Short Courses

5-week Practical Academic Development (PAD) Course for International Students

Are you an international student or studying with English as an additional language?

This free 5-week course will help you develop a range of academic skills for success.

You'll learn to:

Maximise your academic reading time
Improve your active listening skills
Develop personalised note-taking techniques
Structure well developed paragraphs
Understand why referencing is necessary

When: Thursdays, 14:00 – 16:00 (starting Thursday 8 October 2026)

Click here to book your place on week 1.

5-week Practical Academic Speaking (PAS) Course for International Students

Want to feel more confident speaking at university?

Join this 5-week course, designed for international students who want to communicate with greater confidence in seminars, group work, discussions, debates and presentations.

When: Wednesdays, 14:00 - 16:00 (starting Wednesday 4 November 2026)

Click here to book your place on week 1.

6-week Academic Writing Course

The course will run once in each of the three terms. There will be three groups each term: two online and one in person.

In Term 1, the course will start in Week 5 (w/c 12 October 2026)

You can attend the course either in person or online via Teams. Here are the available times and dates. Choose your group and click on the link to book your place.

What will you learn?

Session 1: What is Academic Writing For? Purpose and Communication
Session 2: How Do I Even Start? Planning and the Blank Page
Session 3: How Do I Organise it? Structure and Paragraphs
Session 4: Are My Ideas Clear? Sentences and Flow
Session 5: How Do I Make it Sound More ‘Academic’? Word Choice and Style
Session 6: Have I Actually Said What I Mean? Revising and Editing

10-week Basic Algebra Refresher Course

A 10-week online course covering the following fundamental algebra topics:

Week 1 - Simplifying Expressions
Week 2 - Expanding Brackets
Week 3 - Factorisation
Week 4 - Algebraic Fractions
Week 5 - Formulae (Rearranging and Substitution)
Week 6 - Linear Equations
Week 7 - Simultaneous Equations
Week 8 - The Quadratic Formula
Week 9 - Functions
Week 10 - Straight Line Equations

There are two courses running in trimester 1:

Group 1 will begin on Wednesday 23 September from 13:00-14:30. The course will run for ten consecutive weeks.
Group 2 will begin on Friday 25 September from 10:00-11:30. The course will run for ten consecutive weeks.

You can find out if this course is suitable for you by completing the algebra self-assessment.

For further info, please contact library-numeracysupport@salford.ac.uk

6-week Deaf Awareness Course

This course is a series of 6 workshops covering the following deaf awareness topics. The course begins on Tuesday 22 September, 10.00 - 12.00 and will run for 6 consecutive weeks.

Attendance at all 6 sessions is expected but not essential. Click on the links below to book.