Language and skills support

• Access to one-to-one help (Talk to a Tutor) to support you with your written assignments, presentations and study skills
• The courses are free of charge
• The courses have no assessments
• All study materials are provided on SurreyLearn.

Academic listening

The aim of this course is to help you understand spoken English. It focuses particularly on the skills needed for understanding and taking notes in lectures and seminars.

Academic speaking

This course will help you with the kind of speaking skills you need for academic study, including participating in discussions, tutorials and seminars and delivering presentations.

Academic vocabulary

This course will raise your awareness of the words that are most commonly used in academic texts and provide you with practice in using them, both in your academic reading and writing.

Academic Writing for SBS (PG)

This course covers all the major skills and approaches involved in written assignments for SBS and SHTM students.

Assignment writing

This course covers all the major skills involved in writing assignments, including interpreting the task; academic style; referencing and paragraphing.

Critical thinking

This course will help you to develop thinking skills by asking questions, using deductive and inductive reasoning, problem-solving and creative thinking.

• Critical Thinking 1: This course will introduce and give practice in some of the critical thinking skills and language needed for academic study, with a focus on asking questions about what you read and constructing effective arguments. Topics covered include identifying a writer’s argument, evaluating evidence and finding weaknesses in arguments
• Critical Thinking 2: This course is designed for undergraduare students who have already completed ‘Critical Thinking 1’ or PG students. It will provide further opportunities to develop and practise the skills introduced in Critical Thinking 1, drawing on extracts from academic texts.

Dissertation Writing - six weeks

In semester 1, this six-week course is intended for students submitting their dissertation in January/February and focuses on writing the different sections, e.g. the Literature Review, the Results and the Discussion parts. In semester 2, this course is for those students who submit during the summer.

Dissertation Writing for SBS

This course focuses on writing the different sections of a dissertation, e.g. the Literature Review, the Results and the Discussion parts using examples from previous dissertations written by students in SBS and SHTM.

English for Employment Skills

Employability skills are key to successful career planning. On this course you will look at a range of skills and language related to employability such as developing your CV to meet the standards required by employers in the UK, writing cover letters, developing your job searching skills and learning how to tackle a range of assessment centre tasks.

Everyday Speaking

This course will help you with the kind of speaking skills you need in social and everyday situations.

Grammar for Academic Writing

This course provides explanations and practice in the areas of written grammar which cause the most difficulty for students.

Presentation Skills

This course will help you prepare to give academic presentations. It covers the different stages of a presentation, visual aids, body language and handling questions and answers. All students will have the opportunity to practice their presentation skills.

Pronunciation

Working with a tutor and language laboratory resources, this course will help you with your particular pronunciation difficulties. You will practice sounds stress and intonation, which will help you to be understood and to understand others more easily.

Technical writing for Electronic Engineering MSc students

This course helps MSc Electronic Engineering students to produce effective technical reports. It provides guidance on structure and what to include in each section. It also helps you to write in an impersonal style.

Technical Writing 1 (Lab reports) for undergraduate

This course is particularly relevant to scientists and engineers at undergraduate level. It provides guidelines for effective writing, concentrating on different aspects of technical reports and other forms of technical writing.

Technical Writing 2 (Advanced) for postgraduate

This course is particularly relevant to scientists and engineers at PGR level. It provides guidelines for effective writing, concentrating on different aspects of technical reports and other forms of technical writing.

Find a course

Courses last from four to nine weeks and mainly consist of one 50-minute lesson per week, although some courses are for two hours per week. Courses run in both semesters and you may enrol in a maximum of three courses per semester. 

Apply online

You can apply online for CLASS courses. The link will be posted here when applications open.

Enrolment

Registration for Semester 1 will open on Monday 15 September 2025. Courses will start from Monday 6 October 2025.

Contact us

• class@surrey.ac.uk

Access to “Talk to a Tutor” sessions of 25 or 50 minutes to support you with your written assignments, presentations and study skills. Students may only apply for one session per week.

The criteria to qualify for individual tutorials are as follows:

• Regular attendance on a current or recently completed CLASS course
• Previous regular attendance on a CLASS course.

William from Norway

“Your writing class has helped me and resulted in great results. Throughout this semester I have been mainly obtaining firsts for my modules (which are all assignment based - reports and essays). For my latest essay I obtained 8/10 in writing style and structure, and my overall grade for the last essay was 67.”

Maria from Russia

"I was amazed at how my English classes during the first semester improved my academic writing skills.”

Giuseppe from Italy

"Albeit I have taken many English courses, I still have no words to express how valuable they are. They are just perfect: 50 minutes a week, no homework, for free. The course I am evaluating has been one of the best and most useful and should be mandatory even for native speakers."

Rachel from UK

"The ELSP courses (now known as CLASS) have been invaluable to me to help to think about so many things I didn't know I needed to be thinking about. The tutors are really helpful and friendly and I really like the resources provided as a helpful way to understand an idea/concept etc. As a mature student, a long time since I was at school, the ELSP programme (now known as CLASS) has been so important in helping me this semester, I honestly would have been a lot more lost without it. Thank you to all the lovely staff for their fantastic support and guidance."

University of Surrey students have free access to:

• 10 English Language software packages designed to help improve your academic English skills. Click on the links to access the software. You do not need to enter a username and password (just click on Start).
• uTalk - a language learning app, which can be used on compatible devices. University of students and staff can log in with their university details ("students login") for free access to over 25 languages.
• British Sign language website (free to all) 

All students have access to satellite TV in the Language Study Area with foreign language channels and AV equipment to watch DVDs from our film collection. You can also access a lot of content online, including TV series and films in different languages. For more information, see our film and television page (SurreyLearn login required) for more details about the channels we have available and other options for listening to film and TV in other languages.