James’s Five Minutes: What is the difference between everyday English in communicating with classmates and academic English?

The Master's degree program "Applied Linguistics and Text Analysis" is taught in English. However, we often overlook mistakes using it in various communication situations due to the fact that we are not native speakers. Student of our program, James Black, decided to help us with this issue.

"Students from different countries attend our program, so we are constantly talking or chatting in English. This is why we often translate our thoughts from Russian to English word by word," a student notes. Indeed, language transfer claims to be the main source of trouble among English language learners. The students of our program decided to discuss their mistakes starting with it.

They are planning to arrange weekly meetings. During them under James’s watchful eye they will sort out mistakes in their own speech, as well as learn the nuances of academic writing in English. For instance, on September 27 foreign students shared their observations concerning the use of the first conditional, as well as the difference between the norms of Russian and English scientific discourses. On their next meeting, on October 11, they compared ways of expressing opinion in courtly manner and continued with hedging techniques.