Expected Outcomes

This CoP aims to connect and empower staff across faculties/schools to enhance the quality of English use for teaching and their teaching and learning-related scholarly writing. The more specific outcomes include establishing a network of members across all faculties and schools as well as from EDC, LIB and RO to offer a range of professional development workshops and activities that draw upon existing expertise within the PolyU community (e.g. experienced staff from English language teaching who research in university writing genres; DRC and DLTC chairs who share information on presentation and language skills in the proposal review process, editors from peer reviewed journals who share how to successfully negotiate the publication process) and outside the University (e.g. editors of journals and publishers) to achieve the following specific outcomes:

  1. Participating in the effective language use for conducting lectures in English and for promoting effective communication with students.
  2. Sharing information and findings on common language problems faced by students when writing laboratory reports, project proposals, service learning reflections, case studies, Capstone final year project reports as well as Capstone final year project oral presentations.
  3. Sharing language use in assessment design and assessment rubrics for generating effective learning outcomes
  4. Preparing and supporting staff’s writing skills for teaching-related scholarly activities such as action research, the preparation of grant proposals and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
  5. Fostering sharing sessions in which academic staff with a common purpose (e.g. delivering more effective lessons; understanding better students’ English language problems in writing and
    speaking; preparing a research/grant proposal) meet in a supportive environment to share each other’s teaching practice and work and cultivate collaboration and social support of teaching and related scholarly writing.
  6. Sharing good practices and collecting data from stakeholders in order to promote academic success.

 

With the above outcomes, academic staff will be able to:

  • further develop their proficiency and skills in delivering effective academic lectures and interacting with students thus facilitating students’ comprehension of content knowledge and communication.
  • more effectively use English for wording assignment task sheets and the assessment rubrics.
  • develop a better understanding of the linguistic characteristics and organizational skills and other relevant aspects like referencing in guiding various genres of writing and speaking students are expected to produce.
  • be equipped with more knowledge and a greater awareness of common language problems in different types of students’ writing, and be able to provide resources to help students to overcome these problems and strategies to cope with them in marking and giving feedback.
  • possess a better understanding of the linguistic characteristics and organizational skills in producing quality proposals and academic writing with which the staff will more confidently guide their students in their own academic writing.
  • possess a better understanding of the linguistic characteristics and organizational skills in producing quality proposals for enhancing professional knowledge in teaching.
  • use the affordances of peer review and exemplars to better practice presenting their work in highly persuasive and compelling language which would enable the staff to more confidently guide their students in their own academic writing.