Seminars & Academic Vocabulary

 Seminars

Today we started looking at seminars - what they are, the kind of skills and abilities they are designed to develop, how to contribute effectively in seminars etc.


The University of Essex has some useful pages about Seminars and Lectures .

For more about Seminars, try listening to this academic listening podcast from the BBC (Part 11 is related to Seminars)

Academic Vocabulary

If you are going to study at university in the UK, you need to start learning and using 'academic vocabulary'. Of course, the words you need depend on WHAT SUBJECT you're going to study, however there are many words which are widely used in academic writing in all subjects, and the following websites will help you to learn these:


There's a very good introduction which talks about strategies for learning vocabulary here.

Look at the Vital Vocabulary page on this blog for links to Academic Word list exercises and Gapmaker.

Try some 'cloze exercises' first or here

Nottingham University AWL

For pronunciation practice, it's a good idea to think about your own particular difficulties. Look here and see if your language is listed. Can you identify what you find difficult about English pronunciation? Look in the library to find the recommended books to help you with your problems. Another good place to learn about pronunciation is on the BBC. Watch some of the videos for help with individual sounds.