A series of sharing and discussion sessions were held at different Language Centres in October and November 2018 on “Good practices in teaching first-year EAP courses: Issues and Strategies“. Here is a summary of the key points on the challenges discussed and the good practices identified.
| Challenges | Good practices | |
| Course coordination |
Large student cohort with diverse language needs Large teaching team Handling a large number of special cases |
Streaming students according to language proficiencies (HKUST)
Additional online learning materials on Moodle for self-study (HKU) For courses that place students into various streams, teachers only teach on one stream to develop expertise (HKUST) Smaller class size for some sub-classes (max. 14 students in I-stream) (HKUST) Weekly email communication with teaching team (PolyU, HKUST) Mentoring of new course teachers (HKU) FAQs for teachers and students (PolyU) A list of common cases for teachers to study (PolyU) Set emails to be used when responding to students (PolyU) |
| Course design | Covering a large body of materials in the semester | Range of materials and activities (core + additional) to choose from. This allows flexibility and teacher ownership (PolyU) |
| Classroom teaching | Students are not motivated to learn |
Practical hands-on activities, mini-games in class Using online collaborative tools in teaching (EdUHK) Giving prompt / in-class feedback using online tools (EdUHK) Introducing Clicker tools (e.g. uReply, Kahoot and YoTeach) (PolyU) |
| Assessment and feedback |
Ensuring standardized quality across different sub-classes Teacher feedback being illegible, vague and detached |
Maintain standardization of marking through online, face-to-face meetings and double marking (HKU, PolyU)
Briefing teachers of the same course objectives, scale and expectations across all streams (HKUST) Using technology to provide feedback (Audio-visual; Padlet; GoToMeeting) (EdUHK) 10-minute individual consultation (5 mins for students to raise questions, 5 minutes for feedback) (EdUHK) |
