Center for Applied Studies in English (ASEC)

Center for Applied Studies in English (ASEC)

Are you bilingual? Do you know more than one language? It might sound hard to learn second, third and more languages. Well, it kind of is. There are lots of way could be helpful for you. Southern Nazarene University has one great program where people around the world can master the English language. The name of this program is ASEC.

So, what is ASEC? ASEC stands for Center for Applied Studies in English. This program is a great opportunity for international students to master the English language and continue their education in any English-speaking universities. The Center for Applied Studies in English was started in 2008 here at SNU.

The program is consists of modules. Each module is 8 weeks and consists of 30 hours per week. Next, the ASEC program set up 7 levels of study, from 0 level to level 6, which would allow them to master English language. All students have to take an entering test as well as a test in the end of the study. However, it the same test. The reason the ASEC program uses the same test in the beginning is to determine the level of the each student and place him or her in the program. For instance, this test consists of speaking, listening, grammar and writing skills. Interestingly and helpfully, at least it is supposed to be in this way, each student has to live with an American student/roommate on SNU campus. The ASEC program provides a student as a mentor to their students who are currently in the program. I have been in ASEC for about a year, and I had to spend at least 10 hours per week with my mentor. It was easy to accomplish because my mentor was one of my best friends.

“It was an awesome opportunity to learn English language in such a fast manner in the culture for me,” said Karina Kotova, a junior at SNU.

If you have any foreign friends who want to learn English from scratch or just improve a weak part, for instance grammar, you can advise them to do the ASEC program. In this case, you spend time with your friends while they learn English. In other words, this would be a wonderful opportunity for them to learn another language and experience another culture.

ASEC has 7 teachers who currently work for 5 hours a day and 2 teachers who work part-time. Currently, 30 students from around the globe are students at ASEC. There are students from Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Bahrain and Kuwait who are mastering English at the moment. Their daily schedule looks as follows: classes start at 8:30 a.m. and finish 4:00 p.m. every day except Fridays. Nice thing about this program is that Fridays are an off day and students have three-day-weekends. Classes include vocabulary, reading, writing, grammar, elective classes, intensive reading class and Rosetta Stone for levels 0 and 1 only. However, elective classes could be ESL for math, biology, history and cultural classes. Basically, students study the terminology that they would need further down the road in their education.

“ASEC gets no money from school and all the requiring money comes from students tuition,” said director of ASEC Dayna Ford. The approximate cost to do ASEC is $3,000 per module. Also, you might question how ASEC recruits their students. The answer is that Dayna Ford, who is a director of ASEC, and other staff sometimes travel to other countries. Also, they stay in touch with recruiters from other countries, going to different conferences, and current or graduate ASEC students bring their friends to ASEC.

[author image=”http://echo.snu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Echo-headshot.jpg” ]Marina Shipliova, Staff Contributor
Marina is from Russia. She has been playing tennis for 15 years. She loves sports, hiking, swimming, jumping, skiing and etc. She studying is cultural and communication studies.  She describes herself as a super senior. [/author]