Water Safety: A Reading Exercise for English Proficiency Tests

This exercise is designed to educate users on Australian beach safety while providing an opportunity to practice reading skills for International English Language Testing System (IELTS). This exercise material can be used for self-study or in the English language classroom, especially for (prospective) migrants in Australia.

Application and benefit

Research shows that international students in Australia misunderstand Australian beach safety signs and this miscommunication can increase their risk of drowning.

About 25% of domestic and 35% of international students never or only rarely read the signage on unfamiliar beaches and some students who “understood” the terms had the wrong interpretation, especially of shore dump. International students are less likely to understand beach safety terms than domestic students.

In 2023/24 alone Australia recorded 150 coastal drowning deaths and about 9000 rescues.

And while there is value in water safety programs to improve water safety knowledge and skills, motivating the public to learn beach safety and encouraging them to participate in the workshops can be a challenge, Also publicly available water safety programs are often optional and seasonal, which means that people need to have an interest in learning beach safety to proactively seek information.

This material introduces a new learning approach for beach safety education where reading practice material for English learners, is used to incorporate beach safety information.

This material gives international students who study English in Australia an opportunity to develop their reading skills, while also learning about beach safety.

The material significantly improved participants' knowledge of rips, beach flags and safety signage warnings. Additionally, participants started pointing out a wide range of characteristics when describing rip currents.

Publications

M. Shibata, J. C. Lawes, R. Stolper, J. Ford, A. E. Peden, and H. Watanabe, “ Public Health Promotion Through Language Learning: Improving Migrants' Australian Beach Safety Knowledge Through a Reading Exercise for English Language Proficiency Tests,” Health Promotion Journal of Australia 37, no. 1 (2026): e70132, https://doi.org/10.1002/hpja.70132.

The innovation

The exercise consists of three passages with 40 questions:
Passage 1: Dangerous rip currents
Passage 2: A lack of appropriate usage and understanding of beach safety signs
Passage 3: Beachgoer behaviour and coastal drownings in Australia.

Research team

This exercise material is developed by a research team led by Dr. Masaki Shibata from Monash University.
● Co-designing, initial creation: Masaki Shibata (Monash), Janice Ford (Monash)
● Examination of the word frequency: Hideo Watanabe (Musashino University)
● First Review: Hideo Watanabe, Jasmin Lawes (Surf Life Saving Australia), and Amy Peden (UNSW)
● Final Review: Masaki Shibata, Janice Ford

Engagement

● Research Collaboration
● Licensing - if you are interested in licensing for commercial purposes, please email innovation@monash.edu

Questions?

If you have any questions about the exercise material, please contact: Dr. Masaki Shibata masaki.shibata@monash.edu
If you have questions about commercial licensing, email innovation@monash.edu