The theme of our program is centered around international students studying in Melbourne, whom we call ‘aliens’, and the story is based on the main character Rae’s life as a student in Melbourne. The story is also relevant to other international students because we all have similar experiences. We put the story in the form of a diary in the online booklet, so it was a challenge for us to make the online booklet physical. Foxman, Markowitz and Davis suggest that the virtual and the real ‘are connected’ (2021, p.2167). We need both to create stories on the virtual web and to show people in reality how the story is presented to them. For example, we print out the contents of our online booklet and make it into a brochure. Visitors to our exhibitions can look through our booklet by hand. In the booklet, we combine pictures and text to make the project more visual.

If ‘aliens’ are new to a new language environment, they can visit our website and try to contact us on the Internet and we will help them with their difficulties. Some people become anxious when speaking English because they are afraid to talk to people in the real world and do not speak their own native language (Liu, 2018). I actually get anxious sometimes when speaking English as well as they do, but I think more practice will be good. They also can’t rely too much on the online world to just move around in it, they also need to talk to other people in the real world who are not from their own country. The content of our story was cross-pollinated between different media with the same message, making our finished product more authentic. Showing meaningful booklets through the atlases used in our project played an important role in attracting more users and promoting the project.

Reference list

Liu M (2018) ‘Understanding Chinese Middle School Students’ Anxiety in English Speaking Class’, The Journal of AsiaTEFL, 15(3):721–734, doi:https://doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2018.15.3.10.721.