{"id":2235,"date":"2017-04-16T21:27:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T21:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/?p=2235"},"modified":"2017-04-16T21:27:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-16T21:27:30","slug":"studying-in-english-a-nightmare-or-an-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2017\/04\/16\/studying-in-english-a-nightmare-or-an-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying in English – a nightmare or an opportunity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soon you\u2019ll be studying in the UK, but English isn\u2019t your native language. If it\u2019s something you\u2019re worried about, this article is for you.<\/p>\n

First of all, if you\u2019re able to read this text without major problems (and dictionaries), you should be fine. To study maths or engineering you don\u2019t need tricky sentence constructions or sophisticated vocabulary. Communication is the key! As long as you can read a textbook and take notes during your lecture (not necessarily understand it, because the content might be the obstacle, not the language itself!), you shouldn\u2019t struggle too much. It doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not encouraged to improve your language skills!<\/p>\n

Just living in a foreign country will help a lot \u2013 it\u2019s not a myth! English is my second language and even though I was quite fluent when I arrived to the UK, I\u2019ve improved a lot since then. At some point you\u2019ll even start thinking in English, how awesome is that! In my opinion there\u2019s no better way to enhance one\u2019s language skills than a full immersion.<\/p>\n

Imperial College will provide you with resources to improve your English even further. Centre for Academic English<\/a> offers a wide range of courses for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, focusing on different aspects of the language: writing, speaking, listening, etc. PhD candidates can benefit from research specific classes, such as academic writing or technical speaking. I haven\u2019t tried any of them yet, but they sound really interesting (and free of charge). You can even ask for a 1:1 consultation, twice a term, if there\u2019s something particular you struggle with.<\/p>\n

Actually, you can start your university preparations even before the official academic year begins. Imperial College offers pre-sessional courses for applicants: 6-12-week-long for those who didn\u2019t meet language requirements and 3-week long for those who just wish to improve their skills. It might be an option for you, of course if you can afford it.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re here, you can sign up for the Language Pairs<\/a> scheme. You simply need to state what your native language is and you\u2019ll be paired up with a native speaker of English (or another language you\u2019d like to learn), who wants to brush up her or his knowledge of your language. You\u2019ll commit to meeting with this person weekly for at least one hour, during half of which you should speak English, half \u2013 your native language. That way you can just chat with your peer about topics interesting for you both \u2013 and learn a language meanwhile. I haven\u2019t used the Imperial\u2019s scheme, but I\u2019ve done some similar exchange in the past with a Spanish native speaker, and I must say that it helped me a lot (not to mention that I made a good friend).<\/p>\n

Also, don\u2019t forget to read English books and magazines, watch movies and TV show (it\u2019s my favourite excuse: \u201cit\u2019s for educational purposes\u201d) and speak English with friends. Last but not least: accept mistakes you make. When you read my texts, you can definitely spot some language mistakes I still make. But it doesn\u2019t matter, really! As long as I can communicate what I want, I\u2019m happy \u2013 and every mistake teaches me something new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soon you\u2019ll be studying in the UK, but English isn\u2019t your native language. If it\u2019s something you\u2019re worried about, this article is for you. First of all, if you\u2019re able to read this text without major problems (and dictionaries), you should be fine. To study maths or engineering you don\u2019t need tricky sentence constructions or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1026,"featured_media":2236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230288,317,576,163723,127784],"tags":[575,576,235194],"class_list":["post-2235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-230288","category-international","category-language","category-potentially-actually-useful-stuff","category-practical-advice","tag-english","tag-language","tag-non-native"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2237,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions\/2237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}