MSc Student creates Essential English course

IE received a request from Estates to help produce a course to help some of their new staff with their English skills. A request was sent to MSc students to ask for assistance, and MSc student Nikita Gupta agreed to take on the challenge. This involved a paid position, developing and teaching a course of 8 sessions for 9 members of staff.

As Nikita explains:

While staff had already completed online training, the department had realised that this was insufficient. In particular, staff lacked some specific knowledge around suitable language for customer service. My aim was to create a course which could be run in a more communicative manner. Work was carried out using role play and other methods, and looking at specific areas such as Fire Safety, Customer Service, COSH and more. For example, we looked at sentence structures such as "How may I help you", "Let me look into this for you" and "Thank you for brining this to our attention", which would be used in a work environment.

While the course was initially run as a one-off, feedback was incredibly positive, and materials have been kept for use in future iterations.

If you or your workplace is interested in running similar courses, IE are able to design tailored courses for your specific requirements. For more information, please visit our Tailored Courses page - Tailored courses - Business services - University of St Andrews (st-andrews.ac.uk)