Are you a student where English is your second language? If yes, thisfree online course might be for you :-)

Are you a student at UCS and is English your second language? If yes, the University of Reading are providing a free course on "A beginner's guide to writing in English for university study". As mentioned this course is free, and provided as a MOOC (massive open online course), through the Future Learn platform (www.futurelearn.com).

The short course is a 3 hour commitment for four weeks, and on completion you will receive a certificate of achievement.

This course will provide you with a brief introduction to academic writing, enabling you to gain an awareness and understanding of some key features of this kind of writing. You’ll learn using a mix of video, on-screen examples, discussions, and quizzes.

You will develop some proficiency in a few key areas of ‘academic’ grammar, learn about the stages in essay writing, and produce an essay of your own. We will teach you how to organise an essay, use academic writing style and cover key areas of grammar, so that by the end of the course you are able to write a good, basic academic essay.

Throughout the course, we will analyse some examples of academic writing that have been produced by some of our former students, to show the improvements that can be made to an essay. These improvements are made by guiding and instructing the writer in the areas of content, organisation, language and the process of planning and drafting an essay.

The Elevate Team have not evaluated the course, however, given this is developed by the Univeristy of Reading, this implies it should be appropriate.

If you sign up and complete the course the Elevate Team would love to hear your thoughts and experience of this form of learning.