Academic English is different from the daily general English. Although it also covers the same four skills, two of them are productive skills (speaking and writing), and the other two are receptive skills (listening and reading), it has specific characteristics which differ from the general English. Academic English is typically used in academic and professional settings. Therefore, if you want to continue your education at a higher level in English speaking countries, you should master the academic English and then measure the skill by taking a standardised English test.

Several characteristics of academic English as taken from open.ac.uk are as follows:

1. It generally has a formal tone and impersonal style.
2. It does not use contractions (i.e. isn’t, it’s, or shouldn’t).
3. It does not use conjunctions to begin a sentence (i.e. and, but, so).
4. It does not use personal pronouns (i.e. I, me, you, your), but using ‘my’ as in ‘my research study’ and ‘I’ to explain what you have undertaken in academic essays are generally acceptable.  
5. The passive form of verbs can be used.
6. It usually does not use phrasal verbs such as ‘hold up’, ‘put off’.
7. It may use specialised/technical register and vocabulary.
8. It inclines to cautiously explain a finding by using ‘may’, ‘it is possible that…’, ‘could’.

Measuring the level of academic English can be done by taking a standardised English test, such as TOEFL, Cambridge English Language Assessment, or IELTS. International English Language Testing System or IELTS is one of the English standardised tests which has two types, academic and general training. IELTS academic is for those who want to study in a higher education degree and to work as a professional. On the other hand, IELTS general training is for those who want to study in secondary education or to have a work experience in English speaking countries.

As the name indicates, IELTS academic will expect the test takers to be familiar with the academic English which will be used in academic settings. Universities usually already set the minimum standard score for the prospective students to be accepted. In IELTS, all of the four skills are tested and each skill will be given a score from ‘band 1′ (non-user) to ‘band 9′ (expert user).

If you want to pass a minimum English requirement at a university, practising academic English should be done sooner and there is no better time to start than now.

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Lidya Pawestri Ayuningtyas is an English lecturer, translator, and creative writer. An LPDP awardee, she holds an MA in TESOL Pre-service from University College London, a bachelor in English literature from University of Indonesia, and diploma degree from State Polytechnic of Jakarta where she is currently teaching.