English as a second language courses

Future growth: Strong

Unemployment: Low

Career pathways: With enhanced English writing skills, you’ll be one step further to finding your dream job!

Why study an ESL Writing Fundamentals course?

English is the most spoken language in the world. English as second language courses will help strengthen and develop your written English skills, help you communicate with others, and enhance your ability to find work opportunities.

In this ESL course, you will learn about:

• Writing using correct grammar and sentence structure
• Writing reports, letters and submissions
• Editing and proofreading your work
• The parts of speech
• The parts of a sentence
• Building and combining sentences
• Vocabulary
• Writing for different purposes
• Study skills

See our course summary at the end for more!

What are the common languages in Australia?

According to a 2016 census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, over 72 per cent of Australians speak English, and 21 per cent speak a language other than English at home or have learned a second language for work. The most common languages spoken in Australia (after English) include:

• Mandarin (2.5 per cent)
• Arabic (1.4 per cent)
• Cantonese (1.2 per cent)
• Vietnamese (1.2 per cent)
• Italian (1.2 per cent) and
• Indigenous languages (0.25 per cent)

Five benefits of learning English  

English is often regarded as the “international language” and is the most widely spoken language in the world. English as second language courses can help you:

1. Communicate socially. Learning English will allow you to express yourself clearly and confidently. It can also help maximise cultural diversity.
2. Enhance work opportunities. Being able to speak English will give you a competitive edge, and allow you to interact with recruiters. Once you’ve secured a job (think big!), it will help you communicate with your manager and colleagues.
3. Master the language of business. English is often known as the global language of business. Learning English can help you create reports, send emails and give a presentation in English.
4. Exercise your brain. Learning a new language is fantastic for your brain health and can help improve your problem solving skills.
5. Enjoy better travel experiences. Being able to speak English will help you communicate with people from multiple backgrounds and cultures.

Fascinating facts about the English language

The English language is a complex one, but also very fascinating. Here are some facts that will impress your friends, family and colleagues.

• English is the official language of over 67 countries.
• The most common letter in the English language is “e”.
• The most common vowel in the English language is “e”, followed by “a”.
• The most common consonant in the English language is “r”, followed by “t”.
• The two most common words in English are I and you.
• The most common adjective used in English is “good”.
• The most commonly used noun is “time”.
• Currently, only two English words end in “-gry”. They are “angry” and “hungry”.
• More English words begin with the letter “s” than with any other letter.
• The following sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
• The only word in English that ends with the letters “-mt” is “dreamt”.
• A word formed by joining together parts of existing words is called a “blend”. Examples are “brunch” (breakfast + lunch), “motel” (motorcar + hotel) and “guesstimate” (guess + estimate).
• The word “alphabet” comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet — alpha and bē
• “Go!” is the shortest grammatically correct sentence in the English language.
• The original name for “butterfly” was “flutterby”.
• About 4,000 words are added to dictionaries each year.
• English is said to be one of the happiest languages in the world. Yay!
• One-quarter of the world’s population speaks at least some English.
• The words “month”, “orange”, “silver”, and “purple” do not rhyme with any other word.
• Over 80 per cent of the information stored on computers worldwide is in English.
• The word ‘lol’ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011.
• William Shakespeare invented many words, such as “birthplace”, “blushing”, “undress”, “torture”, and many more.
• The word “Goodbye” originally comes from an Old English phrase meaning “god be with you”.
• The first English dictionary was written in 1755.
• The oldest English word that is still in use is “town”.

Essential parts of English speech 

When studying English as second language courses, you will begin to understand the different parts of speech that make up the language. Here are three of the most important ones.

Nouns

Nouns are used for a place, person, quality, thing, idea, feeling or activity. There are different types of nouns, including:

• Proper nouns — the name of a specific person (eg. “David”) or a place (eg. “Australia”). They are always capitalised.
• Common nouns — aren’t capitalised and used to describe things and general places (eg. “house”). They also have plural forms (eg. “houses”).
• Concrete nouns — describe something we can hear, see, feel, touch or taste (eg. “grass”). They can also have plural forms (eg. “grasses”).
• Abstract nouns — describe something we can’t perceive with our senses (eg. “happiness”).
• Countable nouns — describe something you can count (eg. “truck”) and can have plural forms (eg. “trucks”).
• Collective nouns — describe a group of things or people (eg. “herd”).
• Non-collective nouns — can’t be counted (eg. “air”).

Verbs

There are three kinds of verbs in the English language:

1. Transitive verbs — show that an action is applied to an object. In the sentence “I took the kids to school,” the verb “took” shows that I performed an action on the object of the sentence, which is “the kids.”
2. Intransitive verbs — indicate an action that is not applied to an object. For example, in the sentence “I sang,” I performed an action that is not linked to an object.
3. Linking verbs — link the subject to the rest of the sentence. These verbs include “being verbs” like “seem” and “feel”, as well as “helping verbs” like “be”, “have”, and “”

Adjectives

These are used to describe a noun. There are two types:

1. Attributive adjectives — are located directly next to a noun in a sentence, e.g., “I like that blue car” (with the adjective“blue” describing the noun “car”)
2. Predicative adjectives — are separated from the noun they describe by a verb. For example, in the sentence “I thought the girl was pretty,” the adjective “pretty” describes the noun “”

 

Learning outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking English as a second language courses include learning about:

• Word order, parts of a speech, singular and plural nouns and pronouns
• Irregular plurals, noun gender, pronoun gender and other parts of speech
• Adjectives. articles and when to use an article
• Auxiliary or helping verbs, gerunds, verb tense and verb forms
• Present tense, a ‘mixed’ tense, past tense and future tense
• Subject-verb agreement and verb voice
• Active voice and passive voice
• Clausesand phrases, subject and predicate and the position of the subject
• The object of a sentence and the predicate of a sentence
• Subjects and predicates in sentences and the role of verbs in a sentence
• Sentence construction, basic sentence patterns, verb position in sentences and intransitive verbs in a sentence
• Linking verbs in a sentence, forming questions and expanding basic sentences
• Combining sentences, adding modifying words, phrases and clauses and linking words and phrases
• The structure of words and commonly used prefixes and suffixes and their meanings
• Connotation and denotation, figurative language, literal language, imprecise language and simplicity
• Your reader, content and methods of communication
• General guidelines for effective writing in English, language and tips for requesting and clarifying information
• Informative writing goals, tips for providing information, good news and neutral information, bad news and persuasion
• Business formats, memos, business letters and common workplace documents
• Writing a formal outline
• Understanding the topic or assignment, researching and tips to improve research and reading skills
• Writing an answer or essay, referencing and writing a bibliography
• Editing, structure, paragraphs, sentences, making editing decisions and proofreading

 And more!

 

Gain a foundational understanding of how to improve your written English with English as a second language courses such as our ESL Writing Fundamentals course.