Fostering disciplinary engagement in EAC: An emic approach and a decade of HKU experience

Abstract

<p>The benefits of integrating English learning and the subject discipline have been emphasized in higher education under a number of pedagogical practices such as EAC, WAC, CLIL and ESP. The critical question, however, is how discipline specific can an English course be to promote a learning experience authentic and specific to the subject matter. As a former engineer and an English-in-the-Discipline (ED) programme coordinator/teacher serving six engineering departments and 500+ engineering undergraduates annually at HKU (2012-2023), I will discuss the successes and challenges in collaborating with the engineering faculty. Illustrating with a course <em>Technical English for Biomedical Engineering </em>in specific, I will share my emic, immersive approach to engaging engineering teachers and informants (e.g., teaching assistants and industry practitioners) in course design, materials development and co-assessment. To further the integration of disciplinary content and language in this course, I will advocate a discerning use of technical artefacts, disciplinary genres (e.g., technical user manual) and manageable scientific experiments to advance students’ communicative competence facilitated by disciplinary thinking. Suggestions will be offered to EAC/ESP teachers who would like to push the disciplinary boundary of their English courses but may not necessarily possess a technical background nor the subject matter expertise.</p>