English language for study at Greene’s

All tuition at Greene’s is in English. You may need support in developing your English language skills for successful academic study and to achieve the the IELTS certification level required by your prospective university course. IELTS English language certification is universally accepted by universities around the world as a measure of English language proficiency.

Today, most internationally recognised English language tests base their assessment on the “four skills” of Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking of which IELTS was a pioneer. There are three Greene’s English language courses designed to take students from an IELTS score of 4.5 to 7.5.

Progression to the next course is by internal assessment. To progress from the foundation year to the first year of A level study or the Geoscience Diploma you should achieve an IELTS score of at least 5.5 in each of the four skills.

The average student advances by one IELTS score band per year. This means that if your assessment shows you to have a score band of 4.5 you will be studying English for one year before you are likely to reach a score of 5.5 when you can start your A level course or the Geoscience Diploma. However, if you work hard and follow the Greene’s English Language learning method this can be shorter.

When studying English at Greene’s you not only improve your general English to raise your IELTS score but you also learn academic English – especially the vocabulary and terminology that you need for study in your chosen subjects. This means that working with Greene’s you can progress faster towards both your English language goals and your academic goals.

To register for the EFL course, you must take an initial assessment test to establish your CEFR English language level against which your future performance will be measured. CEFR is the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and is the recognised benchmark against which nearly all language qualifications are measured.

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The Greene’s English language courses offer the following:

• Practice: daily practice in groups combined with supplementary individual tuition where required.
• Fluency: timed exercises to increase your speed and accuracy helping you to meet the listening, reading speaking and writing requirements of EFL examinations.
• Breadth: the grammar, vocabulary and terminology needed for successful academic study.
• Testing: the course begins with a diagnostic test followed by regular testing to measure progress towards your IELTS target level.

Each course involve a mix of group and individual tuition. Typically one group tutorial per day – five per week – plus two individual tutorials per week. The courses courses include a range of material that concentrates on and provides practice in all four skills: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. New grammar and vocabulary is introduced with the aim of improving interpretation of spoken and written work more effectively and employing more accurate and varied grammatical and sentence forms.

Homework and regular testing is an integral part of each course. There are regular online tests that are timed and which should be completed before the next class session. As these tests cover work recently completed, students are expected to score at least 80% in each of these tests. You should allow at least one hour of homework for each course hour. Supplementary individual tuition and/or additional homework may be required to help get students back on track who achieve lower scores.

Other homework assignments include language based exercises and extensive reading.

The structure of the Greene’s English language programme consists of an initial diagnostic assessment and three courses arranged as shown below.

The initial diagnostic assessment will determine which course you should start with. If your starting point is IELTS 5.5 or above you may also enrol at Greene’s to study A levels or the Geoscience diploma.

At the end of each course there is an internal assessment and if you reach the required IELTS score you may proceed to the next higher course. If you do not, you may need to repeat the course before progressing or have some additional tuition.