English for Academic Purposes

Entry Requirements/ Participants

English for Humanities and Social Sciences is designed for students preparing to start postgraduate programmes in arts, social sciences, music or divinity at the University of Edinburgh. New students joining the pre-sessional programme at this point must have achieved the English language score their university requires (normally at least IELTS 6.5).

Course

The main elements of English for Humanities and Social Sciences are:

• work on an individual specialist research project, based on sources located via Internet / library search
• regular work on academic writing, with special attention to the basic principles of academic discourse in the humanities; the work involves completing a number of smaller scale written assignments
• practice in presentation skills
• note-taking from video recordings and a live lecture
• test preparation (optional – for students with conditional places)
• academic discussion
• access to a computer lab and the Internet
• advice on independent language learning using our English for Academic Purposes Self-Access resources

This course particularly focuses on the development of academic writing and presentation skills, and grades are awarded at the end of the course for each student’s research project and individual presentation.

There are also plenty of opportunities to practise listening and speaking. However, students who particularly want to improve their oral fluency may find the 3-week course Spoken English more suitable.

English for Humanities and Social Sciences is designed for postgraduate students.