<Title language-id="en_US">University of Queensland hosts trainees from FEFU

FEFU specialists informed about their language internship at one of the leading Australian Universities.

Thanks to FEFU Development Program, five FEFU specialists have got the opportunity of undertaking an internship at one of the leading Australian universities – the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

Early May these people were sent to Brisbane:

• Head of International Education Program in English language «Marine biodiversity», Assistant Professor of the Marine Biodiversity and Marine Biological Resources Department of The School of Humanities Konstantin Gorobetc;
• Professor of the Marine Biodiversity and Marine Biological Resources Department of The School of Humanities Yury Kartavtsev;
• Educational Master of Graphic Design Department of  The School of Art, Culture and Sport  Vasilii  Zhelezniakov;
• Head Teacher of Education in the Sphere of Oriental Languages and Oriental Studies Department of The School of Pedagogics , Elena Simonenko;
• Leading Specialist of Cooperation Coordination with Russian Academies of Sciences  and funds of the Scientific Activities Organization Department Ekaterina Selivanova.

Hospitality is one of the main qualities of Brisbane residents

All the participants of the internship were accommodated at Homestay families and that allowed them to learn more about Australia, to communicate with native speakers and to use English more than just at classes.

Besides, the families helped FEFU specialists to adapt to life in Brisbane, and this was very important because their classes started on the third day and on holiday (Labour’s Day) that preceded the start of classes, everything was closed. On their first day in Australia the families told and showed how to get to the university and back, helped to buy a “go-card” (travel pass) and a SIM-card for the phone, and provided information about the area.

EAP II is not IELTS!

The classes at ICTE-UQ started with orientation lectures and a test that arranged specialists to groups according to their English language level. The classes were very intensive. Courses of “English for Academic Purposes” of the second level (EAP II) – are the courses that not only prepare for taking IELTS examination or raise the level of English competence, but also give academic vocabulary and English grammar of higher level that is used in writing research papers and at the universities.

Apart from that, EAP II courses prepare to listen to lectures, take notes, type fast, work with literature when it’s necessary to find some information in the text, make reports – and at this level all reports are group reports, and that teaches to work in team, in short, teaches everything that is necessary for studying at the university and carrying out research works. Much attention is paid to scientific ethics and how to avoid plagiarism during writing articles – in other words, you work out a skill of reformulating, analyzing and concentrating on the content of information, and also you learn to quote literature according to the system adopted in Cambridge.

The system of teaching in Australia is student-focused, so much attention is paid to discussions, work in groups (for example, 3-4 people at the table discuss the issues or assort words on the topic).

Truants are not among the University of Queensland favorites

All students have got a student ID and every student who comes to classes needs to put its bar code under the scanner and the computer registers his/her presence. Being 10 minutes late to the first class is allowed, and if this limit is exceeded, the teacher closes the computer program and a student is marked as absent. The following classes allow being only 5 minutes late. This way, missing classes is unacceptable, if only you don’t have serious reasons for it; the percentage of students’ attendance is hung on the wall every month. This percentage is very important especially for students who came on a student VISA because this information is delivered to Immigration Service.

A student VISA suggests that a person comes to Australia not for having fun or carrying out some other activities, but for studying, that’s why international students should have classes at least25 hours per week and the attendance should not be less than 80%. Otherwise, a student may lose his/her VISA and be deported from the country.

Tolerance First

Groups consist of the students who came from all over the world. Of course, the majority of students come from China, but there are also representatives of Mongolia, Vietnam, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Chile, Brazil, Ukraine, Russia, Japan, Korea, France, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. Brisbane is an international city, there is no racism or nationalism; people of different nationalities gather here.

No wonder the University of Queensland professors highly tolerant  and cosmopolitical. They like to repeat:

 “Save your accents, we love to hear different accents of the language if they don’t lead to problems in understanding…” So, one of the EAP II course goals is to teach students to speak with a normal speed and to pronounce words clearly, to make both native speakers and people whose first language is not English, understand us.