Nulligan and Kirkpatrick that " slightly fewer than one in ten NESB students (in their study) was able to understand the content and intent of their lecture very well, and almost one-quarter of them had not understood much of the lecture at all" has implications for the capacity of NESB students to interact in oral academic contexts such as tutorials.