Jinny Kim

I was able to develop my English skills for living and studying in the USA through the ELP. More accurately, I learned how to survive in this country.  I was in the ELP for about one year before starting academics. It helped me tremendously in adapting to the college life in the USA.

I took four ELP courses focused on listening, speaking, reading and writing. Although fluency in English is a combination of all these skills, I want to explain in detail how each course helped develop my English skills.

In college classes, unlike ELP teachers, each professor has his or her own way of speaking, often with accents, and speaks very fast. 

The art history class was one of the most difficult classes. The professor was an elderly gentleman and taught verbally without any visual aids; he often spoke about art history for three hours. There was not a textbook or written information on the board.  However, the oral communication class in the ELP helped me a lot to overcome this difficulty. I learned English intonation and pronunciation that eventually helped me to develop my listening skills as well.

I had interesting homework assignments. One of them was listening to several TED Talks and practice listening skills while learning different topics.  In fact, several academic classes also used TED talks as a teaching material. 

In the ELP, I could prepare myself for academic courses very well. On several occasions, I had to present in front of Americans and discuss the contents with them. I also had to read and write a lot in a very short period of time.

All of these assignments are typical for university students, but they were the biggest stumbling blocks for me.  It was all about English.  Thankfully, the ELP helped me to overcome the obstacle through its amazing curriculum.  I later realized that the ELP was a rehearsal for college classes.

My recommendation for anyone interested in taking the ELP is that, no matter what your goal is, it is very important to learn as much as possible in the ELP. Academic courses are very tough so there is not much time to focus on English.