Centre for Applied English Studies (CAES)

The Centre for Applied English Studies is responsible for building students’ academic literacy skills throughout their time at university. All CAES courses focus on close contact between teachers and students, with no more than 20 students per course. They also develop learner independence and initiative, which are encouraged by the provision of self-access facilities, accompanied by guidance and support for users both within the Centre and in the Advisory Zone.
Students are highly encouraged to take Core University English (CUE) in either Semester 1 or 2 of their first year, and they are required to take one English in the Discipline (ED) course before they graduate. Both are six-credit courses.

Core University English (CUE)
CUE serves as a bridge between secondary school English and university by helping students develop the academic literacy skills they need to be successful at university. Students work on the English language skills they need to understand and produce spoken and written academic texts, express academic ideas and concepts clearly and in a well-structured manner, and search for and use academic sources of information in their writing and speaking. Students also complete online learning modules on academic grammar, vocabulary and speaking; citation and referencing skills and understanding and avoiding plagiarism.

English in the Discipline (ED) Courses
In order to graduate, students are required to take one ED course that is aligned with their faculty coursework. The ED course students take is closely integrated with their disciplinary studies to further develop their academic literacy skills in their field. Assessment is wholly by coursework for ED courses.

Architecture
The focus is on the language & communication skills required to facilitate students’ approach to architectural literacy. Through spontaneous speaking tasks on their personal and social experience of architecture in HK and through critical reading & discussion of selected texts, students will focus on the language needed to express their views on architectural issues.

Arts
These courses have been designed to help students use written and spoken English to demonstrate critical learning from their reading of disciplinary texts, including philosophy, language studies, history, creative and visual art, world cultures, and Western literature.

Business and Economics
The course aims to enhance students’ academic writing and move students towards a more critical understanding of the way texts work to achieve purposes and meet audience expectations. The course further aims to develop students’ meta-cognitive abilities, in order to be able to judge good quality writing.

Dentistry
Students will develop effective language skills in their written presentation of their projects in dentistry. Input will also be given to enhance students’ ability to deliver a professional oral presentation of their projects appropriate to the purpose of the research and the audience.

Education
These ED courses will provide the opportunity for Education students to develop their critical reading skills, report writing skills and oral presentation skills for disciplinary studies and academic purposes.

Engineering
These courses aim to help engineering students improve their technical writing skills through drafting and revising their technical reports relevant to their engineering projects. They are also trained to deliver associated technical presentations with teacher feedback and autonomous learning tasks.

Medicine
The aim is to improve students’ academic and communication skills for meeting the demands of in Medical Studies. Depending on the course attended students will engage in some of the following communicative tasks: (1) learn to apply strategies for medical vocabulary development (2) write a reflective essay using appropriate language and style (3) conduct research on a health-related topic present the findings in an academic presentation and /or an academic report (4) produce a spoken and written patient history (5) research and deliver a medical ethics presentation (6) repackage expert knowledge from research articles for a non-specialist audience in the form of a popular science article (7) deliver medical content through a poster presentation (8) present drug information to specialist and non-specialist audiences in both spoken and written forms.

Science
This course has three strands designed to promote the learning outcomes: (1) Students will be challenged to engage in spontaneous speaking task in a small group setting while in class. (2) Students will write a popular science journal article for a web-journal targeting a non-specialist audience. (3) Students will be provided with guidance in developing a self-access language learning plan, carrying this out, and reflecting on their learning experience and learning strategies used.

Social Sciences
Students (apart from those in BSW programme) can choose from a range of ED courses on different literacy skills important for their studies and/or future career, such as research writing in the social sciences, public speaking and report writing.

Click here for a complete list of undergraduate courses offered by CAES.

Advisory Zone
CAES in the Advisory Zone (caes.hku.hk/az) is an out-of-class English enhancement advisory service available to HKU students and staff. The Advisory Zone services include one-to-one consultations, workshops and discussions on academic, professional and social English. The AZ website provides a booking platform for the services, information about the advisers, online resources, and CAES supported websites in order to learn English in an out-of-class setting.