By the tiswa editorial team, from the official sources listed at the end of this guide. How we write our guides
Learning English for university is not the same as learning it for chat or travel. In the preparatory year and in majors taught in English, such as medicine, engineering and computing, you need four skills in particular: following a lecture, reading textbooks and sources, writing a report or a formal email, and memorising the terms of your major. This guide focuses on those four.
What exactly do you need?
| Skill | Where you need it | How to practise |
|---|---|---|
| Listening | Lectures and teaching videos | A short lecture or video daily with English captions, then without |
| Reading | Textbooks, sources and slides | One page of your course textbook a day with a dictionary |
| Writing | Reports, assignments and emails | A short paragraph a day, checked with a correction tool |
| Terminology | Every course | Anki flashcards for each course |
A 30-minute daily plan
- 10 minutes of terms
Clear today's cards in Anki and add 5 new terms from today's lecture. Put the word, its pronunciation and a sentence from the textbook on each card.
- 10 minutes of listening or reading
Alternate days. Listen to a lesson from BBC Learning English or read a page of your course book.
- 5 minutes of writing
Write 4 or 5 sentences summarising what you read or heard, in your own words.
- 5 minutes of correction
Check the paragraph with a tool like Grammarly or an AI assistant, and note the mistake you repeated most so you watch for it tomorrow.
How to follow a lecture in English
- Before the lecture
Open the slides a day early, highlight the words you do not know and look them up. When the lecturer says them, you will know them.
- In the lecture
Do not write every word. Write key words, numbers and examples, and put a question mark next to anything you missed.
- Right after
Within an hour, fill in your notes from the slides and turn new terms into Anki cards.
- If it is recorded
Play it slower with English captions and go back only to the parts marked with a question mark.
- Ask
Ask the lecturer in office hours or by email. Lecturers value a student who asks in English, even in a simple sentence.
In the preparatory year especially, do not wait for the English course to teach you everything. Science and maths taught in English are your biggest practice, so use them.
Free sources
- British Council LearnEnglish: grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading lessons sorted by level.
- BBC Learning English: short video and audio lessons on pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
- Doroob: courses and live sessions in its languages field, with no registration fee for Saudi citizens. Details in free courses with certificates.
- Your own course books: the best source for the terms you will be tested on.
Practise speaking and writing with AI
An AI assistant can be a patient conversation partner that corrects you without embarrassment. Try this with Gemini or ChatGPT:
Act as my English tutor. I am a first-year [major] student at a Saudi university and my level is [beginner or intermediate]. Ask me one question at a time about [today's lecture topic], using words from my field. After each answer, show my sentence corrected, explain my biggest mistake in one short line, then ask the next question. Keep your English simple.
For formal emails, write the email yourself first, then ask only for corrections:
This is an email I wrote to my professor about [the topic]: [paste email]. Correct the grammar and make the tone polite and formal, but keep my meaning and keep it short. Then list the three changes you made and why, so I can learn from them.
STEP or IELTS?
The STEP English proficiency test is run by the National Center for Assessment (Qiyas) under the Education and Training Evaluation Commission. Some Saudi universities ask for it for admission or to exempt you from preparatory year levels, and some scholarship and postgraduate programmes accept it, so check the rules of your university or programme.
IELTS comes in two types. IELTS Academic assesses whether you are ready to study in English, uses academic vocabulary and is usually the one you need to study in an English-speaking country. IELTS General Training is for migration, or for training and study below degree level. Listening and Speaking are the same in both, while Reading and Writing differ.
- Studying at a Saudi university and need admission or an exemption: usually STEP, depending on your university's rules.
- Planning a scholarship or a master's abroad: usually IELTS Academic or the test that university asks for.
- Start preparing at least two months before the test date, with the daily plan above and practice tests from official sources.
Tools that help
Browser extensions for translation and correction are in Chrome extensions for students, and memorising and revision apps are in study apps for students.
Start with the words of your major
The fastest way to feel progress is to learn the vocabulary of your major before general English. Medical students meet body systems in week one, engineers meet physics and maths terms, and business students meet accounting and marketing terms. These words come up in every lecture and exam, so learning them pays off faster than any grammar book.
- Collect words from the source
After each lecture, write down the new words from the slides themselves, not from a ready-made list online. Those are the words your exam will use.
- Copy the sentence, not just the translation
Write down the sentence the word appeared in. Meaning sticks better when you see the word in context.
- Turn them into flashcards
Add them to Anki or any flashcard app and review for five minutes a day. Our study apps guide helps you pick one.
- Use one in a question
In the next lecture, ask the professor a question that uses one of your words. Speaking in front of people is the hardest step and the one that fixes a word fastest.
How do you know you are improving?
- You follow a lecture the first time without going back to the recording.
- You read a whole slide and reach for the translator for only one or two words.
- You write an email to your professor in English in minutes, without copying a template.
- You answer in class with a full sentence, even if it has small mistakes.
Note these signs at the start of term and again at mid-term, and you will see progress you did not notice day to day. For a full study plan for the subjects themselves, see how to study effectively.
Mistakes that slow you down
- Memorising general word lists instead of the terms of your major.
- Translating every word on the page. Read the whole paragraph first and translate only the words that block the idea.
- Being afraid to speak. Practise with an AI assistant or a classmate before you speak up in a lecture.
- Preparing for STEP or IELTS in the last week.
