95% of CLIE Pre-sessional students progress to UCL Master’s degrees

95% of students who studied on CLIE’s 19-, 12-, 8- and 6-week Pre-sessional English Courses this summer have progressed to their target UCL Master’s programme, an increase of 6% on last year’s cohort.

This year’s intake advanced to a wide variety of graduate degrees in over 50 UCL departments across 10 faculties, with the Bartlett receiving the highest number of around 19%.

These outstanding results were attributed to a combination of highly motivated students, committed teachers and an increasingly tailored programme to help them develop and acquire the key academic skills needed to succeed at Master’s level.

Driven students

Pre-sessional Teaching Fellow, Robert Hughes, saw how the students’ enthusiasm in the classroom helped dramatically improve their academic English.

“The students were so motivated and really wanted to learn. They worked closely in their groups and supported each other well throughout the course.

This created a very positive learning atmosphere, conducive to making new friends, integrating better into the UK cultural environment and developing their communication skills.”

Course development

A number of innovations were introduced this year, such as in-house course booklets written by Pre-sessional teachers, which drew on feedback from students, teachers and UCL departments that Pre-sessional students progress to.

Course assessments were also revised and students had more opportunity to track their progress through the initial diagnostic test and regular formative assessments, including mock examinations.

Positive feedback

These improvements received excellent feedback from students and teachers alike. The External Examiner also commended the course, noting in his report that “the UCL Pre-sessional English programme seems to be growing from strength to strength.”

Pre-sessional Course Coordinator, Fiona Wallace, was delighted that these changes had such a positive impact.

“It has been extremely rewarding to see the innovations that the Pre-sessional team have worked hard on behind the scenes come to fruition this summer.

We can see that they have resulted in a very robust Pre-sessional programme, which together with a committed Pre-sessional co-ordination team, dedicated teaching staff and driven students, makes for a winning combination!”