Specially Funded English Courses

Specially-funded English Courses

Our mission

Aligned with CAES’s mission to support the English language development needs of university staff, undergraduates, taught postgraduates, and local schoolteachers, Specially-funded English Courses (SFEC) offers workplace, professional, and academic English programmes tailored to diverse learning needs.

Our classes are delivered through plenary sessions, lectures, and small-group tutorials, supported by customized materials that address learners’ discipline-specific and workplace contexts. This flexible approach enables SFEC to work closely with faculties, administrative units, and partner institutions to design programmes that respond to specific academic and professional communication needs.

Academic English Courses for Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Students

Building on this commitment to tailored provision, a key area of SFEC support is academic English for undergraduate and taught postgraduate students. In response to faculty requests, these courses strengthen learners’ academic English literacy, discipline-specific vocabulary, capstone and dissertation writing, and professional presentation skills. Tailor-made courses are currently offered to students in the Faculties of Arts, Business, Computing and Data Science, Dentistry, Education, Engineering, Medicine, and Social Sciences.

Faculty of Arts

Academic Writing Workshop for ENGL3042 Students

Faculty of Business & Economics

Presentation Skills for the Master Programmes in Business School
Academic English Writing Workshop for Master of Family Wealth Management
English Writing Workshop: Fundamental Skills for Business Reports, Proposals, and Capstone Projects
Articulating for Impact: Pronunciation and Clarity in Business Contexts
Thinking on Your Feet: Impromptu Speaking and Handling Q&A

Faculty of Dentistry

Dissertation Writing for Master of Dental Surgery and Master of Science – An Induction Course
Medical/Dental Terminology Workshop

Faculty of Education

Academic Writing Course for BSc in Applied Child Development
Academic Writing Workshop for MA(TESOL)
Advanced Academic Literacy Workshop I: Planning and writing an academic essay
Advanced Academic Literacy Workshop II: Presenting stance and arguments in critical writing
Advanced Academic Literacy Workshop III: Writing a literature review

Faculty of Engineering

From Thesis Writing to Technical Presentation: Academic English for MSc Mechanical Engineering Students (Plenary and feedback sessions)

Faculty of Medicine

Academic Writing for Medical Sciences – An Induction Course

School of Computing and Data Science

English Academic Writing for MSc in Computer Science
Presentation Skills for MSc in Computer Science

Professional English Courses for Gifted and Incoming HKU Students:

In collaboration with The HKU Academy for the Talented and HKU Summer Institute, we offer two summer programmes that support students’ academic excellence and personal growth. These courses help students explore their potential and prepare for university study and future pathways.

Digital Storytelling Academy for the Sustainable
Effective Speaking Skills for Everyday Professional, and Academic Settings

GenAI@Work for Administrative Staff

In addition to programme-based academic English support, we also work with administrative units to address emerging workplace communication needs. Since 2024, CAES has collaborated with the HKU Registry to offer a series of GenAI@Work workshops for administrative staff. These tiered workshops support practical AI literacy for everyday administrative tasks and lay the foundation for more advanced training on the use of GenAI in administrative workflows. Key topics covered include prompt engineering, Copilot for PowerPoint and Word, smart automation with N8N, image generation, and text-to-image applications.

Professional Development Programmes for Local Teachers

We also offer professional development programmes for in-service primary and secondary English teachers commissioned by the Education Bureau of the HKSAR. These programmes provide teachers with up-to-date knowledge of teaching English as a second language and strengthen their pedagogical skills and subject knowledge through hands-on activities, demonstrations, and guided discussions. The programmes cover key areas of language teaching, including academic English, self-directed language learning, vocabulary strategies, language across the curriculum, speaking and writing skills, creative use of English, and digital literacy.

Partnership Opportunities

We welcome collaborations that support the development of academic and professional English programmes for diverse learning and workplace contexts. For programme enquiries or to discuss potential collaborations, please contact the Specially-funded English Course Coordinators:

External collaborations: Dr. Natalie Fong (fongsn@hku.hk; 3917 2033)

Programme-based collaborations: Dr. Parco Wong (pmtw2@hku.hk; 3917 7333)

Testimonials

SFEC curricula and lessons have been very well received by staff, faculties, and students, with positive feedback on course delivery, relevance of materials, student engagement, and teaching quality. Selected qualitative comments from course participants are presented below:

“The sections are divided in a well manner. I am able to learn different parts of the terminology during the workshops. There are several activities so more interactions are allowed rather than single-way delivery of ideas.”

(Medical/Dental Terminology Workshop)

“This course helps me understand the key points of writing a dissertation”

(Academic Writing Workshop for Master of Education)

“Course materials are tailored and relevant to our needs. We learn to analyse the language of research articles for our literature review”

(Dissertation Writing Workshop for MSc Computer Science)

“Learn more knowledge about how to present, many aspects of how to make a good present that I haven’t heard before the class, really helpful for me.”

(Presentation Skills for MSc Computer Science)

“Well-organised with strongly relevant cases; great resources about AI academy and free prompt generation”

(GenAI@Work: Prompt Engineering 1)