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Support for International Students from DELC

'I speak English really well, so do I need this?'

Key quote:

'Academic English is no one's mother tongue'.

We don't walk around in our daily life speaking in a concise, structured, evidence based, formal way, evaluating our findings.  We just give our opinions and describe what we are seeing or think!  People can ask us questions if they don't get our full meaning.

What does this mean?

Academic English is about style, argument, structure, criticality and evaluation and is not just a language of words.  Academic conventions may be different in other academic languages.

We all have things to learn and develop as far as Academic English is concerned.  We should make the most of all the resources and support available to learn, develop and refresh our knowledge and skills.