Here you can find information about English language support for Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health students, the international profile of our students and links to more information.

You can also listen to a podcast of Spanish speaking students discussing their experience of life in Bristol, and watch a video testimonial of one of our Chinese students describing her experience with the academic language and literacy course.

Language support for international students

As part of the Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health programme, students whose first language is not English are offered an academic language and literacy course. This course offers students the chance to develop their academic English skills and contributes to the future career prospects of students by enabling them to master ‘public health English’ (drafting public health documents in English). The course is run by the University of Bristol Centre for Academic Language and Development and has been designed to accelerate the adaptation process by:

• building on students’ existing knowledge of academic English,
• developing students’ understanding of the expectations of their MSc programme,
• practising strategies to improve students’ performance.

This eight-week long course provides students with support in the following areas of their studies:

• Writing: answering the question, critical thinking skills, writing introductions, linking ideas and providing support for your ideas, effective conclusions.
• Speaking: contributing in seminar discussions, building on others' ideas, providing support for your own ideas.
• Reading: saving time, organising your ideas, effective note-taking skills, synthesising ideas from a range of sources.
• Listening: effective note-taking strategies, identifying main points, predicting lecture content.
• Academic grammar and vocabulary for MSc in Nutrition, Physical Activity and Public Health students.
• Academic style: achieving the right level of formality and appropriate expression in your writing.
• Critical thinking skills in your reading, writing and speaking.

Each session will look at criteria, past student essays and tutor feedback in order to help each student develop as a member of their new academic community.

More information

Find out more information about being an international student at Bristol, including advice about visas and accommodation. 

Experiences of two Spanish speaking students

In this interview, Dr David Sweeting discusses life in Bristol with two Spanish speaking students. Spanish interview transcript (PDF, 103kB) in (English).

Experience of a Chinese speaking student

In this testimonial, one of our MSc students describes her experience with the academic language and literacy course.

International profile of students

We have welcomed students from all over the world to study our MSc. In the academic years 2013/14 and 2014/15, we had students from the following countries:

• UK
• China
• Mexico
• Equador
• Greece
• Canada
• India
• Italy
• South Korea
• Malaysia
• Nigeria
• Poland
• Romania
• Spain
• USA
• Kuwait
• Argentina
• Chile.