How is academic English used in your course?

Academic English is different from everyday written English. It is usually formal in tone and may use the passive tense of verbs. It requires skills in constructing a logical argument, with supporting evidence, and makes demands on your knowledge of grammar and sentence structure, as well as requiring the use of specialised terminology.

The ability to write in an academic style is something you learn as part of your university study, especially at Level 1. Don’t expect to be able to write in academic English until you have read at least some of your course materials, learned some of the terms and begun to write about your subject. After all, you cannot develop an academic style until you have something to write about. Your tutor will help you to develop your academic writing skills.

Different academic subjects use particular styles of writing, so it is difficult to give overall ‘rules’ on the way to write for a university course. For this reason we advise you to look at material from the course you are interested in to get a feel for the style of language you are expected to be able to understand and use in assignments.

Level 1 OU study provides opportunities for students to use the English language to

• show that you know and understand principles, concepts and terms central to your subject
• use your knowledge and understanding to describe, analyse and interpret defined aspects of your subject
• know about and begin to address issues and problems central to your subject
• develop your skills in communicating information accurately and appropriately to your subject, purpose and audience
• develop your skills in finding, selecting and using information or data in defined contexts
• develop your use of ICT tools and your numerical skills as appropriate to support your studies
• develop your understanding and use of the resources available to help you learn, and begin to develop as an independent learner
• develop, as appropriate, practical and professional skills and awareness of relevant ethical issues
• plan your study pathway to link your learning with your personal and/or your career goals.

Look at course material

• OU course material may be available at a number of libraries.
• Ask your local regional centre where you can see course materials locally – their own reference library will have course materials and probably examples of typical assignments.

Some course material is available online.

• Samples of material - tasters. Note that not all material here is taken from the beginning of the course so there may be terms you cannot yet understand.
• Material from past and current courses is on OpenLearn. Either go to Browse topics, then look for the subject or course name you are interested in, or use the direct topic links below. Note that courses that are equivalent to first year study have a course number that begins with 1, second year courses begin with 2 and so on.
  • Arts and History
  • Business and Management
  • Education
  • Health and Lifestyle
  • IT and Computing
  • Law
  • Mathematics and Statistics
  • Modern languages
  • Science and Nature
  • Society
  • Technology

Ask yourself questions

When you look at the course materials ask yourself the following questions as a way of checking whether your level of English is good enough for study. You can save a version of the ask yourself questions (RTF, 27KB) to your PC and print it.

How much of the material do I understand?

1. a little
2. about half
3. most
4. all

When I don’t understand it all, does it help to read it again?

1. no
2. a little
3. a lot
4. yes

If I keep reading, does that help me understand the parts I don’t understand?

1. no
2. a little
3. a lot
4. yes

Can I understand enough to keep reading?

1. no
2. sometimes
3. yes

Can I write a summary of a paragraph I have just read?

1. no, because I didn’t understand enough
2. yes, but it took me a long time
3. yes, easily

If you chose options 1 or 2 on more than two questions, you will need more skills before you begin an OU course. We strongly recommend that you take an English course with tuition and an examination before you register with the OU. See how to find English courses on Difficulties with English language.

Related pages
Test your English language ability