General English Courses from HELC

General English

Our General English courses are designed for motivated adult learners. Lessons emphasise practical communication, especially speaking and listening.

Morning classes include essential grammar work with spoken practice, and work to increase your vocabulary and improve your listening and reading skills. Consolidation work is offered every day for homework.

We have much smaller maximum class sizes than most schools. This means you have more opportunity to practise and improve your English and receive more personal attention from your teacher.

While you are at HELC we aim to increase your enthusiasm for learning English and to give you the necessary skills to help you continue with your English when you return home.

General English Intensive

Most students choose our full-time Intensive course which has lessons every morning and on four afternoons per week (view timetable).

The emphasis of all afternoon classes is on activating your English and providing you with maximum opportunities to practise your speaking. In addition a typical class includes vocabulary development, pronunciation practice and the everyday English you will need during your stay in England. If your level of English is at intermediate level or above you will also practise essential work- related activities such as telephoning and email writing, and current affairs work using radio and television news, newspaper and magazines. If your speaking skills are at a different level from your grammar skills we will place you in the most suitable class for your level of speaking. Intensive students also join the HELC options programme. 

HELC Options Programme

A General English Intensive course includes two 50 minute optional lessons each week. These options take place on Tuesday and Thursday and usually run in 1 or 2 week modules. For these lessons you can choose from pronunciation, grammar or supervised self-study. During the busy summer months we add other options and you can see other examples of options in the list on the right. Your class teacher will help you choose the most suitable  options.

Please note that some options are run as workshops and usual HELC maximum class sizes do not apply.

General English Standard

We offer a Standard General English course if you want to study for only half the day or if you are a complete beginner in English. A Standard course consists of 20 lessons (15 hours) per week (view timetable).