hi,i am interested for abroad studies. My english is not powerful,so what should i do before joining for ielts ,should i go for english speaking course?but i don't have that much time so please tell me the sites name for improving english,and other methods of improving my english.As i want to go for further studies so anybody please tell me the procedure for that,and when to apply in university.it would be better if someone already studing abroad also answers my question.and i also want to know the difficulty that arises in visa procedures.thanks<br />

G'day,

Unfortunately you did not specify which country you come from, what do you want to study and when do you want to come to Australia. I was an international student in Australia from south-east Asia and I will try to give you info as much as I can.

In regards to improving your English, most of the time it is quite hard to improve alot in a short time while staying in your home country. The main reason is that you will only talk, hear, read and write English for only abt 25hrs a week, assuming you do 5hrs/day intensive English class. The other 143hrs in a week you will still talk, hear, read &amp; write in your own language. If you come to Australia to study English, you will then exposed to 24hrs 7days English. In most cases, unless you got lots of friends from your home country in the English class in Australia, you can improve your English pretty quick.

As I assume that you have visited the other answerer's weblink abt IELTS practice test online, you can see that IELTS is not only for speaking, but also for reading, listening and writing. In some courses, it is crucial to have good scores on the individuals, as well as overall scores. So it will be a waste of your time and money if you join the English conversation classes thinking that it will improve your chance in scoring high IELTS results.

Now when do you want to start studying in Australia? You mentioned that you dun have much time, which I assume that you are looking at February 2008 intake. There are 2 main factors that will determine whether or not you can achieve this:
1. Whether or not your English proficiency is too low and you will need to take longer English course before coming to your degree course. If you have to take (for example) 15weeks English class, you will not be able to start in Feb 2008. You may want to start targeting to July 2008 intake, provided the course you are interested to study offered in that intake.
2. Your home country. Some countries takes abt 2-3mnths to process Australian student visa. You may want to visit the Australian Embassy/High Commissions closest to where you live to find out abt the processing duration and what sort of docs required. This will give you a fair chance of estimating when can you actually start your degree course.

Now... after all the lengthy explanations abt visa &amp; English class, we forgot the MOST important thing of all... your degree course. No point of fussing abt English class or visa, if you have not got the offer from the Australian University!

To be eligible for a postgraduate course in Australia, you will need to have the degree that deemed as equivalent to Australian Bachelor Degree. You will need to fill in the application form for international student and send them together with the certified copy of all of your academic transcripts. If they cannot accept you for the postgraduate course, they may offer you a place in their Bachelor degree course with credit transfer, so you do not have to study from year 1 again.

There are only 42 (soon to be 43) universities in Australia, all of them are fully accredited and they are tightly regulated, therefore the quality and recognition of their graduates are equal from wherever university you are studying from. The most important thing is you have to READ the course information carefully, since some courses may have the same name but different content.

I suggest you to go to Dept of Education, Science and Technology (http://cricos.dest.gov.au) and IDP Education Australia website (www.idp.edu.au) online database. The information abt fees &amp; requirements can be found in the university's website. Please make sure that you access the information for internationals students, since some requirements, application form and fees are different than Australians'.

Upon receiving your IELTS results (if it's already available), the university can also assess the duration that you need to study in the English class before starting the postgraduate course and gives you the offer for the English course in their uni to make it easier for you to continue from your English course to the uni.

So with many options for your to choose, this is my suggestion to narrow down your choice:
1. Choose the city you want to study in. The consideration maybe the lifestyle, living cost and weather.
2. Find the area of study that you want to work/career in. Check if the uni's are offering the area.

Hope this helps. E-mail me at mikegun(at)studentfirst.com.au if you have more questions abt study in Australia. Good luck for your study and welcome to Australia :)

you should apply as soon as possible .. I think the applications already close .. or they will be closing very soon for February 2008 start date ... when you apply .. they will tell you if you need to take an english test ... translation of all documents if not in english..eg your pass uni grads and degree...
For visa procedures.. i didn't think it was that difficult... prove that you speak english ...
..prove of finance to pay for school and to live
-Health examination from an immigration doctor
-and acceptance from a University or whatever school etc

so therefore .. you need to apply to the Uni for postgrad.. when you do get the acceptance .. apply for the visa.. it depends on which country you are in ... visa might take a while .. etc etc ... its better to get an agent that represent australian universities .. in your home country ..the process would be faster especially when dealing with the uni

I did it myself and it was alot fo paper work and lengthy communication with the uni ....

Good luck ...

hi there,
you can take some real IELTS exams in this site: http://www.ielts-exam.net/
then you will find in which level your knowledge of English is.

Here are some sites you can go to for learning English:
http://www.englishclub.com/learn-english.htm
http://www.world-english.org/how_to_learn_english.htm
http://www.english-at-home.com/

You can read about student Visas here:
http://educationusa.state.gov/usvisa.htm

And you can learn all about studying abroad by going here:
http://www.studyabroaddomain.com

Good luck!