The Certificate in English Proficiency programme aims to develop your accuracy, facility and fluency in the appropriate use of English. It is a pre-requisite to any of our undergraduate degree programmes if you have not satisfied the English language requirement.

At the end of the programme, students will be able to:

• Employ practical and academic English skills necessary to succeed in everyday life and at the university level
• Obtain a  wide vocabulary
• Gain confidence to use English in any situation
• Increase grammatical control in situation and academic speaking and writing

Course Structure

This programme consists of 4 levels, amounting to a total of 920 contact hours for the full-time pathway.

Course Outline

Elementary Level

Speaking and Listening

You will learn foundational speaking and listening skills:

• learn pronunciation
• make introduction
• describing people and possessions
• ask and answer simple questions
• talk about shopping and clothes

Reading

You will learn basic reading skills:

• scan for key words and information
• skim for main ideas
• infer meanings of unfamiliar words
• grouping ideas and identifying topics
• understanding ideas in paragraphs

Writing

You will learn skills needed to write good paragraphs:

• practise sentence-making skills
• improve sentence structure
• write topic sentences
• understand concept of unity, support and coherence

Pre-Intermediate Level

Speaking and Listening

You will learn situational speaking and listening skills:

• practise pronunciation
• make introduction, greetings, clarification, requests, small talks, phone calls
• offer suggestions and advise
• learn library search skills

Reading

You will learn activities involving prediction, comprehension and language work:

• scan for key words and information
• build vocabulary
• understand the use of transitional words
• follow basic ideas in a reading text
• understand paragraph development
• introduce important collocations: preposition and construction and phrasal verbs

Writing

You will learn skills needed to write good paragraphs:

• revise grammar rules and sentence skills
• learn pre-writing skills: brainstorming techniques
• understand the writing process
• write and analyse strong paragraphs
• write topic sentences, supporting sentences
• understand the concepts of unity, support and concluding sentences coherence

Intermediate Level

Speaking and Listening

You will learn foundational higher level situational speaking and listening skills:

• continue to practise pronunciation
• express frustration, anger, hypothetical situations, desires
• make phone calls, order food,
• hold meetings and discussions shopping and bargaining skills

Reading

You will study passages of increasing difficulty and learn more advanced reading skills:

• identify the main point and important supporting information
• further analyse transitional and logic words
• understand complex sentence structures
• continue building vocabulary
• understand the different parts of a text and
• continue to study collocations how they relate to one another

Writing

You will learn skills needed to write strong essays:

• develop a strong essay: introduction, body and conclusion
• use transitional and logic words in writing
• identify and describe basic graphs and charts
• practise descriptive and narrative writings
• write letters of advice
• focus on prepositions, conjunctions and phrasal verbs
• learn to apply parallelism and consistency in writing
• focus on common grammar mistakes

Upper-Intermediate Level

Speaking and Listening

You will learn skills necessary for succeeding at tertiary studies and in the business world:

• enhance pronunciation
• acquire effective presentation skills
• understand and use information to get a point across
• learn when to use formal and informal speech
• interview people and conduct survey
• acquire research skills
• fill out forms
• debate a point

Reading

You will acquire practical and academic reading skills:

• summarise a text
• revise skimming and scanning
• learn to paraphrase
• understand inference
• distinguish fact from opinion
• learn higher level vocabulary
• read for speed and comprehension

Writing

You will apply essay development skills to more complicated task:

• revision: brainstorming techniques
• continue emphasis on strong essay writing skills
• analyse and interpret complex graphs, charts and tables
• build, refute and weigh on argument
• analyse a simple condition or situation

Duration

The programme is delivered over 12 months for the full-time pathway.

Assessment and Examination

At the commencement of each module, students will be provided the assessment mode and weightings for the module.  Most modules have several points of assessment, which may include assignments, tests, projects and final examinations.

Entry Requirements

The minimum entry requirements are:

International Student Admission

• Relevant  high school qualification or equivalent, including a pass in English
• For more information on International Students Entry Requirements, please click here.

Applicants who do not meet the above requirements may also apply, but will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Graduation Requirements

For more information on graduation requirements, please click here.

Availability

International Student Admission

Full-time intakes 2012 : Jan, Feb, Apr, May, Jul, Aug, Oct and Nov

Course Fees

Full-time pathway

* All fees inclusive of 7% GST and subject to change annually
* Course fee excludes textbooks
* Click here to view other charges for students
* For levels 1 - 4

Updated on 22 February 2012; PSB Academy reserves the right to amend this information without prior notice.