Background to the production of A Whole New World
Driven from their homes, they flee into the unknown, with their battered bodies, their nightmare memories, their frightening uncertainty about the future and terrible fears for the safety of those they have left behind.  As they arrive on our shores and at our airports, they are confronted by our strange faces, our peculiar customs, our incomprehensible language and an unpredictable welcome.  They have truly leapt into a whole new world.
To a far less frightening extent, we too as teachers leap again and again into a new world as we try to help yet another new wave of disoriented people, about whose customs and language we have completely inadequate knowledge and understanding.  In time, of course, we learn to help more effectively.  But we are always frustrated by our inability to provide miracles from the very first.
This volume is designed to help teachers and tutors working with newly arrived refugee students and others needing elementary language, literacy, numeracy and life skills to function effectively in Australian society.