English Language Support for Research Postgraduate Students
The CAES offers RPG students an intensive course to support improved speaking and writing, six English language workshops, and a Postgraduate Writing Support Service (all via the Graduate School), as part of its mission to improve academic literacy skills.
GRSC6027 Intensive English for Postgraduate Students
This intensive English course for selected students from non-English medium universities aims to develop students’ ability to produce coherent academic texts with grammatical accuracy and appropriate choice of vocabulary. It also helps students improve their speaking skills by focusing on their confidence, fluency, pronunciation, and knowledge of effective communicative strategies. Students are challenged to communicate their research to a non-specialist audience.
Workshops
CAES offers six workshops focusing on either speaking or writing skills:
1. Writing Right: Writing Accurately and Clearly helps students with specific language issues that have been observed to cause the most difficulties in writing a thesis and highlights language use which is of particular relevance in reviewing the work of other researchers.
2. Effective Academic Speaking Skills supports research students to communicate the focus and importance of their research to the non-specialist audience; challenges the speaker to share their research in a clear, concise, and complex presentation; and provides opportunities of interacting with the whole class and in groups/pairs
3 and 4. Getting Published in Academic Journals (Humanities, Sciences) introduces students in the humanities, sciences and related disciplines to the basics of converting their research findings into publishable form, focusing on both the writing and the process of getting published.
5. Managing Your Confirmation Seminar and Viva helps students prepare for their confirmation and viva by introducing the procedures, examiners’ roles, expectations and offering tips on handling questions with a view to maximizing communication effectiveness.
6. Effective Conference Preparation and Participation provides guidance on effective writing for and participation in conferences.
Postgraduate Writing Support Service
The Graduate Writing Support Service assists research postgraduates by providing each student with up to 4 hours of free individual consultations during their candidature.
Students are also invited to visit the Writing Centre of the CAES Communication Support Services (CSS) to develop their writing skills.
Contact
For more information about the 6027 course and the workshops, contact the Programme Coordinator, Lowana Phillips at lowanaph@hku.hk