An EAP Course for ALL Undergraduates at HKU: Diversity & Challenges

Abstract

CAES1000 Core University English is an English for General Academic Purposes course for first-year undergraduates at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Since there are more than 2,500 students in each academic year and they mostly are from various academic disciplines and of different levels of English competence, this sheer diversity presents huge challenges to the course coordinators, class teachers, students as well as timetabling officers and administrative staff members of faculties. In this presentation, the speakers will outline some of the difficulties they face when running such a MAMMOTH course in terms of course structure, teaching/learning materials, assessment; and the most importantly of all, mechanisms standardizing and monitoring course quality to ensure that all students will be treated fairly and obtain a more or less identical experience upon completion of the course. The speakers will also put forward some potential ideas of how this course can be further refined in the future to fit the changing needs of both teachers and students.