Overview
Our BA English Language and Literature (including foundation year) is open to Home and EU students. It will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills.
This four-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further three years of study. During your Year Zero, you study four academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module.
You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK.
After successful completion of Year Zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with the Department of Language and Linguistics. An understanding of our language enhances our self-awareness, inspiring us to address fundamental questions about our communication as human beings; and this is epitomised in literature.
Our course provides a sound foundation in linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of the structure and use of modern English, and offers you the chance to study a range of literary genres and approaches to literary criticism. This degree offers you the opportunity to explore a wide range of topics including:
- The structure and use of English language
- The relationship between language and society
- Literatures of the United States and the Caribbean
- English (and European) literature of the 15th-17th centuries
- Writing science fiction
We are a leading UK university for language and linguistics research (REF 2014), a place where talented students become part of an academic community in which the majority of research is rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. We’re also ranked in the top 250 for English Language and Literature in the QS World University Rankings by Subject (2021).
Our expert staff
We have some of the best teachers across the University in our Essex Pathways Department, all of whom have strong subject backgrounds and are highly skilled in their areas.
Our language and linguistics staff are internationally recognised for their language research (REF 2014). We maintain excellent student-staff ratios, and we integrate language learning with linguistics wherever there is synergy.
At Essex, we also have an impressive literary legacy. Our history comprises staff (and students) who have been Nobel Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, and Pulitzer Prize winners. Our academic staff specialise in a range of areas including modernism, comparative and world literature, Shakespeare, the Renaissance, travel writing, nature writing, translated literature, cultural geography, Irish and Scottish writing, U.S. and Caribbean literature, and the history of reading.
Specialist facilities
By studying within our Essex Pathways Department for your foundation year, you will have access to all of the facilities that the University of Essex has to offer, as well as those provided by our department to support you:
- We provide computer labs for internet research; classrooms with access to PowerPoint facilities for student presentations; AV facilities for teaching and access to web-based learning materials
- Our new Student Services Hub will support you and provide information for all your needs as a student
- Our social space is stocked with hot magazines and newspapers, and provides an informal setting to meet with your lecturers, tutors and friends
In our Department of Language and Linguistics and the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies you also have access to:
- Meet fellow readers at the student-run Literature Society or at the department’s Myth Reading Group
- Access the University’s Media Centre, equipped with state-of-the-art studios, cameras, audio and lighting equipment, and an industry-standard editing suite
- Write for our student magazine Albert or host a Red Radio show
- View classic films at weekly film screenings in our dedicated 120-seat film theatre
- Our on-Campus, 200-seat Lakeside Theatre has been established as a major venue for good drama, staging both productions by professional touring companies and a wealth of new work written, produced and directed by our own staff and students.
- Our ‘Visual World’ Experimental Lab records response times and eye movements when individuals are presented with pictures and videos
- Our Eye-Tracking Lab monitors eye movement of individuals performing tasks
- Our Psycholinguistics Lab measures how long it takes individuals to react to words, texts and sounds
- Our Linguistics Lab has specialist equipment to analyse sound
- Our Languages for All programme offers you the opportunity to study an additional language alongside your course at no extra cost
Your future
Studying language and literature allows you to develop your research and IT skills by collecting and analysing linguistic data using state-of-the-art technology, and a combination of team-work and independent projects enhances your communication, problem-solving, and management skills.
Our graduates have gone on to have careers in a wide variety of fields, including teaching (in the UK and abroad), journalism, branding, advertising, marketing, travel, communications, publishing, speech and occupational therapy, interpreting, translating and media.
For example, one of our department’s recent graduates is now an Assistant Editor at Scholastic, whilst another teaches English in South Korea. Other graduates have gone on to work for a wide range of high-profile companies including:
- Royal National Institute for the Blind
- Macmillan Publishers
- Cambridge University Press
- Decisive Media Ltd
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- HSBC
- British Telecom
We also work with the University’s Student Development Team to help you find out about further work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities.
Why we’re great
- Tailor your degree to suit your interests and career goals thanks to our wide range of optional modules.
- You are taught by lecturers who are internationally recognised for their language research.
- You join our diverse community of students from all corners of the globe – the world in one place.
Structure
Course structure
We offer a flexible course structure with a mixture of core/compulsory modules, and optional modules chosen from lists.
Our research-led teaching is continually evolving to address the latest challenges and breakthroughs in the field. The course content is therefore reviewed on an annual basis to ensure our courses remain up-to-date so modules listed are subject to change.
Teaching and learning disclaimer
Following the impact of the pandemic, we made changes to our teaching and assessment to ensure our current students could continue with their studies uninterrupted and safely. These changes included courses being taught through blended delivery, normally including some face-to-face teaching, online provision, or a combination of both across the year.
The teaching and assessment methods listed show what is currently approved for 2022 entry; changes may be necessary if, by the beginning of this course, we need to adapt the way we’re delivering them due to the external environment, and to allow you to continue to receive the best education possible safely and seamlessly.
Teaching
- Teaching is arranged to allow freedom in how you organise your learning experience
- Innovative ways of engaging with texts include editing 16th century sonnets and archival research
- Examples of practical work include digitally recording dialect speakers in a small traditional fishing community, or scouring digitised child language databanks
- Other teaching methods include lectures, demonstrations and learning by teaching others
Assessment
- You’re assessed through a combination of coursework (assignments, essays and tests) and end-of-year examinations.
- Weighted 50% coursework and 50% exams depending on which modules you choose.
- Other assessment methods include quizzes, presentations, portfolios, group work, and projects.
