Academic English Program

Transcript: Academic English Program

I’m Dr Neil England, coordinator of the Academic English program in the School of International Studies.

I’d like to give you an overview of the program. I’ll cover what we mean by ‘Academic English’, the objectives of the program, the types of students it is designed for, and the kinds of things the students do in and out of class.

We know from Linguistics that the way we use language depends on the context of communication — who we are communicating with, what we are communicating about, how we are communicating (in speech, in writing and so on). For example, the language we use to text a friend to tell them we’re running late for a coffee date is very different from the language we use in a job application. Similarly, the language we use when chatting to our friends about a movie we’ve just seen is very different from the language we use in a job interview. Although it does share some of the features of ‘general everyday’ English, the English used in academic contexts — spoken language in lectures, in seminars, when students are asking a lecturer about an assignment, written language in textbooks, in academic journals, in a student’s report on a Physics experiment — has special features. There’s academic vocabulary, there’s a preference for certain grammatical patterns, there is an expectation that information and ideas will be presented and ordered in a certain way.

All this means that to participate confidently and effectively in an academic community you need to think, read, listen, speak and write in new ways. The ‘rules’ for academic communication are often hidden, are not open or clear to those who are new to an academic community such as this university. This can result in students — especially international students — feeling frustrated because they do not fully understand what is expected of them.

So, the main purpose of the Academic English Program in the School of International Studies is to make the ‘rules’ of academic communication as explicit as possible, and to develop students’ academic communication skills so that they can be confident and successful members of the university community.

The program is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate international students at UTS who would like to develop their spoken and written academic communication skills. In some cases students may be recommended to enrol in the program by a lecturer or an academic advisor in their Faculty. The program offers students the opportunity to explore — in a very practical way — the nature of academic communication, and to reflect on and develop their own academic communication skills.

For each subject classes will meet for 2 hours once a week. Like for most other subjects at UTS, students will be required to do some do some reading, thinking — and perhaps listen to a recording or watch a video — before and after class. The classes themselves will not be in a traditional lecture format. Students will engage with different written and spoken academic texts — with the lecturer, and with other students in pairs and small groups — and look at how the texts work. There is an expectation that students will reflect on and share their own experiences of successful — and not so successful — academic communication.

I hope this has been a useful introduction to the Academic English Program.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.