General English Course at Scots: Committed to Highest Quality of Outcomes

Scots English College is committed to the highest quality of educational outcomes and the provision of quality student services evident through the delivery of its range of ELICOS courses to international students. Among them is General English course.

Located right in the heart of Sydney CBD, Scots English College is committed to the highest quality of educational outcomes and the provision of quality student services evident through the delivery of its range of ELICOS courses to international students. Among them is General English course.

CRICOS Course Code: 093611C

Levels: Starter to Advanced 

Duration: 10 weeks per level; Full time: 20 hours per week 

The General English (GE) course consists of 6 levels.

Level 1 :	Starter
Level 2:	Elementary (10 weeks)
Level 3:	Pre-intermediate (10 weeks)
Level 4:	Intermediate (10 weeks)
Level 5:	Upper-Intermediate (10 weeks)
Level 6:	Advanced (10 weeks)

All levels require 20 hours face-to-face study per week. It is recommended that students should also complete homework and self-study activities of at least 10-15 hours per week in addition to the scheduled 20 hours course hours. 

The purpose of this course is to assist students with a wide range of language learning needs to improve their English language proficiency level across all four macro-skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing). This General English course is particularly useful for two main categories of learners: 

• Learners with non-specific aims, such as “to improve my English”, “because English is useful”, “to help me meet people from other countries”, “because English might be useful in a job” or due to an interest in the language and culture of Australia. 

• Learners with more specific aims, such as to study English for Academic Purposes (EAP) before going to university, or to prepare for external exams, but these students have not yet reached the English language proficiency level necessary for the more specialised English course. For these students, the GE course aims to help them reach a general, non-specialist level of English sufficient to begin a course in academic English. 

Students at lower levels also take part in weekly skills development electives to improve their areas of weakness in either reading and writing or speaking and listening, while students at higher levels may choose special interest focus electives in areas such as Test Preparation, Grammar and Writing, Business English, Australian Studies in Culture and Sport, English for Health Fitness and Wellbeing.

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Australia Opens First Free Supermarket for Anyone in Need

Image via Digital Majority

Australia’s first free supermarket was opened by OzHarvest in Sydney last 27 April. This is great for whoever needs it!

The OzHarvest Market offers a range of products from fresh fruit and vegetable, fresh bread and pastries, health snacks, ready-made meals, dried and packaged goods such as rice and pasta to toiletries and home products. It indeed operates like a normal supermarket; however, there’s a donation box in exchange for a cash register. Anyone can come and take what they need, and give back if they can.

All of the supermarket goods have been donated by other major supermarkets, cafés, airlines and businesses in Sydney.

Located at 147 Anzac Parade in Kensington, the OzHarvest supermarket is open weekdays from 10 am to 2 pm.

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Six Parks in Australia Honoured among the World's Best

Do you know six parks in Australia have been placed among the world’s best? Two of Sydney’s favourite parks have been named in the list.

We know that many Australian parks are top notch, but it seems that world’s park lovers have noticed how great they are too. Six parks in the country have been recognised among the world’s best parks, receiving the international Green Flag Award this year.

Green Flag Award and its criteria

Launched in 1966, the Green Flag Award scheme is managed from the United Kingdom by Keep Britain Tidy, an independent environmental charity. The award is given out by green space experts who assess parks around the world across eight criteria, including horticultural standards, cleanliness, sustainability, community involvement and providing a warm welcome.

Six Australian parks awarded

Centennial Park  (via Pixabay)

Six parks in Australia have been recognised by the Green Flag Award scheme. They are Centennial Park and Sydney Park (Sydney), Roma Street Parkland and South Bank Parklands (Brisbane) and Royal Park and Fitzroy Gardens (Melbourne).

Located in the inner-Sydney suburb of St Peter’s, Sydney Park has been upgraded in the past few years, including a playground, a kiosk and amenities buildings, and the city’s largest piece of stormwater harvesting infrastructure. 

Centennial Park is located in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. It is one of Australia’s most famous park and is listed on the New South Wales Heritage Register. The park features gardens, ponds, grand avenues, statues, historic buildings and sporting fields.

Feel like exploring Sydney? Check out our favourite things to do in this city.

As the largest in Melbourne, Royal Park features a diverse landscape with wetlands and grasslands. Green Flag judges described its Nature Play playground as “a well thought out and maintained facility”. 

Fitzroy Gardens has been praised by the Green Flag judges for the way it has been well maintained while experiencing a high number of visitors. The gardens got a $13.9 million makeover in 2015, including a new visitor center, a cafe, a garden area and a underground stormwater tank.

Roma Street Parkland in Brisbane was designed by PARC (a consortium including Gillespies Australia, AECOM, DEM Design and Citvitas Urban Design). The park was praised by landscape architecture academic Catherin Bull for the way the “design challenged and extended, for the first time, the local tradition of exotic display planting, incorporating plants not only from the world’s subtropics but from many of Queensland’s forgotten or ignored ecosystems.”

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Enjoy Top 20 Australian Songs (with Huge Impact on the World)

Australian music has had an enormous impact on the world. Their top-notch musicians, composers, bands and songwriters have made the world's many greatest hits. Enjoy these top Australian songs, and many of them may become your all-time favourite songs.

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Sounds Australia (Australia's music export platform) has supported over 700 Australian music artists at more than 50 different international events in 50+ cities across 20 countries, resulting in over 1200 unique international performance opportunities for artists in this country since 2009.

Australian music artists have hit great heights internationally include Sia (with '1000 Forms of Fear', 'Cheap Thrills', etc.; writing or co-writing global hits for Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, David Guetta and Flo-Rida); James Gabriel Keogh (better known as Vance Joy) (with song 'Riptide', etc.); Courtney Barnett (nominated for International Female Solo Artist at the 2016 Brit Awards and for Best New Artist at the 2016 Grammy Awards); Flume (producer and DJ who has released two internationally successful albums); Tame Impala (won a Brit Award and have been nominated for Grammy Awards for both of their albums. Their latest album 'Currents' has got big success, too); Sheppard (with 'Geronimo', etc.). 

Let's enjoy top 20 Australian songs. Many of them may become your all-time favourite songs.

1. Chandelier - Sia

2. Sound of Silence - Dami Im

3. Riptide - Vance Joy

4. Pedestrian at Best - Courtney Barnett

5. Holdin On - Flume

6. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards - Tame Impala

7. Geronimo - Sheppard

8. Girls Talk Boys (from the "Ghostbusters" Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) - 5 Seconds of Summer

9. Never Tear Us Apart - INXS

10. Down under - Men At Work

11. Flame Trees - Cold Chisel

12. You're the Voice - John Farnham

13. Can't Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie Minogue 

14. Into My Arms - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

15. Better Be Home Soon - Crowded House

16. Thunderstruck - AC/DC

17. Treaty - Yothu Yindi 

18. Friday On My Mind - The Easybeats

19. (I'm) Stranded - The Saints

20. Under The Milky Way - The Church

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10 Ways that Can Remarkably Improve Your Ability to Remember Words

These memorization techniques can remarkably improve your ability to remember words, making learning vocabulary much easier.

As an ESL learner, you have to learn lots of new words, or vocabulary as teachers call it. These are Scots’ suggestions on how to maximum your effectiveness, minimize your time and make English word learning easier.

1. You can improve your ability to remember words by connecting to what you already know. Our minds carry a large amount of information. By relating new information to familiar material, you can remember new information better.

2. After learning something new, it’s better to review within the first 15 minutes. According to studies, students have much greater retention of learned information if they review briefly right after.

3. Read the words, phrases and sentences out loud, rather than silently in your head. This way, you can get the feel for the vocabulary on your tongue and find them more familiar in later uses. And what better way to do this than to communicate with your friends, classmates and teachers? At Scots, we encourage ‘English Only on Campus’ that reinforces English learning in a safe and proactive manner so that students can learn to speak English and think in English. 

4. Aside from reading words out loud, writing them down is another great tool. Writing allows you to use motor memory (hand-eye memory) for recall; otherwise, you can quickly forget the words. Also, rather than writing one word many times before moving on to the next one, write each word once or twice and then go through the whole list again. Continue until you have got the required number of repetitions. This way will help you memorise words and make them stick in your long-term memory.

5. Narrow reading/ narrow listening is also an effective way for students to improve English vocabulary by enabling them to see new vocabulary repeatedly in various contexts. For example, choose a topic, and then listen to a podcast on that topic, watch English lessons about it, watch a film on it, watch a documentary, read in a book about it, read about it on Wikipedia. By so doing, you are getting the repetition of the words, phrases and also the sentence structure in different ways, in natural ways and in ways that are going to help you use the vocabulary flexibly and it’s going to stay firmly in your memory, too.

Continue reading: How to Memorise Vocabulary Easily, Quickly & Effectively | Scots English College

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[Infographic] - Why Choose Scots for Your English Language Course?

While there are many ELICOS course providers for international students in Australia, what make Scots English College (Scots) one of your best choices?

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21 Best Free Things to Do This Winter in Sydney 2017

There’s heaps to see and do in Sydney in winter.

Discover awesome and free activities in Sydney this winter. You’ll love every second of it!

1. Hike to waterfalls

Hiking is evidently good for our health and mind. And close to Sydney, mountains, caves, waterfalls and coastline are just a train or bus ride from the CBD.

Some spectacular waterfalls near Sydney are Fitzroy Falls, Belmore Falls (Morton National Park), Carrington Falls, Minnamurra Falls (Budderoo National Park), Wentworth Falls, Katoomba Falls, Govetts Leap Falls, Minnehaha Falls (Blue Mountains National Park), Kanangra Falls, Kanangra Falls (Kanangra-Boyd National Park).

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2. Mountain walks

Some of the best mountain walks near Sydney are Mount Banks, Mount Solitary (Blue Mountains), Careys Peak, Pieries Peak (Barrington Tops National Park), The Castle, Pigeon House Mountain (The Budawangs), Burning Mountain (Scone), Donkey Mountain (Wolgan Valley).

3. Explore caves near Sydney

Some caves near Sydney include Pindar Cave (Brisbane Waters) (for open space or a party), Gooches Crater (Wollangambe) (for wilderness), Dadder Cave (Lower Blue Mountains) (for river views), Psyn Cave (near Katoomba) (for car camping), 100 Man Cave (Kanangra Boyd National Park) (for something very old) and Little Cave (Nielsen Park) (for city views).

4. Coastal walks 

Students at Scots English took a nice walk on Manly.

Some of the best coastal walks in Sydney are Taronga Zoo to Chowder Bay walk for Harbour views, Chinamans Beach to Balmoral Beach for yacht watching, North Head for a coastal bushwalk, Manly to Spit Bridge scenic walk, Middle Head for panoramic views, Cockatoo Island for historic sights and Bondi to Coogee for a true sense of Sydney’s coastal beauty.

5. Walk across the Sydney Habour Bridge

Walk across the Bridge for free and have a bird’s eye view. Start from The Rocks at the Southern end and gently stroll across the Bridge to Milsons Point at the Northern end. You can choose to either walk back or take a train from Milsons Point Station to Circular Quay Station.

6. Travel back in time at Sydney’s Lighthouses

Vist lighthouses to travel back in time, have dazzling views, visit beautiful beaches and perhaps even spend the night in an original light keeper’s cottage. Some lighthouses to choose from are Norah Head Lighthouse (Central Coast), Barrenjoey Lighthouse (Palm Beach), Fort Denison (Sydney Harbour), Grotto Point Lighthouse (Middle Harbour), Hornby Lighthouse (South Head), Point Perpendicular Lighthouse (Jervis Bay), Cape Bailey Light (Botany Bay) and Flagstaff Hill Lighthouse (Wollongong).

7. Whale watching

Image via Fishing Charters Base

The New South Wales (NSW) coast is one of the world’s best spots to catch these majestic sea creatures in action. Put on hiking shoes, bring your binoculars, some snacks and picnic blankets, and head to these places for whale watching: Caves Beach Coastal Walk (Lake Macquarie), Pat Morton Lookout (Lennox Head), Sawtell Headlands (Coffs Harbour), Muttonbird Island (Coffs Harbour), Nambucca Heads, Gerrin Point Lookout (Bouddi National Park), Broken Head Nature Reserve (North Coast), Cape Byron Lighthouse (Byron Bay), Nobbys Headland (Newcastle) and Barrenjoey Lighthouse Headland (Palm Beach).

8. Borrow a dog

Australian Dogshare service helps connect dog owners with dog loving people (dog borowers). The borrowers will act as a pup sitter.

9. Take a long bike ride

One of best ways to warm yourself up in this winter is taking bike rides through expansive parks, around calming lagoons and alongside staggering beaches. Some dedicated and serene bike routes in Sydney are Centennial Park (for trees), Olympic Park (for art and shipwrecks), the Bay Run (Iron Cove) (for waterfront), Parramatta Heritage Trail (for history), Narrabeen Lagoon (for black swan and owls), Cooks River (for tranquility), Prospect Reservoir and Orphan School Creek (for views), Lady Carrington Drive (Royal National Park) (for lyrebirds and echidnas), Ettalong To Umina (for beaches)and Narrow Neck (Katoomba) (for wilderness).

10. Visit Government House

Located in the Domain and overlooking the Royal Botanic Gardens, Government House is the most sophisticated example of Gothic Revival architecture in NSW. It is open Friday – Sunday from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm and on NSW public holidays.

Read more at:

21 Awesome and Free Things to Do in Sydney during Winter | Scots English College

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