For a variety of reasons: to help you improve your English skills alongside your other courses; to enable you to achieve the all important IELTS score for university; to improve your English before accessing AS Levels.

Subject Overview

There are a number of English as an Additional Language courses that international students can take. Beginner students can take a full time course (up to 26 hours) that will enable the development of vocabulary, grammar, speaking and listening. Students tend to take this course prior to completing their A Level studies at Abbey College. Students with IELTS 5.5. take an English language course alongside their studies to help improve their English skills for study and to prepare them for the IELTS examination (a university requirement for English Language Skills). Students with an IELTS score of 6.5 might also wish to focus on certain aspects of the IELTS examination to improve their grade yet further, or to focus on subject specific terminology to help them with their other A Levels.

Teaching Approaches

Studying English provides a fantastic opportunity to take students out and about into the local community. There is a lot of opportunity for spoken interaction and also focused work on grammar and test preparation.

Higher Education Opportunities

All international students need to develop their English skills before accessing courses at university. The top universities require some very high IELTS scores (e.g. minimum band 7 in the writing paper as proof of an advanced level of English proficiency.

Supportive Material

We have a stock of course texts that help students develop grammar and prepare for tests. We also have books for reading for pleasure - which students often find more enjoyable!

Teaching staff: Ian Johnson, Jessie Venegas Garcia (International Students's Welfare Co-Ordinator), Patricia Robinson, (Head of Department).