Madelein and Ewan are students in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE), Rob is doing an Arts degree in HASS, and Phyl is doing a Business degree. Madelein and Phyl came direct from high school; Ewan had been working and doing some study by correspondence before starting at ADFA, and Rob came here after a year in Navy.

Rob and Phyl were invited to participate in a Teaching and Learning Forum in 2007, and the clips below come from their presentations at that forum.

Click on the photos to see what they have to say about the ALL Unit.

(To view these videos you need Quicktime Player 7 - downloadable from here.)       Phyl (0' 55") Madelein (2' 19")       Ewan (3' 31") Rob (1' 06")

- about ALL Individual Consultations:

"I learned a lot, especially how to structure and subsequently write an essay or assignment that meets the requirements."

"It helped me very much to tackle my assignments."

"A single session with an ALL lecturer brought out major flaws in the presentation style, content and delivery of my presentation. The consultation was most helpful in enabling me to deliver a presentation simple enough for a layman to understand, interspersed with humorous anecdotes, which conveyed in ten minutes what the research is about, how it is being done, and why the research is so important.
     The transformation in my presentation from just one hour of consultation has also convinced me of the necessity of enrolling in the courses and workshops offered by the Academic Language and Learning Unit.  They are guaranteed to enhance individual skills both in writing and speaking and possibly in listening and reading as well."

Postgraduate Student - Winner of Research Day: Humanities Presentation Prize 2005

- about ALL Courses:

Critical Reading Development

Evaluations by first year cadets:

"I found the critical reading development course invaluable and comforting to know that I’m on the right track."

"It has helped me to become more analytical in my reading and to sort the nonsense from the required information."

"I was helped individually and it improved my marks considerably in my assessments."

Academic Discourse 1: Analysis and Writing

Evaluations by postgraduate international coursework students: 

"One of the best decisions I have made in Australia was to take this course."

"In this course, I believe my academic writing has improved a great deal.  The course has also introduced me to the world of critical thinking.  In my previous learning experiences, academic learning was about memorizing and reciting bodies of knowledge.  In this course, my learning level moved a step forward with thinking critically and not just readily accepting things as they are stated." 

" recommend this course for every international student; actually, it should be one of the compulsory courses for all of us.  If there were two courses, I would surely take both of them!"