Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 1; January 03

" Belonging" in a time of transition

Peter Hegedus, Melbourne, Australia

[ Editorial note: In October, 2002, QaTesol invited Peter Hegedus to deliver the opening speech to their conference in Brisbane. This is what he said to the 250 ESL teachers gathered there: ]

First of all I, I'd like to say how much I appreciate the fact that I was asked to “open” this conference. It means a lot to have the honour to do this.

Just a little bit about what I am doing at the moment. For the last few years I have been working as a freelance filmmaker in Brisbane. Most of the work is done on Television documentaries and writing a bit of drama on the side. I can actually say that I am happy because I have found what I really want to be doing in my life.

But before I'd get into too much self promotion, I'd like tell you a little bit about my years of coming to Australia and then the years of trying to fit in and of course the rest.

I was born un Hungary and spent the first 14 years of my life there. I remember in fact, I was 13 when my mum pulled out a map and said that we need to leave Hungary and “ought to go to a new place”. She then said that we should go to Australia because it's still “a relatively new country” and “people are apparently very kind there”. Of course the most important thing was the fact that we've had a relative in Brisbane who said many times that we should come and visit him in Australia and that he'd love to have us over. One of the things that got us strangely attracted to this idea of going to Brisbane, were the video tapes he used to send to us. On these tapes he was simply picking oranges off his tree, an amazing experience for someone who lives in a country where the only fruit you have on trees is apple and pears…

The original plan was not to literally move to Australia but just to look around, learn the language and then go back to Hungary. So it took us about a year to organize our trip to Australia and it's all a credit to my mum who worked tirelessly to make this happen for us, because in many ways she wasn't doing it for herself but for us. I mean she was 40 at the time with a good network of people in Hungary and now leaving it all behind, moving to a completely different country. So we sold our house in Budapest and with my two sisters, my grandmother and my mum, we came to Australia. It was a very risky thing to do at the time because we came out not actually knowing our Australian relative very well and with our grandmother being very sick suffering from cancer. I won't go into details but the first 6 months of our stay in Australia was a very dark period of my life. My grandmother died after two months. I was very homesick and we weren't allowed to study and my mum wasn't allowed to work and on top of all this, our relative turned out to be not such a nice person after all. At that time my worse nightmare was to be put into an Australian High School where I was surely to be made fun of. Therefore, I devised a plan. The plan was that I would actually learn English while we sat around and did nothing. I actually made myself believe that I can learn English on my own listening to people around me but not actually saying a word. My mum just told me a few days ago that for the first 6 months of our stay, I would hardly say a word in English. So actually my plan was that in 6 months I'd speak it so well that one day I would just surprise everyone, I wouldn't have an accent and that I'd speak fluently.

Meanwhile things started to get better; my mum met her husband George Szovathy, who was also an Australian Hungarian and had lived in Australia since 1980. This was when we decided to stay in Australia permanently. We received our permanent residency and decided that we will try and make life for ourselves in Australia.

My plan earlier on about my “self-taught English lessons” - which I devised only months before - was not “fully” achieved. Our English was still not up to the standard required for High school. I mean the amount I practiced was sufficient for the basics and it gave me a good foundation.

So as my mum got married to George, we got our permanent residency and then were sent to Milpera Special school where we advanced our English among other non-English speaking kids. I was terrified of the thought of being treated 'special' that I could never be a normal kid like all those Australians and that I will never be able to fit in. My sisters and I loved Milpera, it was just extremely good to be with kids who are in the same situation as ourselves. We made great friends and actually the sad time came when we were put into High School. It kind of felt like someone who goes through a military training and is then sent to war. The transition from Milpera to High School was still difficult. I remember feeling scared to actually speak to Australian kids, what are they going to think of me? They're going to laugh at me, make fun of me and I'll just be classified as their 'special fellow student'.

I'd just like to say what an important and sensitive time it is for child to be taken out of one culture and then put into another, it is a period in the person's life that is very vulnerable and must be respected so anything that could ease the difficulty of such transition is extremely helpful and important. This was a scenario that happened to lot of kids who went straight from Milpera into High School. However I was one of the fortunate kids who actually got put into a school that had English As Second Language (ESL) support. It was a great feeling to have that backing for me and my sisters. It was in fact nothing but a safe haven for us. It was a place for me where I could just let go and be the migrant boy I was and not think about what other students will say about my accent.

My dream – from Hungary - was to become an actor. In fact in Hungary I even played in the National theatre, but then we came to Australia, going to an English Speaking school, I quickly had to give up this idea because I just couldn't really express myself in English, While it was very frustrating and embarrassing, it was a process – now I understand - I had to get through.

Going back to the ESL, I'd like to say that it was also intense and not only because of the ESL curriculum but because we made it intense ourselves. We knew that this ESL unit is only a temporary place for us, and it's a place that needs to be dealt with and then let go off. So we pushed ourselves. I actually continued with my so called '6 months plan', to learn English and learn it well, to fit in and to fit in well, to lose my accent and to lose it altogether. Of course the latter gradually lost its meaning because I realised that my accent is me and I do not want to change it but I needed some time to learn that. So ESL for me, was like a mixture between the Milpera school and mainstream High School.

I needed to feel like I belong somewhere at the time of the transition and that we are not just some kind of 'wogs' who are desperately trying to catch up to the Australians but we are part of a group of people who share a lot together, like a Unit, the ESL unit.

So I stayed in the ESL unit till the end of Grade 10 eventually doing less subjects and by the start of grade 11, I was fully doing all the mainstream subjects. I was one of the luckier ones because I was only a year older than my grade but there were students, in fact my friend who was from El Salvador, was 5 years older than his peers. This created a bigger gap between him and the students, it just made his time at school uncomfortable. So I have to say that the ESL unit - for me and for my sisters - made a huge difference. So I think it's a very good program and I just wish that they had it in every school across Australia.

Then came grade 11 and grade 12. This is when I decided that I will become a filmmaker, I loved the subject Film and Television at High School. So then I applied to QCA Film and Television at Griffith University and luckily I was accepted. Then I spent there three years and after graduation continued my studies doing Honors, this is when I did my first Television documentary titled Grandfathers and Revolutions about my grandfather. The film was funded by SBS TV, and various other investors including my own University. The project took 2 years to make but it was all worth it as the film was eventually sold to 10 TV stations around the world, participated in 15 Festivals and won 4 Grand prizes at Festivals. Having produced it on my own and also directing it gave me lot of good and bad experiences which now help me in my next projects now. Since I spent so much time working on these projects, learning the craft, making mistakes, all these things have improved my filmmaking skills. Practice makes Perfect.

So my 6 moths plan of learning the language, fitting in, and losing the accent is still an ongoing process and over the years I have learnt to enjoy it, the process I mean. Sometimes I switch to speaking like real Aussie then I just like to switch to speaking with stronger Hungarian accent. So it's all a great fun, a peculiar game you cam enjoy but also get sick of. Talking about fitting in; just the other day, a really interesting happened to me: I found myself enjoying Australian Football, I actually got a kick out of it! Before, I could never really understand what people love so much about the AFL, then just last week, a friend said 'Peter, you should really check out one of these games because it's so much part of the Australian culture and you need to experience it', That afternoon I watched the AFL final between the Lyons and Collingwood and I was in fact in Melbourne. And funnily enough I found myself actually having fun watching the game, enjoying it, cheering for the Brisbane Lyons of course. It was a great experience and I must say that these little things do count so it was nice.

Currently I am involved in completing my second feature documentary titled THE INHERITANCE. It's about the cyanide spill that hit Hungary's main river Tisza killing tons of fish and destroying livelihoods. The film should be on SBS in about a year, so I hope you'll get to see it. Thank you again. Cheers.

Peter Hegedus