Tips for improving your academic English
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Published: 2020-11-12 07:47:01

Many students find academic English very difficult! How do you write good works in such English? Today, Deng Zhang, EF Lead Trainer who has been with our team for over 12 years, will share his advice with us. He specializes in preparation for TOEFL and IELTS exams and also advises students planning to study abroad.

What is Academic English?

There are two types of language: General English and Academic English (or English for Academic Purposes).<a href="https://www.assignment-homework.com/services/dissertation-writing-services/">Dissertation writing service</a>

General English is understandable for everyone, it is constantly used in everyday life: when we go shopping, sit in a restaurant, ask for directions, etc.

Academic English, by contrast, is used in fairly formal situations: for example, in academic discussions, speeches, debates, interviews and presentations. When writing papers in academic English, students are expected to have excellent language skills and certain qualities, such as the ability to analyze arguments, critical thinking, the ability to effectively substantiate their point of view.

Successfully learning academic English always starts with a good base of General English. As a rule, a child begins to learn a foreign language from an early age, and already from high school, the ability to write in academic English comes to the fore. Also, if your children plan to study abroad, then you already know that they will have to take TOEFL, IELTS or SAT. And on these exams, it is precisely the knowledge of the academic version of the English language that is tested.<a href="https://www.assignment-homework.com/services/essay-writing-services/">essay writing service UK</a>

Now that we understand the importance of academic English, let's try to figure out where is the line between it and general English? Here are two examples, let's try to distinguish one option from another:

Task one

Write a 100-150 word text about an interesting incident that happened to your classmate recently.

Task two

Write a 300-500 word text on the following topic:

The government should spend more money on arts development instead of parks and gardens. Do you agree with this statement?

For the first task, you just need to create descriptive text. For the second, you need to demonstrate your opinion on the problem and provide a list of arguments and examples in its favour. This is precisely the specificity of the academic style.

How to develop the skills you need to write in academic English:

1. Read as much as possible

All the knowledge that you gain in the process of reading is reflected in the way you write. Through reading, you will gain a good general knowledge of many topics and develop your analytical skills.<a href="https://www.assignment-homework.com/services/report-writing-services/">Report writing service UK</a>

I invite students to read articles on international news sites. Perhaps parents should be engaged in sampling interesting articles for their children. After all, when the topic is truly exciting, children read materials with enthusiasm and often refine new words in the dictionary, and as a result, this practice has a very good effect on their vocabulary.

2. Broaden your horizons

Younger students read less, so they do not yet have a broad outlook. They can simply say, "I like this idea and I don't like the other." But in academic English, there must be some clear underpinning for every idea we have. For example, if you write three reasons why you do not like something, then you should definitely write the arguments for each reason that you rely on.

Therefore, I advise students to read magazines in various humanitarian disciplines as often as possible and not forget to write down strong arguments in favour of a particular point of view that occurs there. Thus, students begin to feel much more confident when they have to give similar arguments in their written works.

3. Write a lot to train your skills in a clear and logical presentation of thoughts.

Many students read a lot and learn a lot of good words, but they do not practice writing at all and think that writing skills are useful only for classroom work. So progress can be expected for a very long time. Students should write a lot and with further error correction, this is the only way real growth occurs. Let them write personal diaries, news reviews, movie and book reviews, articles. The purpose of such work is the ability to express one's opinion and the ability to conduct a discussion, even with parents. After all, these skills will always be needed, both in the native language and in a foreign one.