3.5-Term Pathway - Foundation Certificate in Social Sciences - Continue to Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Modern Languages and Linguistics (Year Abroad)

Program Description For students who've finished high school but don’t meet the entry requirements for university, a Foundation Certificate can help them gain entry to an undergraduate degree. After completing this pathway option students qualify for progression to the 1st year of an undergraduate degree at the University of Essex.

A student’s course length is determined mainly by their English language level (UKVI IELTS score). Students on all course lengths take a set of common or similar modules to gain a solid base of skills for university. Students taking a course longer than 2 terms, will take additional modules designed to improve one or more of their English language level, academic skills, and basic knowledge of particular subjects.

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Modern Languages and Linguistics

Explore both the theoretical aspects of language, and acquire the practical ability to speak another language. Any understanding of language enhances self-awareness, inspiring people to address fundamental questions about communication between human beings.

Linguistics is an increasingly important subject, impacting on areas in psychology, philosophy, education and artificial intelligence. It has real-world applications in such diverse fields as human rights, computer-assisted language learning, and the study of institutional language in settings like doctor-patient interactions, interviewer-interviewee dialogues, and courtroom exchanges. Students will explore a wide range of core topics in linguistics, mastering key concepts in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Students also study up to two of the languages offered at Essex: French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, completing at least one language to Mastery level. Each of these languages is widely used in the business world, and can take students to a level of near-fluency, and so many of the graduates go on to develop successful global careers with international firms looking for language specialists.

Essex is a place where talented students become part of an academic community in which the majority of research is rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, placing Essex firmly within the top 10 departments in the UK and ranked among the top 150 departments on the planet according to the QS World [University] Rankings [2019] for linguistics.