Program Overview

An International Foundation Year at our International Study Centre prepares you for your degree at Lancaster University. You will focus on English language, university-level study skills, and academic modules that relate to your degree subject.

Supporting your progression to the University
At the International Study Centre, we take every measure to ensure you are supported in your academic journey. Our programmes allow for increased time spent learning, researching and developing your skills. By studying with us, you will benefit from:

• Formal assessments at the end of each term.
• An improved English language module, Academic English Skills, providing greater opportunity for informal assessments and feedback.
• Combining and reducing the number of module assessments allowing more time to prepare.
• A personal tutorial system with a focus on your academic progress at key points of the academic year, creating action plans based on your performance and progession options.

Law
The International Foundation Year in Law leads to a choice of degrees at Lancaster University Law School – one of the UK’s most respected law schools. To prepare for your degree, you will study core English language modules and subject modules for Law. Your degree options include Criminology, Law, and Law with Politics.

As a Law student the topics you will study include justice, ethics, democracy and political institutions. You will learn about important cases and the history of the law, and you will either study Globalisation or Core mathematics.

English Language in the Media (Placement Year)
Would you like to focus on how language is used in historical, contemporary, and emerging forms of media? This degree scheme will allow you to analyse how language is used in newspapers, on websites, blogs, and social media, and how language differs depending on both the medium and genre. .

You will begin your academic career with us on the core English Language module. How do you describe the English Language in terms of its grammatical and sound systems? How does it function in different contexts? How does language interact with society? As well as exploring these questions, you will explore newer and emerging fields such as conversation analysis, corporate communication, and corpus linguistics. You also take two other subjects to complement your major. English Language and Linguistics are popular choices, but you could select subjects from other related disciplines.

In the second year, you’ll move on to core subjects such as English Phonetics, The Language of Advertising and Understanding Media. You can also pick from modules such as Stylistics and Corporate communication.

As a final-year undergraduate, your options include Forensic Linguistics, Language and Identities and Language Change in English and Beyond. You’ll also write your dissertation, exploring a topic that you’re particularly interested in. This is overseen by a member of staff from our department who specialises in your particular area. Given the size of the department, our academics can supervise a very wide range of subjects covering most students’ special interests.

Your placement year
You will have the opportunity to spend Year 3 on a placement with a public, private or voluntary organisation in the UK or overseas.  This experience should boost your employment prospects and help you to decide on your career direction and the kind of organisation in which you want to work once you graduate. You will be doing a real, responsible job – with all the satisfaction that brings.

Applying for a placement is a competitive process and our Placements Team will support you in finding and applying for a suitable placement. The preparatory modules you will complete in years one and two are designed to give you the best chance of success in both your placement applications and the placement itself.

One of the aims of the placement year is to enhance your understanding of the connections between theory and practice which could benefit your final year of study. Placements provide an exciting opportunity to build up experience and transferable skills, as well as to make contacts with potential employers, which can place you a step ahead in the graduate recruitment market.

The University will use all reasonable effort to support you to find a suitable placement for your studies. While a placement role may not be available in a field or organisation that is directly related to your academic studies or career aspirations, all placement roles offer valuable experience of working at a graduate level and gaining a range of professional skills.

If you are unsuccessful in securing a suitable placement for your third year, you will be able to transfer to the equivalent non-placement degree scheme and would continue with your studies at Lancaster, finishing your degree after your third year. The University offers a range of shorter placement and internship opportunities for which you would be welcome to apply.