4-week course content
Language development
The pre-sessional course is designed to help international students with their English language development. Students are likely to have studied English extensively and have a sound competence but they will need to improve their communicative competence, both to participate effectively in tutorials and seminars, deal with University systems and structures and to survive socially. The course is designed to achieve this by examining a wide range of language from colloquial to correct and from formal to informal in both academic and non-academic contexts.
The course includes the following:
- a review of some key aspects of grammar, phrasal verbs, metaphors, indirectness and understatement, recognising styles
- extending the range of active vocabulary use
- monitored grammar workshop sessions designed to complement the work covered in Language Development classes and which allow students to study independently and at their own speed.
Presentation and seminar skills
Each student gives one oral presentation which can be connected with the student's own degree intention, where possible based on a piece of academic writing produced during writing classes.
Before each presentation session there is training in the following aspects:
- structuring a talk
- selecting an appropriate style of language
- developing awareness of the audience's needs
- using notes to avoid reading from a script, and using aids such as PowerPoint.
In addition to giving presentations, students also develop the discussion skills necessary for taking part in tutorials and seminars and group problem-solving exercises for science students. Functions covered include interrupting, agreeing, disagreeing and summing up.
Writing skills
The aims of this element of the course are to train students in the process of producing an academic essay - drafting and redrafting their written work - and to teach them some of the conventions and functions of academic writing appropriate to an Arts or Science degree.
Students produce two drafts of an essay of at least 1,000 words, on a topic of their choice. The topic should be connected with their academic study but on a subject which does not need too much research. Essays are returned with extensive individual written and oral feedback.
Classwork includes the following aspects, according to students' needs:
- use of sources and avoiding academic misconduct (plagiarism)
- structuring a paragraph, organising an essay/laboratory report/poster presentation
- academic style and discourse markers.
Academic subject lectures
Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon there are Arts, Business and Science lectures delivered by staff from those faculties. The lectures are followed by seminar discussions led by the lecturers, and each student selects two or three seminars to attend during the course.
These lectures give students the opportunity to:
- develop listening and note-taking skills
- become used to different styles of delivery
- gain confidence in their ability to operate within the lecture/seminar method of teaching, which may be unfamiliar.