EAP Courses Study academic English online

Each day you will receive an email with six words from the AWL. The entry for each word contains detailed information to help you 'unlock' the word: definitions, synonyms, part of speech, examples of use, pronunciation, word family and collocations.

An hour after the email with the words, you will receive a second email with a quiz to test your knowledge of the words. After the first lesson, the quizzes will also review previous words.

There are several special features of the course.

First, the definitions of each word have been carefully selected. Looking up words in a dictionary can be confusing, as there may be multiple meanings, some of which may not be academic. The meanings in the course have been selected to contain only those in common academic usage. This can sometimes be a single definition out of nine or ten! This approach will save you much time when learning the meanings of words in the AWL.

Secondly, different words forms have been collected under one entry, again saving you time (opposites can be especially difficult to find in a dictionary).

A further unique feature of the course is the connection with the ACL (Academic Collocations List), enabling you to learn common academic collocations which use the AWL words.

Finally, each set of words comes with a quiz so that you can check your understanding of the words and continue to study by learning from your mistakes. The quizzes focus not only on meaning but usage, collocations, word forms and so on, allowing you to develop your productive use of the words.

The following are the recommended steps for studying words in the email.

1. Begin with the definitions and synonyms to ensure you understand the meaning of each word. You might want to keep a vocabulary notebook of the words to help you to remember.
2. Study the example sentences to help you understand usage.
3. Make sure you know how to pronounce the word.
4. Study the different word forms which are given, including opposites (if any). Again, you might want to note some of these down to help you remember.
5. Study the collocations which are given.
6. Once you have completed the quiz, make a note of the questions you got wrong and study those words again. You might want to use a separate dictionary at this point to get more information about the words and their usage (e.g. pronunciation of other words forms, since only pronunciation of the headword is given).

You are recommended to spend around one hour studying each list of words in the email (or ten minutes per word). This is why each quiz is sent out exactly one hour after the words. However, you might want to study the words more carefully and spend more time than this. Also, if you did not do well in the quiz, you will want to review the words so that you can learn them thoroughly. This is why the next list of words is not sent out until a day later.

One day after you have completed the course, you will receive a link to the free ebook, covering all the words in the course. Not only will this provide you with a simple version of the words in one place, the book also comes with additional exercises so that you can check your understanding and continue to learn.