My name is Khalid Algahtani. I am 19 years old. I am from Riyadh, in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I have taken the English for University course to improve my academic skills and to help me with IELTS studies, because I have to get 6.5 in it. Also, I need to improve my knowledge of global issues.
My Experience of EU course
I organised my time well in the EU course. Because, we had to follow a schedule which means we had multiple deadlines. For example, two assignments. It was really a good idea. When I was studying at general English, I thought that EU course would be the same course. In fact it was not like what I thought before. There were a lot of different topics on this course that I read around.
What topics we studied
• Techniques used by advertising. I did not find this particularly useful, however it was good for my global issue knowledge.
• Discussing politics and religion. It was a nice topic. Its structure helped me in one of my assignments.
In short, my English improved, due to the EU course. My reading improved by this course. It was a really useful course.
Some Advice to future students
Even though I said this course improved my English, and it is very useful. I did not mean that you focus just on this course. You should work outside of the class. For example, if you want to improve your writing, spend time in the Learning Centre.
What can we do in the Learning Centre to improve our writing?
• Join the writing exchange. I have done that before and it was really useful.
• Ask any teacher to check your writing for you. It helps you to improve your writing skills. Such as, vocabulary.
If you would like to improve you’re your reading, try to read magazine, such as New Scientist or Time magazine. They are very useful and they have a lot of different ideas that you can develop your knowledge. These types of magazine also support you by including many academic words.
If you think to improve your listening, go to Ted.com where you can listen to short academic lectures. This helps you much with you listening and taking notes skills.
There are many students suffering from their writing. For example, spelling. If you have trouble spelling, try Spelling City where you can play games with words you can’t spell. Or, find a friend and test each other.
There are 6 assignments that you have to do them in EU1 course. So, to pass them you should avoid plagiarism, which means do not copy any information same the writer language. You just have to organise your idea by using paraphrasing.
Advice to the students who have the same as my language
If your first language is Arabic, you might have problem with your reading, you can not specify when you read any article. In fact, there are three kind of reading that you should use them when read: skimming, scanning and reading for details. Before you read anything take time to think what type of reading could I start with? The thing that Arabic students may have problems with is spelling; they get a lot of mistakes when they write essays. So, make sure that you use the useful links in the learning web. Finally, there is issue with Arabic students which is the present perfect, to find a good solution for that, go to the grammar section in the Learning Centre.
by Khalid Algahtani, a student at Languages International
