Pub Date : 2021-04-07DOI: 10.37514/INT-B.2021.1220.2.01
Felicia Fang, Yammy L. Y. Chak
This chapter reports the findings from the preliminary evaluation of an English Across the Curriculum (EAC) initiative in a Hong Kong university to implement discipline-specific academic English language support materials in a service-learning subject adopting an interdisciplinary collaborative approach. Student survey results, focus group interviews with both students and content teachers, and written reflections by students are presented and analysed. Findings indicate that students and teachers generally acknowledge the value of this interdisciplinary collaboration to improve the learning experience and the quality of assignments. Challenges that the EAC team has encountered in the process of collaborating are also discussed. Compared with previous studies, this chapter attempts to contextualise the strategy for integrating the teaching of content for a service-learning subject with discipline-specific academic English writing skills to undergraduate students with English as a Second or Foreign language (ESL/EFL) in Hong Kong.
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Pub Date : 2021-04-07DOI: 10.37514/INT-B.2021.1220.2.05
Julia Chen, Christy Chan, Vicky C. H. Man, E. Tsang
: A capstone project (CP) demands mastery of a broad range of skills, such as formulating research questions, synthesizing and cross-referencing previous literature with current findings, and writing up the study in the longest report students have probably ever written. The study reported in this chapter is part of a government-funded five-university project on co-developing a mobile app for supporting CP writing in various disciplines. This project is grounded in the belief that the ubiquitous and interactive nature of mobile learning could enrich learning and supervision experience (Källkvist et al., 2009), which in turn would lead to higher student satisfaction (Del Río et al., 2018). To develop a mobile app that helps supervisors and students, a dual-method approach was employed to gather both subjective and objective stakeholder feedback data via focus group interviews and by analysing CP reports from three disciplines to reveal common writing problems (Flowerdew, 2018). Results show that the introduction section, the literature review and the discussion sections, research mapping, and referencing are four major areas of concern.
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Pub Date : 2021-04-07DOI: 10.37514/INT-B.2021.1220.2.02
B. Siu
In the fields of science and engineering, teaching and assessment habitually makes use of calculations and drawings rather than extended writing or oral presentations. Although the ability to communicate eloquently in the disciplinary context is required of students, the development of language skills is often contracted out to language teaching units. This chapter reports on a project that aimed to devise content-based strategies to enhance students’ English language skills within a technical curriculum. In a baseline survey conducted to understand students’ habits and views about English, respondents self-reported a general confidence in their language use for the purpose of learning their discipline, but noted difficulties in speaking and, to a lesser extent, writing, with the fluency of both affected by deficiencies in grammar and vocabulary. Moreover, it was found that the target students’ motivation for language improvement was highly instrumental, based on obtaining better jobs or better grades. The study reveals some systemic problems, such as the lack of opportunities for more extensive use of language in teaching and assessment in technical disciplines and an overall lack of motivation among students.
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