How to Improve your Academic Writing Tip - No. 5

Here's another great tip from Robyn, our Pre-sessional Director of Studies, explaining why punctuation is so important when writing for academic purposes.

Pre-Sessional Writing Tip 4 - Using Hedging Language

The fourth in our series from the fabulous Pre-sessional team - this time focussing on using hedging language.

More Exam Writing Tips - from the LSI Pre-sessional Team

The third in our fabulous series of exam writing tips from the pre-sessional team - this week features the lovely Ed!

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Pre-Sessional Writing Tips from the LSI Team

For the last few years our Pre-sessional courses have become incredibly popular, with hundreds and hundreds of students studying here in preparation for their university courses. One of the most challenging areas for our students generally is academic writing skills.

Our amazing, fantastic, wonderful, superb, dedicated, hardworking pre-sessional team of teachers ;-) recently got together to come up with a range of writing tips to help the students. 
These have been made into a series of quick videos in which Robyn and Ed explain the most effective ways to improve academic writing.  The first of these is published today to coincide with the new Pre-sessional courses starting this month.  We will be publishing one new video each week for the next 6 weeks.  So you can find them easily, there will be a dedicated page on this blog (tabs above) where they will all be available together once they have all been published.

Enjoy!

Where are they now - Hiwa from Kurdistan

Update: 30.09.14

Update (16.07.2015): Hiwa Graduated this week - we are so proud of him!

Hiwa had his MA in Fine Art Final exhibition at the University of Portsmouth last week.  We thought it would be nice to show some of his pictures here.  He explained how learning English opened up a whole new world of art to him, as there had been relatively few art books in his own language available.

Elly contemplating! (It would be true to say that this particular picture 'Shingal'  is an incredibly
powerful piece, depicting the struggle that is happening in Hiwa's homeland at the moment.

Hiwa with his picture 'Shingal' which shows the struggle of the Kurdish people.

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We were delighted to catch up with Hiwa recently, who attended LSI Portsmouth from 2012 until last year. He went on to attend Portsmouth University to study fine art. 

"Well, I had such a great and fantastic year at Lsi, met so many good people.. friends and teachers which i always appreciate that lovely time I had with them .. '' I started October 2012 in IELTS course .. In the morning with (Nick Rickard) and afternoon (first week with Yvonne) then moved to (Rebecca Scott-Becky) .. I stayed in that course until I got 5.0 in IELTS and changed to General English. So, my teachers in G.E were (Kelly, Edmond, Robyn and Nick Rickard) .. After couple of months holiday I started in Pre-sessional course in May 2013 (Becky Elliott) in the morning and (Jessica) in the afternoon .. Until finishing and moving to Uni .. I was at Lsi for almost 10 months"

Hiwa A Perdawood

This is how Hiwa describes his art:

Hiwa A Perdawood (1987, Hawler (Erbil), South of Kurdistan/ Iraq

Makes paintings, photos and drawings. By rejecting an objective truth and global cultural narratives, Perdawood creates with daily, recognizable elements, an unprecedented situation in which the viewer is confronted with the conditioning of his own perception and has to reconsider his biased position.
''My work urges society to renegotiate painting as being part of a reactive or - at times – autistic medium, commenting on oppressing themes in our contemporary society. By exploring the concept of landscape in a nostalgic way, I investigate the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and the limits of spectacle based on our assumptions of what landscape means to society. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated to conjure the realms of society imagination.

Moreover, to establish a link between the landscape’s reality and that imagined by its conceiver. These works focus on concrete questions that determine our existence. By applying abstraction, I create intense personal moments masterfully created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.
Also, work doesn’t reference a recognisable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. Currently I live and work in Portsmouth - United Kingdom''.

at work

2009

2011

To see more of Hiwa's beautiful art see his website or instagram page:

His website: http://hiwa-p.com/index.html

He is on Instagram as @hiwaart

Congratulations to our Pre-Sessional Students!

We would like to say a massive 'well done' to our recently graduated pre-sessional students for all their hard work and commitment to their course over the past 4 months. Some of the students we have had to say goodbye to, have been here for over a year, and their progress has been outstanding.

We are so grateful to have such hard-working and dedicated students studying here at LSI Portsmouth, and we wish you every luck and success for the future. Our pre-sessional students will be starting their Bachelor degrees at the University of Portsmouth in September, and we are confident that they will all be amazing!

Here are some photos from the pre-sessional leaving ceremony last week, as well as a few photos from a delicious Arabic feast organised by one of the groups to say thank you to the teachers and staff that have helped them throughout their course.  You have all been fantastic to teach, your progress has been amazing, and we hope you will come back and visit us in the near future!

Congratulations to all our Pre-sessional leavers !!!!

On the 5th September 199 students from 17 classes who had been studying on our
Pre-sessional courses finally came to the end of their course.  We took a little video of them and it is quite clear the relief they had at finally finishing.  You may also see the relief on the teachers faces, as they had also worked so hard to help all the students.  Course manager Robyn and Logistics co -ordinator Ed also did a fantastic job of organising everything.
We would like to wish all the students all the very very best in whatever they do, and thank all the teachers for their amazing work.

New Positions for the New Year

To start the New Year with vitality and fresh ideas, we are delighted to announce some new appointments and positions.

As our student numbers have grown, we have needed to re-organise a few of our areas.  

Firstly, the exam department now has their own Director of Studies to organise the IELTS and Cambridge courses, and we are delighted to announce that Lewis Richards is the new Director of Studies for Exams.  Ross McKenzie is the Director of Studies for General English, and helping them both is Leanne Prescott as the new Assistant Director of Studies for General English and Exams.

Lewis Richards - Director of Studies - Exams

Leanne Prescott - Assistant Director of Studies for GE and Exams

Last September, Cristina Purcell, the Pre-sessional course manager retired which led to a reorganisation for the Pre-sessional department. The new Pre-sessional Course Manager is Robyn Brooks and the Pre-sessional Logistics Co-ordinator is Ed Humphreys, supporting them is Joanna Glos the Pre-sessional Support.

Robyn Brook - Pre-sessional Course Manager

Ed Humphreys - Pre-sessional Logistics Co-Ordinator

Joanna Glos - Pre-sessional Support

And finally, Rosie Ford has joined us at LSI as Quality Assurance Manager and P.A. to the Principal Andrew Edwards.

Rosie Ford - Quality Assurance Manager and PA to the Principal

We wish all of them great success in their new roles.