Other Information

The Heriot-Watt Pre-sessional Portfolio is a 6-week course which aims to help you get a head start in your studies. It is designed to build your competence in academic language and study strategies which will enable you to perform to the best of your ability on your future degree. On this course you will begin to acquire graduate attributes:  'the skills, knowledge and abilities of university graduates, beyond disciplinary content knowledge, which are applicable to a range of contexts and are acquired as a result of completing any degree' (Barrie, 2006: 217).

Upon the successful completion of the Portfolio, you will be able to:

• cope with authentic, spoken English in lectures and seminars
• take relevant notes from listening and reading material and use these in essays and seminar presentations
• understand English grammar at sentence, paragraph and text level
• understand academic texts
• write in an appropriate academic style to describe, explain and persuade your audience
• use a wide range of academic vocabulary
• use IT to research academic subjects
• solve problems and think critically as required for university study

Once you have successfully completed the programme, you do not need to take IELTS or other external English examinations again.

Please note students coming to study on Academic English Programmes for 2015-2016 must have a Tier 4 visa.

Course information here.

Accommodation information here.