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.

Social Studies
The International Foundation Year in Social Studies leads to a choice of undergraduate degrees in the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies and the Faculty of Science and Technology. To prepare for your degree, you will study core English language modules and subject modules. Degree options include Philosophy, Sociology, and Film.

You will learn about global issues and contemporary events, including business, culture, politics and environment. Other areas of study include advertising, social media, psychology, and theories that relate to media and modern society.

English Language in the Media
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 third-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.