Progress

Everyone who comes to us has goals they wish to achieve. From the moment you arrive – and throughout your stay – we ensure that everything you do is working towards achieving your goals.

In addition to all the stimulating work you will do in class there are many enjoyable activities you can do outside class that will really help your English improve. As well as exploring London and joining our social programme you can use our extensive reading and film library and free online lessons while you are at the school.

Long Stayers Advisor

It is perfectly normal for a student who is with us for more than a couple of courses to have ‘peaks and troughs’ (high points and low points), and you should expect that learning will come more easily at some points in the course than others. If your course is 12 weeks or more you will have a meeting scheduled with our Long Stayers Advisor. In this meeting you will discuss your goals for the time you are here and the Long Stayers Advisor will talk to you about your study habits, methods of learning and how you spend your spare time in London. The aim of this session is to make sure that you are making the most of the opportunities you have to learn English and that you are enjoying your time in London. Depending on how long your course is you may meet with the Long Stayers Advisor several times.

How students can help their progress

How quickly each individual student progresses varies widely. We find that the students who make the fastest progress tend to do the following:

Attend class regularly, participate in class and spend time on their homework.
Mix with students of different nationalities and use English as much as possible when not in class.
Go on the social programme and make the most of being in an English speaking environment.
Spend time with their host family (if in a homestay) or with English speaking people in their residence (if they are in a residence).
Use the reading library at Westcroft Square to borrow books aimed at learners of English.
Use the DVD library at Westcroft Square to watch films and television series' in English.

Measuring progress

As a part of the Intensive General English and English for University courses all students take a progress test at the end of each course (approximately every six weeks).

We do this for a number of reasons:

To help students see how they are progressing and to identify weaker areas.
To give a student scores in different skills which will help them to understand which areas need the most work.
To help students and sponsors to see a formal report of progress that looks at grammar knowledge, vocabulary range, listening skills as well as speaking.

The test is an online test developed by Oxford University Press and is taken under supervision in our computer room at the school. We use this test because:

It is suitable for all levels from beginner to advanced. The test is ‘adaptive’ which means that the difficulty of the questions increases if the student gets them correct or decreases if the student gets them wrong, so the student should never feel that the test is either too easy or too difficult.
It tests the students' overall communicative language ability. It does not just focus on grammar or vocabulary, but asks students to use appropriate language for certain situations, and this is what we are training students to do in class.
The questions on the test are taken from a bank of thousands which means that no two students sitting next to each other are likely to have the same question at the same time. It also means that students who stay in the school for a long period and do the test at the end of each course will always get a different test.

The test has two parts as follows:

Part 1 - Use of English - approximately 30 questions
Part 2 - Listening – approximately 15 questions

To complete both parts typically takes about 45 minutes.

All students are told about the test the week before they take it, and are welcome to ask any questions they may have. The test is designed to measure their overall language ability and is NOT based on their individual class lessons, therefore there is no need to study specifically for the test. There is no pass or fail.

Students will receive their scores at the end of the test week.

Will the test grade be used to decide which class I study in for the next course?

On the Intensive General English and English for University courses the classes are based on communicative ability. We therefore look at both the test result and the student’s performance in class when we decide which level class the student should study in.

Our aim is to make sure that overall every student is progressing and working towards achieving their ultimate goals. The progress tests help us all to manage this.