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  1. General and Intensive Language Courses

    General and Intensive Language Courses

    Programs Guide



    General and Intensive language courses are a popular choice for language travel students who want to spend a little more time honing their skills in their language of choice.



    What is a General Language Course?


    General language courses have been designed to give you a broad knowledge of the language you’re studying, and will include the four main disciplines of language learning – reading, writing, speaking and listening.



    What is an Intensive Language Course?

    General language courses are usually studied in one of three ways – standard, intensive or one to one. The standard program is usually the most popular method of study and will involve joining a small class of students and attending a set number of lessons per week. As a guide, standard language courses would have in the region of 20 lessons per week, for a total of 15 hours per week.



    An intensive language course is basically the same as a standard one, but involves a greater number of hours/lessons per week than somebody on a general language course.



    A one to one language course is not studied in a class with other students; it is just you and the teacher. You can read more about these language courses on our One to One Language Courses page.



    The Structure of General and Intensive Language Courses

    General intensive language courses are available in most language schools. The course will teach students the four main elements of the language – reading, writing, speaking and listening, but where a Standard language course will involve up to 15 hours per week, an Intensive language course would often need as many as 21 hours per week. You may also find that certain language schools offer Super Intensive courses too. These are very in-depth and will be studied for up to 30 hours per week though sometimes more.



    What Will be Studied During the Extra Hours of a General and Intensive Language Course?

    The exact syllabus that you study will vary to some extent from language school to language school, but as a general guide the extra lessons might be focused on communication skills. So you may spend an extra two hours a day further developing your speaking and listening skills. This means an Intensive language course might be a good idea for someone who wants to boost their confidence in face to face communication.