Learning English for Academic Purposes: First Steps (FutureLearn)

You will develop four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) using tasks that a university student would undertake: listening to lectures, taking notes, spoken presentations, reading academic texts (including long sentences and visual information) and writing reports using proper academic words.
Throughout the course you will be able to share your practice work with other learners, to give and get feedback.

What topics will you cover?

• Developing strategies and vocabulary for reading and understanding academic texts.
• Finding, understanding, describing and evaluating information for academic purposes.
• Developing active listening and effective note-making skills.
• Building on language skills to describe problems and cause-and-effect.
• Gathering a range of information, using the skills learned, to integrate into your written report.
• Engaging in peer-to-peer feedback before finalising your report.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

• Apply strategies for reading academic texts
• Assess the relevance of information for an academic purpose
• Describe problems and cause-and-effect using academic language
• Develop your academic vocabulary and vocabulary skills
• Produce effective notes from a spoken presentation
• Collaborate with other learners by engaging in peer-to-peer feedback
• Synthesise information and use it to begin writing a short piece of academic work
• Produce a final written piece of academic work using the skills learned