All Language Centre courses

Abstracts, Introductions and Literature Reviews are common sections of academic papers and dissertations / theses. This workshop will introduce these three sections and explore how they frequently overlap. The workshop involves a video to watch and exercises to complete before an online Zoom workshop.

When we look at databases (corpora) of academic language, we see patterns in the way speakers express their ideas and opinions. In this workshop, we focus on how speakers use language patterns in academic presentations to organise their ideas and interact with their audience, focussing on three key ways to achieve fluency. This is a practical workshop with opportunities to speak and try out aspects of your academic presentations.

In this second session, we continue to work with patterns and chunks in speaking, based on corpus databases of academic language. We look at three more key ways of using chunks to interact fluently with people in academic presentations. This is a practical workshop with opportunities to speak and try out aspects of your academic presentations. Ideally you will have attended the first Academic Speaking in Patterns and Chunks Session but it’s not absolutely necessary.

Note: This workshop is a slightly condensed version of Academic Speaking in Patterns and Chunks Sessions 1 and 2, which were offered and oversubscribed earlier in November.

When we look at databases (corpora) of academic language, we see patterns in the way speakers express their ideas and opinions. In this workshop, we focus on how speakers use language patterns in academic presentations to organise their ideas and interact with their audience. This is a practical workshop with opportunities to speak and try out aspects of your academic presentations. Please make sure that you are in an environment where that is possible for the duration of the session.

Across disciplines, academic writing uses a repertoire of patterns of language to organise and create coherent texts. Evidence from large databases (corpora) of academic writing shows us how grammar and vocabulary follow regular patterns to create clarity, appropriate information focus and argument structure. This is a practical workshop and it would be useful to have examples of your own writing to hand to help you participate.

This workshop continues the theme of Patterns and chunks in academic writing (1), looking at how writers signal the organisation of their texts using a repeated repertoire of language chunks. This is a practical workshop and it would be useful to have examples of your own writing to hand to help you participate.

Attendance at Academic writing in Patterns and chunks (1) is not a prerequisite for attendance at this workshop.

Building a cohesive and logical argument is a key element of academic writing. Often, feedback from supervisor will tell us that argumentation needs to be improved. In this workshop we examine what precisely is meant by argumentation and look at ways to improve the quality of argumentation in our own academic work.

Kick off the new term with this short, sharp workshop that’s designed to get you writing more quickly and painlessly. You’ll leave the session with a variety of strategies for getting your ideas out of your head and down on paper.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to produce clear, concise and compelling documents in a professional setting. You’ll pick up techniques for quickly identifying, honing and communicating your key message — whether it’s for day-to-day emails, longer reports or a persuasive pitch.

If our writing is cohesive and coherent, there are logical connections between words, sentences, paragraphs and sections. This workshop explores different techniques for increasing cohesion, which should make your writing easier to read and more effective. Students will first watch a video and complete some exercises online. In the real-time webinar we will discuss the exercises and students will be able to ask questions.

If our writing is cohesive and coherent, there are logical connections between words, sentences, paragraphs and sections. This workshop explores different techniques for increasing cohesion, which should make your writing easier to read and more effective.

This workshop builds on topics covered in the previous session, partly by analyzing excerpts from published journal articles for their cohesion. Although attending the previous workshop is an advantage, it is not a prerequisite.

This workshop builds on topics covered in the first workshop on Cohesion last term. It introduces another technique for improving cohesion and analyses excerpts from published journal articles for their cohesion. Although attending the previous workshop is an advantage, it is not a prerequisite.

The final chapter of a dissertation / thesis can have various titles including ‘conclusion’ and ‘discussion’. This workshop looks at the typical contents of a final chapter and also cautious language (hedging), which is commonly found in a conclusion. It involves a video to watch and exercises to complete before an online Zoom workshop.

In-Sessional English Conversation Hours

For the last workshop of term, we will be preparing doctoral students for life after their first-year reports, as they begin to think about putting their full thesis together. Strategies suggested in this class should be transferable for any students writing a longer piece of work.

So much hard work is compromised due to poor editing. Editing is much more than just simple proof-reading. It involves a critical approach to planning, setting out information, constructing argument, paragraphing, sentencing and ultimately understanding the effect of what we write on the reader. In this workshop we look at a variety of elements in the editing process and we use good models and student work to help us.

This session covers the basic principles of academic style. Learn how to make your writing more formal, persuasive, and precise, and how to use the passive voice and tentative language (hedging) to good effect.

This workshop discusses the basic principles of academic style, helping you to write more formally, persuasively and precisely. Learn how to attain clarity and accuracy and how to use the passive voice and tentative language (hedging). Students will apply their learning to practical examples.

Across disciplines, academic writing uses a repertoire of patterns of language to organise and create fluent and coherent texts. Evidence from large databases (corpora) of academic writing shows us how grammar and vocabulary follow regular patterns to create fluent information focus.

We continue to work with patterns and chunks in writing, based on academic corpus database statistics. We look at patterns of language used after nouns in ways typical of academic writing, and how chunks are used to link ideas and arguments in a fluent way. This is a practical workshop with tasks to complete before and during the Zoom workshop.

The correct use of articles (the / a / an) is one of the trickiest aspects of English grammar for non-native speakers, whether their language uses articles in a different way from English or maybe manages to get by without any articles at all. This webinar will set out clearly the ways in which English uses articles, and will hopefully offer some conceptual keys to help students correct their own usage. Students will then be asked to complete some exercises online.

The correct use of articles (the / a / an) is one of the trickiest aspects of English grammar for non-native speakers, whether their language uses articles in a different way from English or maybe manages to get by without any articles at all. This webinar will set out clearly the ways in which English uses articles, and will hopefully offer some conceptual keys to help students correct their own usage. Students will then be asked to complete some exercises online.

The most significant grammar mistakes that foreign students make are usually those that greatly change the meaning of the sentence. Modals, such as can or would, are often used to indicate the position of the writer in academic writing, so their inaccurate use can easily give a very different meaning from that intended. For this workshop, students will first watch a video and complete some exercises on Moodle. In the real-time webinar, students can ask questions and discuss areas of difficulty.

One of the key areas in which non-native speakers of English have difficulty attaining native-level accuracy is in the use of prepositions. Although this webinar does not pretend to give students all the answers, it will provide a number of ways to conceptualise the use of prepositions and hopefully clarify this complex area of grammar.