4-Term Pathway - Foundation Certificate in Social Sciences - Continue to Integrated Masters - Master of Linguistics (MLing) (Honours) - English Language and Linguistics (Year Abroad)

For students who've finished high school but don’t meet the entry requirements for university, a Foundation Certificate can help them gain entry to an undergraduate degree. After completing this pathway option students qualify for progression to the 1st year of an undergraduate degree at the  University of Essex. 

A student’s course length is determined mainly by their English language level (UKVI IELTS score). Students on all course lengths take a set of common or similar modules to gain a solid base of skills for university. Students taking a course longer than 2 terms, will take additional modules designed to improve one or more of their English language level, academic skills, and basic knowledge of particular subjects.

Language is fundamental to humans thoughts, relationships, and civilisations. Through language, people transmit knowledge, from inviting someone for coffee, to promoting the latest scientific theory, to settling global political disputes.

This course at the University of Essex will allow students to explore a variety of aspects of linguistics up to a very high level of expertise. In the first year, students will be acquainted with some of the fundamental aspects of the study of language, such as the description and analysis of sounds, words and sentences, the investigation of language in its social setting, and how language is situated and develops in the mind and in the brain.

Students also have the opportunity to begin a specialism in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). In the second year, students begin to specialise towards those areas that they are most interested in and, if their specialism includes TEFL, they will learn how to design, deliver and evaluate language classes and assessments. Students then have the option of taking the third year to go abroad or do a placement year. In their third or fourth year, students will develop their specialism further and be acquainted with the cutting edge of current research in their area. Students will also do an independent research project under the guidance and supervision of expert members of staff, and write a dissertation about this project.