Hi all, it’s Diana here 🙂

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year, 恭禧發財 and 心想事成. May all of your wishes come true and do well in your academic and other achievements in this year of the Monkey! I miss celebrating new year at home, seeing all the family members and friends, eating all the delicious dishes and fatty rice cakes (yumm) and the most exciting part, all the red envelopes you get! I wonder how you all celebrated your new year, leave a comment and let me know! I went to a party on Monday night to celebrate new year at Surrey, it was so much fun! And I got to meet people from similar ethics background and make some new friends!

So in the blog post I want to share my experience with the ELSP at Surrey. Since I am studying Psychology, I have got a lot of essays to write and loads of reading to do. I did not have much experience with writing essays and I found myself always struggle with getting better grades in them. I found out about the English Language Support Programme from a friend of mine, and she recommended it to me and said it is really helpful. So I signed up for two of the many courses they provide: Assignment Writing and Grammar for Academic Writing . These two courses which I think will really benefit me and help me to improve my essay writing skills. After the first lesson, I found myself have better understandings with things like how the marking works, what the markers are looking for in the essays and how to structure an essay etc.

The ELSP have programs targeting different areas and some of them are specified for some courses. For example, there is a course for Dissertation Writing for Management MSc Students. It does not just help students to improve their English language skills but also it will definitely improve other skills like essays/reports writing skills and critical thinking skills which will be very useful at workplace too after students graduate from their degrees. It is also free, so there isn’t any cost you have to pay for it. Also for each course, there are different time slots so you can fit it in your timetable quite easily without worrying whether it will clash with your lectures and tutorials. It does not limit to just international students, it is open to every students, so it is also a great chance to meet new people and make friends!

For more information, please visit: http://www.surrey.ac.uk/englishandlanguages/study/english_language_programmes/english_language_support_programme/

I hope you guys are enjoying new year break and having a great time with family and friends! Leave a comment if you have any questions or just want a chat! 🙂

See you next time, Diana xx