Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

<p>The low English proficiency of Chinese nurse/nursing students affects their performance when they work in English-speaking countries. However, limited resources are available to help them improve their workplace English, i.e. English used in a clinical setting. To this end, it is essential to look for an appropriate and effective means to assist them in improving their clinical English. The objective of this study is to evaluate the learning experience of Chinese nursing students after they have completed an online clinical English course. Focus group interview was used to explore their learning experience. 100 students in nursing programs at Tung Wah College were recruited. The inclusion criteria were: (1) currently enrolled in a nursing program; and (2) having clinical experience. Eligible participants self-registered for the online English course, and were required to complete the course within 3. months. After that, semi-structured interviews were conducted on students whom completed the whole and less than half of the course. One of the researchers joined each of the interviews as a facilitator and an observer. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Finally, 7 themes emerged from the interviews: technical issues, adequacy of support, time requirement, motivation, clarity of course instruction, course design, and relevancy of the course. Participants had varied opinions on the 2 themes: motivation and relevancy of the course. Overall, results of this study suggest that the online English course helped students improve their English. Factors which support their learning are interactive course design, no time constraint, and relevancy to their work/study. Factors which detracted from their learning are poor accessibility, poor technical and learning support and no peer support throughout the course.</p>

The final stage of curriculum innovation for the four year degree program at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was the development of specialized department-based English courses for senior undergraduate students in the School of Engineering. These students are in their fourth year of study and have built up considerable subject expertise. The Center for Language Education has developed four such courses for Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Civil Engineering. All these courses include an academic component, preparing students to write and present on their Final Year Project, as well as a professional communication component, but all have to be tailored to the specific academic requirements of the department, and cater for differing professional contexts after graduation. We report on some of the issuesinvolved and the challengesfaced, in designing specialized courses, using authentic materials, to meet specific purposes. Questions which arose included: how specific should the materials be given that within the same department, academic projects may be extremely varied? How should we handle professional communication, given that students may enter a variety of occupations after graduation? Our resolution of such issues may be applicable to curriculum developers facing similar challenges in other institutions.