The English Centre was established by Senate as an independent unit with responsibility for English enhancement programmes throughout the University. Plans to provide more support to other students are underway. The Centre offers the M.A. in Applied Linguistics under the aegis of the Faculty of Education.
Some courses emphasize the composition of the academic essay or report.
Others attach more importance to spoken presentation, or seminar discussion, or interview skills. Most courses make use of project work in one form or another to organize and focus teaching and learning. Learner independence is encouraged by the provision of increasingly sophisticated self-access facilities, accompanied by guidance and support for users, both within the Centre and in the University Library. Students must fulfil the English-language requirements of their respective faculties in order to be exempted from enhancement classes in subsequent years. This will enable the Centre to make a progressively more effective contribution to the improvement of students' academic and professional competence and will, at the same time, serve to make the Centre better known to the scholarly community at large than it has been in the past.