HKU-CAES-Annual-Report_2021-22

The Centre for Applied English Studies aims to be recognised as a regional and international leader in the field of second language education through teaching, research and innovation. In this way, we will continue to make a vital contribution to The University of Hong Kong as a leading English-medium university. HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR CAES VISION CAES2003 Story Writing for Audio-visual Books is a new elective course offered in the 2021-2022 academic year. It has attracted some high-calibre students to improve their written, spoken and digital literacy skills through the genre of Audio-visual books. They engage in the analysis of novels that have been reproduced as Audio-visual books and movies with respect to their plot structures and linguistic features, and come to understand the importance of this digital genre in the modern world. Students are guided to write a short story employing similar plot structures and linguistic features and produce an Audio-visual book. In this process, they are introduced to a range of grammatical structures and vocabulary commonly used in story writing and the skills of varying one’s pace, stress and intonation for voice narration and voice acting. They also learn digital skills such as audio and video capture, audio and video editing, selection of audios and videos and integrating multimedia. The Audio-visual books that students produced are read by secondary school students in Hong Kong. Their written stories are also published on writerscafe.org , which is a friendly international community supporting literary writing. This course takes a blended approach in that some face-to-face sessions are replaced by online activities including the viewing of video lectures. New Elective Course - CAES2003 Story Writing for Audio-visual Books Since 2021, HKU has established its first Graduate Management Trainee Programme. Out of more than 800 applications, HKU has selected eight high-achieving graduates from local and overseas universities to join the programme. This is a 15-month programme where the management trainees would be trained in different academic departments and administrative units with the guidance of top management such as our President, Vice-president s , and academic professors. CAES has been invited to create a Specially-funded English course (SFEC) to enhance the management trainees’ English communication skills that are very specific and tailored to their needs. The course focuses on writing and speaking skills in the workplace and includes contents such as writing effective reports, proposals, press release, policy papers, minutes, and e-mails, learning about sensitive language, as well as professional speaking in speeches, phone calls, meetings and presentations. The course materials were developed by Melanie Zee and Grace Chang during Semester 2 of the 2021-2022 academic year and the course was piloted successfully in July 2022. Graduate Management Trainee Programme CAES VISION & HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR ANNUAL REPORT Centre for Applied English Studies 04 03