Belén is an English teacher and translator from Argentina who spent two years in Australia on a working holiday visa, living in Brisbane, Tasmania, and Adelaide. In this episode, she talks about what it was really like navigating life, work, and language in a country she'd dreamed of visiting for years.

She was ready to go in 2020 — and then COVID happened. She waited three years, finally arrived in June 2023, and packed more experiences into two years than most people manage in a decade: au pair in Brisbane, strawberry picker in Tasmania, cherry packer near Hobart, cafe cook and barista in Adelaide, sandwich artist at Subway, hotel housekeeper, and eventually ESL teacher at a private English college.

The conversation covers what actually helped Belén's English improve most (hint: it wasn't the classroom), the moment she realised she'd absorbed Australian politeness habits and was saying please at restaurants back home, the challenge of being locked out of conversations when her partner's friends spoke only French, and the heartbreak of having her visa expire knowing she desperately wants to go back.

What You'll Hear in This Episode

• Why Belén waited three years before finally making it to Australia

• What the 88-day farm work requirement for a second-year visa actually looks like on the ground

• Which jobs gave her the most natural English immersion

• How Australian politeness norms felt completely foreign at first

• What it felt like to be locked out of a conversation in a language you don't speak

• The emotional reality of leaving Australia not knowing when you'll get back

• Advice for teachers and migrants who want to move to Australia

Connect with Belén

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mbelenbarberisLinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mb-barberis

Jayanti arrived in Brisbane in 2017 to start her PhD, and her very first day in the research lab involved watching a fellow student struggle through a presentation in front of a room full of people asking tough questions. She thought: what have I signed up for?

In this episode, Jayanti talks about the journey from that intimidating first day to delivering a TEDx talk in front of 200 people, in her Indian accent, on her own terms. She shares what it took to get there, including years of Toastmasters, deliberate exposure to different audiences, and a shift in how she thought about vulnerability and failure.

She also gets into some of the cultural gaps that hit migrants in Australia harder than expected: the dry sarcastic humour you can't always tell is a joke, the discovery that Aussies have hobbies and actually talk about them, the word "arvo" almost ruining a social plan, and why saying "please" is not as universal as you'd assume.

And she tells a story about a date that knocked her confidence right before her biggest speaking moment, and how she decided to show up to that TEDx stage as fully, visibly Indian as she could.

Topics Covered

• Arriving in Australia as a PhD student and the culture shock of the first research group meeting

• How Australia's multicultural environment means learning not just Australian communication, but many cultures at once

• What Toastmasters actually does for confidence and why the incremental exposure matters

• Speaking to different types of audiences to build real communication range

• Why sharing your failures in Australia is often a strength, not a weakness

• The difference between Indian and Australian communication culture: politeness, humour, and identity

• The word "arvo," the magic word, and the word "candy" (Amanda's husband was not impressed)

• Why hobbies matter socially in Australia and how to build them into the life you already have

• How a comment about her accent almost derailed her TEDx week, and why it didn't

• What she would tell her younger migrant self about accent, identity, and self-esteem

Guest LinksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayanti-mendhi/

TEDxtalk: https://cms.qut.edu.au/tedxqut/speakers/speakers-pages/2022/jayanti-mendhi

Resources Mentioned

• Toastmasters — toastmasters.org

• Three-minute thesis competitions — check with your university

• QUT Open Day — mentioned as an example of non-conference audience building

In this episode of Chinwag Tuesdays, I'm chatting with Serena Low, a Singapore-born, Melbourne-based trauma-informed coach who helps introverts, high achievers, and quiet achievers do something that doesn't come naturally to a lot of them: let people see how good they really are.

Serena spent 11 years as a lawyer before making a major career pivot. She's also the host of The Quiet Warrior Podcast and author of The Hero Within. In this conversation, we get into why introverts often get overlooked in meetings even when they have the best ideas in the room, how energy management is the real issue (not confidence), and what quiet achievers can do to make themselves heard without having to become someone they're not.

We also talk about belonging, about what it actually takes to build a life in a new country from scratch, and about why Serena thinks migrants are already warriors by the very fact of being here.

This one is for you if you've ever sat in a meeting with something valuable to say and talked yourself out of saying it.

Topics Covered

• Why extrovert-focused workplaces make things harder for introverts and migrants

• The energy management piece that most advice for introverts completely ignores

• How introverts can contribute in competitive group settings without jumping in

• Common myths about introversion that hold people back

• What it means to be a 'quiet warrior' as a migrant

• Practical strategies for building belonging in a new city, from Meetup groups to board game clubs

• Serena's story: from law to trauma-informed coaching, and why Nancy Drew had something to do with it

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻How to contact Serena

• LinkedIn

• Website

• The Quiet Warrior Podcast

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Want to work on your own Australian English?

Book an Accent Assessment with Amanda: https://www.aussieenglishwithamanda.com/accent-assessment