Specially-funded English Courses
Our mission
In line with CAES’s mission to support English enhancement needs of university staff, undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes, Specially-funded English Courses (SFEC) offers workplace, professional, and academic English workshops to meet both staff members’ and students’ diverse learning needs.
Our lessons are conducted as plenaries, lectures, or small group tutorials using customized materials designed to cater to targeted learners’ workplace or discipline-specific interests. We also welcome opportunities to collaborate with local and overseas institutions on intensive English programmes.
Academic English Courses for Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Students
The courses are designed based on faculties’ requests for academic English support to meet the language needs of the undergraduate and taught postgraduate students. The courses aim to improve learners’ skills in academic English literacy, dissertation writing, use of specialized terminology, and professional presentations.
Courses with tailor-made instructions are currently offered to students in these faculties: Business, Dentistry, Education, Engineering, Medicine and Social Sciences.
School of Business:
- Presentation Skills for Master Programmes in Business School
- Academic English Writing Workshop for Master of Family Wealth Management
Faculty of Dentistry:
- Medical/Dental Terminology Workshop
- Dissertation Writing for Master of Dental Surgery and Master of Science – An Induction Course
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:
- Dissertation Writing for MSc in Computer Science
- Presentation Skills for MSc in Computer Science
- Dissertation Writing for MSc in Mechanical Engineering
- Presentation Skills for MSc in Mechanical Engineering
- Dissertation Writing for MSc in Engineering (Innovative Design and Technology)
- Presentation Skills for MSc in Engineering (Innovative Design and Technology)
- Effective English Speaking, Listening and Writing for MSc in Low Altitude Technology
Faculty of Medicine:
- Dissertation Writing for Medical Sciences – An Induction Course
AI Literacy Workshops for Administrative Staff
Since 2024, CAES has collaborated with the HKU Registry to offer a series of GenAI@Work workshops to administrative personnel at HKU. The workshops cover a wide range of AI literacy skills that are useful for everyday administrative tasks.
- GenAI@Work: Prompt Engineering 1
- GenAI@Work: Prompt Engineering 2
- GenAI@Work: Co-pilot PowerPoint/Word 2
- GenAI@Work: N8N
- GenAI@Work:Text to Image
We have also collaborated with university administrative divisions and non-academic units to provide English training for specialized contexts and targeted staff’s communication needs; for example, English for Information Technology Services staff; Workplace English for Library Staff, and Written Communication Skills for Human Resources.
Professional Development Programmes for Local Teachers
CAES offers professional development programmes (commissioned by the Education Bureau, HKSAR) to in-service English teachers at primary and secondary school levels to provide them with up-to-date knowledge about teaching English as a second language. Programmes are tailor-made to enhance teachers’ pedagogical skills and subject knowledge through hands-on activities, scenario demonstrations, and discussions. In line with the curricula by the Education Bureau, our programmes target various aspects of language teaching, including but not limited to academic English, self-directed learning, vocabulary strategies, language across the curriculum, English speaking and writing skills and creative use of English.
Testimonials
SFEC curricula and lessons are extremely well-received by staff, faculties and students, with positive feedback on course delivery, materials relevance, student engagement, and teaching quality. Below presents some qualitative comments from course participants:
“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)
Enquiries
We welcome enquiries on current and new English courses from local and overseas institutions.
For information or collaboration opportunities on professional and academic English, please contact the Specially-funded English Course Coordinator, Dr. Natalie Fong (fongsn@hku.hk; 39172033).
For professional staff courses, please contact Dr. Parco Wong (pmtw2@hku.hk; 39177333).
For teacher training programmes, please contact Dr. Matthew Yeung (matty@hku.hk; 39171080).