english language support

Academic support for international students

Regardless of English language level, you will almost certainly find the experience of studying in a UK university challenging. This may be because the academic environment is new and you are unfamilar with teaching methods and the expectations of your tutors; equally, you may find that you are not familiar with the language used in academic study at university. If English is not your first language, you will almost certainly find that academic writing presents real challenges. Studying at university gives you an opportunity to develop language skills that you need to demonstrate knowledge of complex issues in well-structured and coherent spoken and written formats. This is a powerful skill, and one that is highly valued by academics, employers and colleagues. Successful language development requires commitment and regular, independent study - the ELS team can help you in a number of ways :

• International students can get academic support from the Effective Learning Service tutors in exactly the same ways as home students - please click here to go to our home page.
• We run short Academic English courses for international students on Wednesday afternoons.
• The self-study pages of this site contain information about independent language learning strategies and links to language development websites.

If you'd like to chat about ways in which we can help you, please get in touch - email us at els@gcu.ac.uk and a tutor will get in touch with you to arrange an appointment.

Updated: 2 September, 2010 | English language support service | Legal