International Foundation Programme – 3 Semesters

This module will develop the student’s reading skills to enable to them to understand a range of academic texts and how to both read and interpret them. The module will equip students with the ability to read texts covered in Reading and Critical Analysis and to develop critical responses – a core skill for undergraduate study. It will also enable students to develop their range of vocabulary and understand aspects of word formation.

This module will provide the opportunity to develop listening skills utilising the university digital labs. Students will be able to analyse spoken texts and practise a range of listening skills. The module will also include speaking and communication skills with some focus on pronunciation and fluency. This will prepare students for presentations and seminar discussions that are used across many university modules.

This module will help students to develop an understanding of the requirements of academic writing. It will directly prepare students for the Essay and Report writing module. Students will learn through practical exercises how to form sentence structures and paragraphing for a piece of writing to address a task. The focus will be on accuracy and developing an understanding of academic writing.

This module will cover a range of communication skills including the development of more effective oral communication to a wide range of situations. The aim is to increase confidence in using English to enable students to engage more with the academic and wider community.

This module has a lecture and seminar component and helps to prepare students for this type of module approach used by the university in their target degree programmes. Each week the topic will alternate between grammar and global studies. The global studies topics will also be explored over two weeks of the Reading and Critical analysis module. A key focus is to understand key points of a lecture, ask relevant questions and then analyse further in the weekly seminars.

This module provides weekly reading texts covering Global Studies that provide students with exposure to and the experience of the types of academic texts they will be expected to read during their course.

A key focus of the module will be to develop critical and analytical skills to enable students to select appropriate ideas to support argument and to paraphrase these ideas effectively in speaking and writing.

This module aims to develop reflective, intellectual, analytical and oral skills. Its focus will be to raise students’ awareness of themselves as carriers of culture, to investigate concepts of otherness and to reflect on how they and others are represented within society.
The module will develop oral skills, as students will be involved in discussions, debates, presentations and role-play, with the aim of developing communicative competency and confidence.

This module introduces students to academic writing and focuses in particular on allowing the students to acquire skills in essay and report writing, basic research, and academic conventions. The main focus is on planning, outlining and constructing coherent discursive and persuasive essays and research reports.

This module aims to provide a thorough introduction to the study of ICT.  There is a focus on both practical sessions for applied ICT as well as some of the underpinning theory and concepts behind this including data protection and safe storage of data.  On the applied side of the module, the focus is on gaining practical skills for future undergraduate study with a knowledge of relevant theory to understand good practice.  The module encourages students to produce work through a range of Microsoft Office applications at the standard required by university including spreadsheets, presentations, databases and a variety of report and word-based documents.

This module aims to develop a range of mathematical knowledge and concepts useful for undergraduate study.  Students will be taught with practical exercises including work using Microsoft Excel and have guidance from the tutor.

The elements of mathematics taught have been designed to meet the demands of undergraduate study on a range of programmes including dealing with quantitative data.  The module itself is diverse in elements covered including core mathematical functions and statistics.  Mathematics is applied to examples and different contexts in order to make it relevant and more applied than just theoretical.  In the second semester, students engage in a statistics project based upon real-world data and produce analysis based upon this.