Skills for life and work

Do you want to improve your pronunciation, learn more about how you sound when you speak English and develop your speaking? A podcast is a digital recording, which can be used in a very practical way to help develop your English. On this course, you will discover how to make and edit a podcast to record yourself as well as what to say and how to say it. You will be able to practise speaking on your own and interviewing others as well as learn how to prepare what to say and how to say it. Podcasting is a fantastic way of improving your pronunciation, your vocabulary, your spoken accuracy, and your fluency.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).



Please note you will need to download the free Audacity software and have a headset with mic to do this course.

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Are you excited by the English language? Do you need to test your abilities before attempting the qualification course? Do you want to give yourself more than a year to achieve the qualification? Then this Preparing for English Language GCSE is the course for you. It will get your ready you for the accreditation and familiarise you with its content, level and expectation.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Do you want to improve your English and learn about London, its history, culture and people at the same time? On this course, you will visit places of interest and learn about the history of these places especially about the different people and cultures who have lived there, and about important events which have shaped the city. You will do your own research and so improve your reading and writing skills as well as your speaking and listening. In addition, you will feel more at home in London and able to participate in its rich and diverse life.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Are you excited by the English language? Do you want to engage with fiction and non-fiction? Do you need to improve your writing and critical thinking across a range of topics and themes? An English Language GCSE is an essential qualification for anyone wanting to practise higher-order reading skills and use these to develop fluent and effective writing. It is one of the most commonly required qualifications by employers and universities, and will enhance your job and education prospects. This specification will ensure that you can read fluently and write effectively, demonstrate a confident control of Standard English and write grammatically correct sentences, deploying figurative language, and analyse texts.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 4582 0423 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name)..

This course is free for learners who have not achieved a GCSE grade C (4) and higher in English. For more information Click here

Do you want to improve your communication skills and become more confident speaking, listening, reading and writing English? This course will help you develop all your English language skills so you can act confidently in the most important everyday situations inside and outside work. You will become a skilled communicator when writing, using digital resources and in face-to-face interactions. You will develop your active listening skills so you can understand and empathise better. You will work on how to express yourself when speaking in different situations. You will practise your reading so you can see the whole picture and find details, make effective decisions about what you read, and prioritise matters. By the end of this three-term programme, you will be a competent speaker, listener, reader and writer both at work and home and ready to do exams such as Functional Skills Level 2.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Do you want to sound ‘more English’ when you speak? Do you want the chance to experiment with becoming expressive in English, playing with how you sound when you speak different dialogues? On this course, you will work on different dialogues from everyday speech and well known plays. And you will also create your own! The chance to work on how to perform and enact this speech will enable you to focus on how to link and ‘chunk’ words, develop your rhythm and stress, work on your fluency and ensure that the meaning of what you are saying becomes expressed. You will also be working with ‘real’ language, not the sometimes artificial language of English course books. Although you will be performing the texts, you do not need to be an actor, just willing to give it a go. By writing your own dialogues, you will also develop your writing skills so by the end of the course you can write and perform together with your classmates your own 5 minute play!.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Would you like to be more confident in the way you write whether emails or reports at work or messages to friends? Do you want to work on how you form sentences, understand grammar and use punctuation so your writing is more creative? Do you want to learn how to create meaning in your writing?. This course will help you be more secure in your professional, academic or creative writing skills and help you improve some of your weak areas around forming and punctuating sentences with appropriate grammatical form. You will develop your confidence in the most essential areas of writing including different sentence structures, writing paragraphs, using punctuation effectively, using active and passive voices and proofreading.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Are you working in an office and need to improve your communication skills? Would you like to become an administrator but feel your written English is holding you back? This course will help you become a confident, flexible and successful communicator in writing, in person, on the phone and online. You will work on using the right language for written documents and for when speaking to colleagues, managers, customers, in meetings and on the phone. You will focus on different levels of formal and informal communication and how to speak and write clearly and concisely, with appropriate tone e.g. in emails and letters on a PC. You will also work on how to lay out key documents using Word, spell well and punctuate correctly. You will also start to learn about the cloud and how to use key parts of Microsoft 365. By the end of this course, you will confident you can work successfully in an office environment.



Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for information and to book a pre-course assessment. You can also click the Start Assessment button on this page.

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Unsure when to use present perfect or past perfect? Is reported speech still causing you problems? Do you need to practise your conditionals? Join this course and put your grammar into practice in speaking, writing, reading and listening. Gain confidence in using grammar effectively through high level and engaging tasks



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Do you want to develop your writing and speaking skills? Would you also like to improve your digital skills? On this course you will work on writing, enacting and recording short radio programmes about news items, arts, hobbies, and other areas of interest. By doing this, you will improve your communication skills including emphasising meaning, choosing the right words, speaking and writing concisely with the right tone and creating emotions. You will also focus on your pronunciation and fluency. You will work on how to edit and put together a programme. We hope we can distribute your programme to friendly listeners!



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Do you already have a good level of writing but wanting to take it up to a level suitiable for professional work? Are you wanting to develop your expressive skills in general? This course will help you improve your writing by focusing on meaning and how you can become a more skilful user of English, not concerned only with accuracy. You will work on how you can use grammar in different ways to say different things. You will expand your vocabulary so you can say more with fewer words. And you will work on how you can influence your reader.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here

Do you want to speak more easily and communicate in English without translating from your first language? Do you think too much about what to say or write? Would you like your English to be more automatic? This course will help you become more relaxed when you speak and write English so you can be confident you can express yourself in a way people understand and not be worried about making mistakes. You will develop your fluency in both speaking and writing but you will focus more on speaking.



You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).

This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here