Once a student asked me why I posted things about everyday English on my website for Academic English. I explained that I thought that you couldn’t hope to improve your Academic English without improving all aspects of your English. If you work on your everyday spoken English skills this is going to have a positive impact on your writing skills too in the long run. If your everyday spoken English is stronger then you are going to find it easier to mix with other students, and you are going to find it easier to join in with university life in general – which is very important!
So international students at university should be working on all areas of their English and today’s link is to a regular podcast from the BBC World Service’s Learning English service called The English We Speak Podcast. You should sign up to receive this regular podcast and make listening to it part of your weekly English language improvement routine. You can subscribe to the podcast here!
Why the long face? The English we speak podcast!
Excuse me! Could I have a quick word please?
I know it’s hard. Your lecturer is in a rush and is walking quickly along the corridor and is avoiding eye contact because he doesn’t want to stop and talk to you. Or your tutor is in her office and you are plucking up the courage to knock on the door and ask her something. How can you start the conversation? I’ve put a few phrases together below to help you. If you think they’re handy, share them with others!
Trying to catch your lecturer in their room or corridor
Excuse me. I’m a third year finance student. Could I ask you a really quick question about ……..?
Excuse me. I’m one of your students. I can see you’re really busy right now. Could I make an appointment to see you some time? It’s about the presentation. It won’t take long. It’ll take about ten minutes.
Excuse me, I’m on your history module and I wanted to have a quick word about ……..
Is now a good time?
Can I email you about it?
Would you like me to come back at a more convenient time?
I’m one of your students and I wanted to talk to you about …..
Hello. Do you have office hours when I could come and speak to you? I would like to ask some questions about our coursework.
Reminding your lecturers and tutors
Hi, I’m Cici, your student. You said you would send me that document but I haven’t received anything yet.
Hi. I’m on your module. I’ve been looking for the reading list on the portal but I haven’t been able to find it.
Hello, I’m Ayesha. You asked me to come for a tutorial.
Hello, I’m Andy. We have a tutorial scheduled.
Hello, I’m Li Wen. I came for our tutorial but you weren’t in your office.
Making excuses
I’d like to apologise for missing my tutorial. I was really ill.
I’m really sorry for missing our appointment. I had to….
I’m sorry but I’ve got to ………… so I won’t be able to come to my tutorial/lecture.
Can we rearrange our tutorial for another time?
I’m a student on your module. I’m afraid I missed your lecture on Monday because I was ill. Could I still get the handouts please?
Talking to people around the university
• Some staff may not be used to talking to international students so you may need to ask them to slow down!
• Staff will try to help you if they understand your problem. Say who you are and what you have come to talk about.
• We say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ a lot in English!
Asking for help in an office
Hello. I’m a third year student. I want to change my elective. Can you tell me what I have to do please?
Hello. I need to …… Can you tell me what I should do?
Hello. I think there’s been a mix up with my paperwork. It says that ………………but it should say …………………
Hello. I’d like to speak to somebody about my library fine.
Hello. I’m a student renting a house with a private landlord. I have some questions about my tenancy agreement….
Hello, I’m a new third year student. I need to see a doctor but I haven’t registered. Can I make an appointment?
And when you still need help
I’m sorry, but it’s still not clear. Can you tell me that again? Could you speak more slowly, please?
I’m sorry. Can you go over that again, it’s quite hard to follow.
You mean I have to ….
I have been to her office but I can’t find her! Can you suggest something else I can do?
I have done everything that I have been asked to do but it seems there is still a problem with ……..
I’ve been to see ……….but they told me to come back here! I really need some help with this.
Thanking people for their help
That was really helpful. Thanks a lot.
Yes, you’ve solved my problem. Thank you!
Group work and international students
Did you know that yesterday the Olympic Torch went out? Shhh, don’t tell anyone. It was quickly relit and then normal service was resumed and the runners carried on. We are very peaceful in Devon and there were very few police officers around the torch causing one policeman to say: “Never have so many been policed by so few”! (Quiz question: what was the original line and who said it? Brits are not allowed to answer.)
I have never posted about group work before but it is a big issue for students at university, especially overseas students. It can be very difficult being put into a group to do a task. Here are just some of the issues you might come up against:
- you might not understand the task
- you might not like the other group members
- you might not be confident about your language skills so you let others take over
- you might not be confident about your language skills so you avoid doing any work
- you might not be confident in your team members’ language skills so you take over or keep the work to yourself
- you might not see the point of group work
- you might never have done group work before and are not used to it
and this list is just the start!
There are no easy answers to these very difficult questions. One very important thing to bear in mind is that your teachers give you group work because they believe that you learn important skills DURING the group work. They don’t give it to you because the final product will be better than individual work (although it probably will be) but because they think you will learn skills such as teamwork, negotiating, sharing, collaborating, leading, compromising as you work. This is why group work is often accompanied by a piece of reflective writing after the task when you think about what you learnt during the task.
If I was forced to give some quick pieces of advice I would say:
- make sure you understand the task by asking your teacher and agreeing the task objectives with other group members
- meet regularly (if the task is over a long period of time) and don’t tolerate missed meetings
- be prepared to compromise but make sure others understand and hear your point of view
- make sure group members understand their responsibilities
- talk to a teacher if things start to go wrong
I have often linked to the Learn Higher website but I have never seen their learning resources on Group Work before. Wow. These are excellent. I love the design of the pages and that means that the high quality content is easy to access. These are well worth bookmarking for yourselves or for classroom use. The Learn Higher Group Work resources are here and thanks to Val in Manchester for the tip.
The Olympic Torch!
It’s here! And I’ve seen it! I’m talking about the Olympic Torch and today it came to Devon! The Olympics supplies some good language learning opportunities. If you haven’t seen the BBC Video Nation website then you should definitely take a look. OK it’s not academic, but it’s in English! The BBC Video Nation is packed full of little video clips of people talking about all sorts of things and with the focus on the Olympic Games there are now lots of video clips about the Games. BBC Video Nation is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/network/ and is framed below:
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