Development of an English-for-specific-academic-purposes course for music students

Abstract

As a part of the new 4-year tertiary curriculum in Hong Kong, the Centre for Applied English Studies at the University of Hong Kong will provide the Department of Music with an English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) course which aims to complement one of the core subject courses. This course will focus on the English registers and genres used in the field of music and the language that students will need as music majors. Developing this course has been challenging, especially due to a lack of previous research into the language needs of music students who have English as a second or additional language. Another consideration has been that this course needs to be differentiated from the General English for Academic Purposes (EGAP) course while at the same time being careful not to ‘cross over’ into teaching music content. In order to inform this course, consultation and collaboration with disciplinary teachers was sought, research was done into writing about music, pilots of teaching units were run and student essays from the core subject course were collected and analysed. This paper will focus on the process of trying to create a space for this course between the EGAP course and the content course.