PRE-SESSIONAL ENGLISH PROGRAMME

XJTLU Pre-sessional English Programme is designed to help students develop the English language and academic study skills necessary to meet the challenges of studying at master’s level.

Pre-sessional English Programme

Overview

Our Pre-sessional English (PSE) programme is designed to help students improve and develop their general and discipline-specific English language and study skills, with a particular emphasis on academic writing and speaking, in order to enable them to function effectively in their postgraduate master’s programmes. Taught by lecturers in the XJTLU English Language Centre, our programme is BALEAP(British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes) certified and has been conferred “Validated Programme” status by CIOL (Charted Institute of Linguists).

The programme comprises of 140 hours of teaching and 105 hours of self-study, and there are two options available of two different lengths, i.e., a 7-week summer intensive course, and a 12-week part-time course. The 12-week part-time course is designed for part-time programme students who cannot take the 7-week intensive course and full-time programme students who prefer a longer and less intensive course with the same language and skills focus as the 7-week intensive course.

Once you are accepted onto a Pre-sessional English course, you will not need to retake a language test. This means that you can concentrate on developing your postgraduate study skills.

WHO SHOULD TAKE A PRE-SESSIONAL ENGLISH COURSE?

If you have applied for an XJTLU master’s programme and meet the minimum English language requirements for the course, as shown below, you may be accepted onto the Pre-sessional course subject to Programme Director approval. Upon successful completion of the Pre-sessional English course, your XJTLU master’s offer letter will be changed to “Unconditional” for English level.

If you have already met the English language entry requirement of your prospective master’s programme, you are also welcome to take the PSE course to support improvements in your academic English language skills.

FULL-TIME PSE

START DATE: 8 July 2024 DURATION: Seven weeks
END DATE: 23 August 2024 SCHOOL: School of Languages
ATTENDANCE: Full time DELIVERY MODE: Face-to-face XJTLU Entrepreneur College (Taicang); 4 teaching hours per day  + approx. 3 hours self-study per day

PART-TIME PSE

START DATE: 3 June 2024 DURATION: Twelve weeks
END DATE: 23 August 2024 SCHOOL: School of Languages
ATTENDANCE: Part-time DELIVERY MODE: Online; 10-12 teaching hours per week in the evenings and one weekend day

 

Knowledge and skills

After the course students will be able to:

  • Select and evaluate appropriate sources relating to their field of study with a degree of independence
  • Produce an extended piece of academic writing that demonstrates an ability to express and support a stance
  • Deliver a presentation on a topic related to their field of study
  • Enter into, participate in, and lead a seminar or other types of academic discussion
  • Develop and engage with reflective learning and critical thinking processes
  • Demonstrate competence in strategies to avoid plagiarism, collusion, and the embellishment of data

Structure


  • The 7-week face-to-face course will combine live seminars and one-to-one tutorials with weekly asynchronous online lectures, lesson preparation materials and self-study materials completed outside class time.Seminars and tutorials will be conducted synchronously on Taicang campus, while self-study aspects of the course will be organised using XJTLU’s dedicated virtual learning platform, Learning Mall Online (LMO). The last week of the course will include assessments and induction to in-sessional academic English courses.
  • The 12-week distance/remote learning course will combine live seminars and one-to-one tutorials with weekly asynchronous online lectures, lesson preparation materials and self-study materials completed outside class time.Seminars and tutorials will be conducted synchronously using the videoconferencing platform BigBlueButton, while self-study aspects of the course will be organised using XJTLU’s dedicated virtual learning platform, Learning Mall Online (LMO). The last week of the course will include assessments and induction to in-sessional academic English courses.


The course will focus on language and transferable academic skills, with typical content covering:

Writing:

  • Writing clear and well-organised paragraphs and essays
  • Paraphrasing, summarising, and quoting
  • Referencing and understanding the principles of Academic Integrity
  • Synthesising information from various sources together with your own voice
  • Improving cohesion and coherence in your writing

Speaking:

  • Giving academic presentations
  • Participating in academic seminar discussions
  • Using appropriate functional language in academic speaking
  • Using information from sources in academic discussions and presentations

Reading:

  • Analysing and identifying key features of texts of different genres
  • Skimming, scanning, understanding the gist, and reading for detail
  • Identifying important information and selecting key ideas
  • Evaluating texts (including critical analysis of author, bias, purpose, genre, etc.)

Listening:

  • Preparing to attend lectures
  • Following the structure of lectures
  • Identifying key ideas in lectures
  • Taking effective notes during lectures

Academic skills:

  • Understanding differences between academic cultures
  • Reflecting on and improving your performance
  • Managing your time
  • Giving, receiving, and acting upon formative feedback to continuously improve your work
  • Following a systematic process approach to assessments

Fees


RMB 22,000 (full fees as deposit)

How to apply

Application Deadline:

7-week Intensive Course: 24 June 2024

12-week Part-time PSE Course: 20 May 2024

Payment Deadline:

7-week Intensive Course: 1 July 2024

12-week Part-time PSE Course: 27 May 2024

Places on the 12-week part-time PSE course are limited and available on a ‘first-come, first-served basis’. If you would like to attend the course, please send an email to pgadmissions@xjtlu.edu.cn to indicate your interest in the part-time PSE course option by 20 May 2024.

IF YOU ARE A CONDITIONAL OFFER HOLDER

If you are a conditional offer holder you can also send an email to pgadmissions@xjtlu.edu.cn (Masters Admissions Team, Graduate School) to apply to take the onsite Password English language test provided by XJTLU in lieu of an IELTS/TOEFL or its equivalent. We will arrange a test for you on campus. The results will normally be released within five working days.

Please note that the Password Test is only available to students who have been issued a conditional offer to study at XJTLU. In principle, the University provides one Password Test opportunity for each conditional offer holder.

To complete the Pre-sessional course and be eligible for admission to your XJTLU master’s programme, you are required to:

  • fulfill the attendance requirement
  • complete all the course assignments and pass the final writing and speaking assessments.

Failing to meet either of the above requirements will be considered as having failed the course and, as a result, failing to meet the English language entry requirement on your current offer. In such a case, your conditional offer will be deferred to the following year and you will be given one more chance to take the PSE course. Admission to your master’s programme will ultimately depend on successful completion of the retaken course.

IF YOU ARE AN UNCONDITIONAL OFFER HOLDER

Unconditional offer holders are also encouraged to take the PSE course because the course is not purely focused on raising English proficiency level but rather also aims to provide essential academic skills to help ease transition between an undergraduate programme at a Chinese institution and a master’s programme at an EMI (English as Medium for Instruction) university like XJTLU. Simply send an email to pgadmissions@xjtlu.edu.cn to apply for course enrollment.

Entry requirements

English level requirements Programme
IELTS 6.5, with no single component less than IELTS 6.0 MA China Studies
IELTS 6.5, with no single component less than IELTS 5.5 MSc Media and Communication
IELTS 6.0, with no single component less than IELTS 5.5
  • MA Global Education
  • MA Child Development and Family Education
  • MA International Business and Global Affairs
  • MA International Relations
  • MSc Entrepreneurship and Innovation
  • MSc Business Analytics
  • MSc Economics and Finance
  • MSc Finance
  • MSc Investment Management
  • MSc Management
  • MRes Management
  • MSc Project Management
  • MSc Cultural and Creative Industries
  • MSc Digital Education
IELTS 6.0, with no single component less than IELTS 5.0
  • MSc Operations and Supply Chain Management
  • MSc Professional Accounting
  • MRes Computer Science
  • MSc Urban Planning
  • MSc Urban Planning (specialisation in Urban Design)
  • Master of Architectural Design
  • MDes Industrial Design
  • MRes Materials Science and Engineering
  • MSc International Professional Practice in Architecture
IELTS 5.5, with no single component less than IELTS 5.0
  • MSc Civil Engineering
  • MSc Construction Management
  • MSc Sustainable Construction
  • MRes Medicinal Chemistry
  • MSc Applied Statistics
  • MRes Pharmaceutical Sciences
  • MSc Financial Mathematics
  • MSc Actuarial Science
  • MRes Molecular Bioscience
  • MRes Advanced Chemical Sciences
  • MRes Low Carbon Electrical Power and Energy Technology
  • MSc Sustainable Energy Technology
  • MSc Data Science
  • MRes Environmental Sciences
  • MSc Social Computing
  • MSc Human-Computer interaction
  • MSc Financial Computing
  • MRes Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Systems
  • MSc Applied Informatics
  • MSc Multimedia Telecommunications
Direct Entry Only
  • MA TESOL
  • MA Applied Linguistics (with specialization in multilingualism)