Australia Launches Cambridge Academic English

Co-author Craig Thaine introduces Australia to Cambridge Academic English – taking English language learners all the way to University.

Cambridge Academic English develops the real academic skills needed at university, by providing video recordings of authentic lectures, and offering up-to-date, relevant language, using the Cambridge Academic Corpus.

The corpus is a vast collection of written and spoken English texts, which can be searched to find out how English is really used. Cambridge has the largest Academic English Corpus in the world – 400m words and collection is ongoing
Cambridge Academic English also encourages the essential skill of independent learning and working in groups through 'Study tips' and allows learners to personalise their learning through 'Focus on your subject' sections, developing the critical thinking skills which will help learners to excel in their academic study.

Author Craig, based in New Zealand, launched the course at the 16th annual National English Accreditation Scheme (NEAS) conference for Directors of Studies, which looks at the issues typically facing ELT managers, provides training, creates an opportunity for networking, and seeks to bring an awareness of broader issues and trends in ELT.

The theme of the conference ‘Managing in Difficult Times’ does sum up the current environment of declining student numbers and concern for the future of the 'English as a Second Language' industry in Australia. However there was a level of cautious optimism, as the stakeholders bonded together to call on the government to assist in bringing students back to what they were only a couple of years ago: one of Australia’s highest revenue earning market sectors.

This was the first major conference in Australia where we exhibited jointly under the Cambridge English brand with our 3 colleagues from Cambridge ESOL, who share our Sydney office. In addition to enhancing our brand and educating the market on this new development, it was a good opportunity to work together too!

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