Our Projects

PROJECTS
INTRODUCTION

AHKLC members with projects they would like to share via the Association may contact us at info@ahklc.hk.

PROJECTS

Referencing

The PolyU Referencing Guides include detailed information to the four most common referencing styles used in HK universities. They are written to help you become familiar with academic referencing conventions and to reference your work correctly. The four styles, including APA, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver are regularly updated so that students are able to cite their essays accurately. This mobile accessible page is easily navigable and is packed with information that the student needs in their university studies.

Inscribe: Journal of Student Writing

Inscribe: A Journal of Undergraduate Writing in Asia is a refereed electronic journal which publishes writing by PolyU undergraduate students from all disciplines. By showcasing polished and professionally written work, the journal allows students to experience an academic publishing environment which provides a platform to develop their writing, research, and publication skills.

Teachers' Lift

The Teachers’ Lift is a teacher-initiated and teacher-produced podcast designed to be a comfortable space to chat about teaching. This cross institutional initiative, run by colleagues from the language centres at PolyU, HKU and HKUST, has regular episodes throughout the teaching semester. Past episodes have come from instructional designers, language centre heads and ordinary teachers, all with something interesting to say and share.

HK PolyU ELC YouTube

The ELC’s PolyU YouTube channel has over three million views and 450 videos on all aspects of study at university. Find the video to match your needs on the ELC's YouTube channel. The channel features a variety of videos designed to help English language learners improve their skills. The channel includes lessons on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and more, as well as tips for studying and learning English effectively. The videos are led by experienced English teachers and are suitable for learners at all levels.

Test and Correction on Cantonese 'Lazy' Pronunciation

Project funding start and end date: July 2017 – Mar 2019

According to teachers' observations during classes, more and more students become less aware of their pronunciation. They often have some incorrect pronunciations or lazy pronunciations. For example, pronounce “講解”(explain) as“趕解” (not differentiating between /n/ and /ng/), “女仔” (girl) as “呂仔” (not differentiating between /n/ and /l/), do not differentiate between “過” (pass) and “個” (ignoring differences between /gw/ and /g/), etc. This project aims at aiding our graduates to become proficient in Chinese and be able to communicate confidently in Cantonese.　Students can enhance their knowledge in Cantonese, reduce the pronunciation errors in learning or at work, improve the pronunciation accuracy so as to achieve effective communication. Online teaching materials in the website include “Cantonese Lazy Pronunciation Online Test”, “Cantonese Phonological System” and “Correcting Lazy Pronunciations”.

Platforms for Scholarship Outputs Emerging From Practice

Aditi Jhaveri

An initiative, led by the Center of Language Education at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, to compile a curated list of journals and other publications that welcome scholarship outputs from language teacher-practitioners.

In education, the dissemination of knowledge and best practices is pivotal to the growth and evolution of teaching methodologies. At the core of this dissemination are the outputs of teacher practitioners - the tangible embodiments of their experiences, insights, and innovations in the field.
The CLE holds in high regard scholarship outputs that spotlight the work of language teacher practitioners. These outputs, ranging from blogs and vlogs to podcasts, lesson plans, tips and techniques, and reviews, can serve as sources of inspiration and guidance within the expansive community of language teaching professionals.
This document meticulously compiles and elucidates various outlets, e.g., websites, journals, magazines, or other platforms, which actively welcome and publish such scholarly contributions.

Elevate Your Academic English with GenAI

Dr. Rita Gill SINGH, Hazal WONG, Miranda FUNG, Dr. Lillian WONG, Matthew ANDERSON, Paul MYERS, Peggy LAI, Dr. Aditi JHAVERI, Dr. Cindy NGAI Sing Bik, Dr. Alex Chun KOON, Mr. Jackin WONG, Dr. YUEN Ho Bun Bonny, and CHOW Kin Man

Elevate Your English for Academic Purposes (EAP) with GenAI is a groundbreaking initiative that is transforming how students transition from secondary school to university. Initially funded by SCOLAR, the project blends cutting‑edge AI technologies with research‑informed pedagogy to empower students to write more effectively, think critically, and engage more deeply while equipping teachers with innovative, future‑ready teaching strategies.

Correction of wrongly-written characters in professional texts, Test and Correction on Cantonese ‘lazy’ pronunciation, A Flipped Classroom for Cantonese Learning (中文自學室)

Project funding start and end date: July 2017 – Mar 2019

Over the years, many scholars have conducted various studies on wrongly written characters. However, the discussion mostly starts from the traditional perspective of phonetics and meanings, and seldom discusses it in depth from the aspects of style and context. "Professional texts" in this project means the practical texts written in specific occasion or professional settings. Students producing wrongly-written characters is linked with the style and context. For example, the form of the characters 辦 (to do) and 辨 (to distinguish) are very similar. Mistakes are mostly found in event proposals. This project aims at enhancing students' accuracy in writing, training students to use appropriate written language in different context, enhancing their writing skills and achieving effective communication.

Mastering the Technical Vocabulary of STEM

Project funding start and end date: September 2017 – July 2021

Mastering the Technical Vocabulary of STEM is a UGC-funded project that helps students of science and technology to learn and correctly use technical vocabulary, in both written and spoken English. In university language courses, it is often assumed that students do not require assistance from language teachers with technical language since it will be acquired during the study of content courses. However, research finds that specialist vocabulary is among the biggest challenges facing undergraduate students in Hong Kong (Evans & Morrison, 2012). Research also suggests that the role played by technical vocabulary has been significantly underestimated. A substantial portion (between 20% and 30%) of the vocabulary in specialised texts is composed of technical vocabulary (Chung & Nation, 2004; Liu & Lei, 2019; Nation, 2013), making such texts potentially difficult to decode. Students are also unlikely to use words that they do not fully understand. This project addresses the above problems by creating learning resources based on technical words judged to be important and difficult for students. The five key learning resources are:

10 subject-based corpora,
10 subject-based technical wordlists,
A diagnostic quiz,
Learning objects for 10 subject areas, and
Guidelines for teachers who wish to make use of the resources

A Flipped Classroom for Cantonese Learning (翻轉粵語教室)

Project funding start and end date: June 2020-Oct 2021

Cantonese is the most commonly spoken language in Hong Kong. By learning Cantonese and understanding its daily expressions, students from around the world coming to Hong Kong can cope with everyday communication situations and integrate into society more successfully. In view of this, we have developed this customized online Cantonese learning platform, namely “A Flipped Classroom for Cantonese Learning”, to provide multi-media self-learning materials in line with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Cantonese courses to allow students to prepare the content of each unit with learning tools such as the Internet and smart-phones before they have interactive Cantonese lessons in real classrooms. It is hoped that the platform can help enhance students’ learning effectiveness.