Well, the pictures may not be very good, but I think the ideas they show are very important. We finished our summer course by thinking about the habits of successful overseas students. I think the most important things to take away from your summer school are a positive mental attitude and an awareness of how you can continue to improve your language skills.
Many students have commented that they want more listening practice and that we don't do enough in class. There is never enough time to do everything you want in class, so it may be true that listening is often one of the things overlooked. But, you can listen outside class! The link today is to the online lectures provided by the Self-Access Centre for Language Learning at Reading University. This is a wonderful collection of real lectures given to English language students at Reading, complete with clearly typed transcripts so you can read what the lecturer says (after listening!) when there are things you did not understand. What I really like about these lectures is their authenticity (which means they are real) and they are accessible to everyone - you don't need to be an expert on the topic to enjoy the lecture, they are aimed at a general audience. Here's the link to these lectures.
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ENGLISH FOR UNIVERSITY HAS MOVED!
ENGLISH FOR UNIVERSITY
This old site will no longer be updated but it is useful until I have moved all the links!
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Successful overseas students
Posted by
Patrick McMahon
at
03:58
7
comments
Labels: Academic Listening
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Incorporating sources into your writing
I met some new international students yesterday and they were complaining about the weather in the UK. It's official - August this year was the worst August that we have ever had according to records, but that's not a bad thing if you are sitting in class! Brits try to make themselves feel better by saying things like "Maybe we'll have an Indian summer!" ( a warm period in autumn) but really we know the autumn will be equally dismal (and I think you can guess the meaning of 'dismal'!).
Referring to other people's ideas in your writing is a critical part of using English for Academic Purposes, and doing it well is hard! Today I am going to show you one way of structuring a paragraph which includes a reference to other people's work.
Here's an example paragraph in an essay discussing the difficulties faced by international students at universities:
One of the biggest difficulties facing overseas students in British universities is the issue of English language competence. Robertson et al (2000) report that overseas students were often unable to play a full role in classrooms because they were so conscious of their restricted command of English. Clearly any university which is serious about recruiting and teaching international students needs to make sure that those students receive adequate language support.
We can see that in this paragraph there is:
1. A topic sentence:
One of the biggest difficulties facing overseas students in British universities is the issue of English language competence.
This sentence clearly puts forward an idea (or thesis) . It is the topic for the whole sentence.
2. Evidence from an outside source which supports the topic sentence:
Robertson et al (2000) report that students were often unable to play a full role in classrooms because they were so conscious of their restricted command of English.
3. Input from the writer on the implications (effect, consequences) of the evidence and topic sentence:
Clearly any university which is serious about recruiting and teaching international students needs to make sure that those students receive adequate language support.
As usual I am pointing you to a resource which helps you practise this language point, and today this comes from the University of Victoria, Wellington. Their Academic Writing Module neatly encapsulates writing paragraphs in Academic English. The first units focus on topic sentences and building paragraphs and I particularly like section 3 on incorporating sources. This material is here.
Posted by
Patrick McMahon
at
04:38
3
comments
Labels: Essay writing, Incorporating sources
Links for university orientation materials
Sites with lectures to watch and listen to
- Princeton University: Archived lectures online
- British Academy Lectures online
- Free lectures from Imperial College, London
- Webcasts from University of California Berkeley
- WGBH Forum Network - free public lectures
- Lecturefox - free university lectures
- BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures Collection
- Research channel
- Newcastle University's Academic Listening Exercises
- Open Culture: Free online courses from great universities
Academic English sites for all skill areas
- English Learning Resources from the Centre for Applied English Studies, the University of Hong Kong
- Academic English Zone: very good Academic English exercises from the Centre for Applied Linguistics, Warwick University
- Andy Gillett's UEFAP site
- English Language Resource Website
- Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies Materials Bank
- The Edict Virtual Language Centre in Hong Kong
Links for general English
Links for writing skills
- The University of Victoria's Hypertext Writer's Guide
- The online writing lab at Purdue University
- Academic phrasebank from Manchester University
- Advice on writing from the University of Toronto
- An academic writing module from Victoria University, Wellington
- The Writing Machine from the English Centre, the University of Hong Kong
- How to write university essays, courseworks, assignments and dissertations
- Academic writing from Waylink
Links for academic vocabulary
- The Academic Word List, Massey University
- Vocabulary levels tests online by Nation and Laufer
- Useful links around the Academic Word List from Massey University
- Vocabulary exercises for the academic word list, Gerry Luton, University of Victoria
- The Academic Word List Highlighter and Gapmaker exercises from the University of Nottingham
- Martin McMorrow's daily pocast on Academic English
- AcademicEnglishGenerator.Com
- Professional Word Web, the University of Hong Kong
- The University Vocabulary Trainer (English/Chinese)
Links for listening skills
- Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Cafe
- Newcastle University's online academic listening exercises
- English Listening Lounge
- English Listening Lab Online
- Online lecture recordings with transcripts from the self-access centre at Reading University
- Reith lectures (with transcripts!) from the BBC
- BBC Radio 4
Links for reading skills
Links for study skills
Links for speaking skills
- Excellent videos of students giving presentations and seminar papers from Hong Kong
- Help on presentations from Bournemouth University
- Academic Presentations, Rosemary Jane, University of Portsmouth
- Spoken communication skills, Academic English Zone, Warwick University
- A checklist for giving presentations from the University of Canberra
Links for referencing
Links for grammar
Dictionaries and thesauruses
Concordancers and corpora
Good collections of resources from various universities
Academic English exams
Links for information
- Education UK (from the British Council)
- University World: Find universities and colleges around the world
- The HERO guide to UK universities, colleges and research institutions
- UK Council for International Student Affairs
- Intute - the best web resources for education and research
- Universities UK
- Worldwide weather forecasts
- Find a masters. com
- UK good university guide
- Study in Britain. com
- English UK - the UK national association of accredited language centres
- UCAS for non-UK students
- BALEAP - British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes
- Hobson's Study UK
- World news with the BBC
- Internationalstudent.com - advice and support for international students
- Google earth - one of my favourite ways of spending my free time!
- What's on when - around the world
- Automatic currency converter - quick and easy
- Cheap student travel
- World time map
Some sites specialising in education technology for EFL/ESL
Suggest a link
Choosing a course in English for Academic Purposes
Issues around international students
Remember that a university is a big institution with lots of different people all with different jobs, aims and ambitions. The vice-chancellor of a university has to make sure the university can survive and in today's world that means bringing in money. International students are increasingly important in this respect. So one part of the university is trying to recruit international students, but other people, like lecturers, are worried that these students may not have the language skills to study their courses properly. Often a university makes an arrangement with another institution in another country to take students, but then suddenly there are some students who are a bit weaker than usual. In cases like this there is great pressure on the university to accept the students. In a BBC article I am going to point you to you can see the word whistleblower. A whistleblower is someone who works somewhere and then goes and tells everyone else the truth about what is going on there, often this person works in a government department and they tell the newspapers about all the bad things going on! (Yes, they like to keep their identity secret - for obvious reasons - which means they try to be anonymous.) You can read the BBC article here. What does this mean for you? It means that you have to show your lecturers and tutors that you are genuine students, and that means continuing to study English all the time that you are at university so you maximise your chances of doing well.




