Classes at the AEC

In your classes, you will meet other international students who are working to improve their English language skills. You will also interact with American teachers and students to learn about American customs and culture. You will practice speaking in small groups, read books and articles, and write short essays and papers. You will master new strategies to learn English and to improve your pronunciation.

The Applied English Center offers five levels of instruction (beginning through advanced) in the following areas:

  • Speaking and Listening for Academic Purposes

    Course Objective: To increase accuracy of pronunciation, to develop spoken fluency, to expand everyday everyday and content-specific vocabulary, and to improve listening comprehension.

  • Grammar for Communication

    Course Objective: To increase grammatical accuracy to allow better expression in both spoken and written English.

  • Reading and Writing for Academic Purposes

    Course Objective: To improve academic reading and writing skills, by refining core academic skills, such as note-taking, paraphrasing, summarizing, and integrating ideas from several sources.

At the advanced levels, students may earn undergraduate credit for Applied English Center courses. Courses listed as ESLP (advanced courses) are credit courses. You earn credit if you get a grade of A, B, or C in the course. KU currently accepts credit in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the School of Architecture and the School of Business. You may transfer up to 9 credits to those schools.

Passing Classes

Your class grades will be based on your attendance, your in-class performance, your homework performance, and your progress in the area taught in each particular class as measured by the AEC English Proficiency Test. You should ask each of your instructors for the specific grading system for your class. AEC level 1 - 3 course grades of (A, B, C, D, F) are official university grades and will appear on your KU transcript and may influence your acceptance to other programs at the university or to other colleges or universities. They do not count towards any degree offered by the KU and are not calculated in your KU grade point average.

Credit hours for ESLP courses (level 4 and above) do count toward undergraduate degrees in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of Architecture, and the School of Business. Instructors assign letter grades for ESLP courses, but your official university grades for these courses will be credit or no-credit. To receive a grade of credit for one of these courses you must earn at least a grade of A, B, or C in the class.