This Course Guide has been taken from the most recent presentation of the course. It would be useful for reference purposes but please note that there may be updates for the following presentation.
EDU E865
English Language Teaching: Professional Skills
EDU E865 English Language Teaching: Professional Skills is a 10-credit, postgraduate level course. It is designed as an initial teacher education course for degree-holders who are, or aspire to be, teachers of English language in primary and secondary schools.
This course provides you with a sound foundation for planning, organizing and implementing learning activities in teaching English in Hong Kong schools. It will also help you to develop language strategies to improve your proficiency and skills in English.
EDU E865 aims to develop:
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
The following table provides an overview of the units in the course, and the associated assignments, as well as the amount of time it might take to complete each unit.
| Units | Weeks of work | Assignments | |
| 1 | The educational context of Hong Kong | 3 | |
| 2 | The English Language curriculum in Hong Kong | 3 | |
| 3 | Skills in teaching English | 4 | |
| 4 | Planning to teach | 4 | Assignment 1 |
| 5 | Resources for teaching | 3 | |
| 6 | Assessing English | 4 | Assignment 2 |
| 7 | Classroom management | 3 | |
| 8 | Evaluation of teaching | 3 | |
| 9 | Language learning skills for teachers | 3 | |
| 10 | Language in the classroom | 3 | Assignment 3 |
| Revision | 1 | ||
| 34 |
The course covers the teaching of English in both primary and secondary schools and includes illustrative examples for both sectors. While it seems likely that you will focus more on the level (primary or secondary) at which you are teaching or intend to teach, it is valuable to consider all the Key Stages to get an overall understanding of the English Key Learning Area.
The first unit of the course provides you with a comprehensive discussion of the educational context within which you are, or will be, teaching. This allows you to evaluate educational provision in Hong Kong and alerts you to a number of issues related to teaching.
Unit 2 analyses the English Language curriculum for Hong Kong schools. It discusses practical issues in using the curriculum and describes the relationship between English and other school subjects.
Unit 3 focuses on using appropriate techniques and skills for teaching English. It discusses effective classroom interaction skills and examines ways of organizing a learning environment that promotes English learning.
Unit 4 examines the different aspects of planning. It looks at ways of structuring learning activities for a lesson, and describes techniques for writing lesson plans and year plans.
Unit 5 explains how to select, produce and use teaching resources to support learning. It also explores how information technology can be used to improve the teaching and learning of English.
Unit 6 explains how to develop effective assessment strategies (including tests and examination papers) in English for monitoring teaching and learning.
Unit 7 discusses effective classroom management skills. It examines ways of establishing routines and rules in the classroom, and outlines methods for monitoring student activities.
Unit 8 explains the concept of reflective teaching and makes suggestions on how you can evaluate your own teaching for improvement. It also describes how you can develop a teaching portfolio.
Unit 9 explains what language ability is and relates it to the Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers. It aims to help you improve your English language skills, and describes language development strategies you can use for lifelong language learning.
Unit 10 discusses effective language use in classroom interaction. It also considers strategies you can use to enrich your knowledge base for teaching English.
The materials for EDU E865 English Language Teaching: Professional Skills consist of this Course Guide, ten study units with accompanying multimedia materials on OLE, Readings, an Assignment File, a Manual for Face-to-face Sessions and Guidelines on Teaching Practice Supervision.
Course Guide
The Course Guide tells you briefly what the course is about, what it contains, and how you can work your way through it. It also gives you information about tutors and face-to-face sessions, and assessment. Remember to refer to this Course Guide throughout the course to help clarify important points about studying EDU E865.
Study units
As you saw in the previous section, there are ten study units in this course. Each unit consists of two to six weeks of work and includes specific objectives and detailed explanation and illustrations of the course content. It also includes directions for and comments on the Readings. In addition, the units contain activities and tutorial questions. The activities aim to reinforce your learning, stimulate reflection and encourage you to relate theory to practice. The tutorial questions should help you to examine broader issues related to the units and facilitate the sharing of your experiences and views with other students.
Set book
There is no set book for this course.
Readings
There are many Readings that provide you with more in-depth information on some of the ideas discussed in the units and/or more illustrations of some practical aspects of the course. Some of these readings are included in the units, but most of them have been put in the HKMU Online Learning Environment (OLE).
Multimedia materials on OLE
The multimedia materials on OLE contain excerpts from lessons carried out by experienced English teachers. You should watch them when you study Units 3, 5, 9 and 10. Video Notes that provide guidance, activities and discussion questions accompany the multimedia materials, and you should read these notes before and after watching the videos.
Assignment File
The Assignment File provides an overview of the nature and requirements of the course assignments. It guides you carefully through the three assignments, including the development of your teaching portfolio. All assignments must be submitted electronically to OLE, except Assignment 3.
Guidelines on Teaching Practice Supervision
This provides detailed information about the requirements of the teaching practice and helps you to prepare for it. You should read the Guidelines at the beginning of the course. The teaching practice arrangements for serving teachers and student teachers will be different, with different sets of Guidelines.
The course supports you through face-to-face tutorials, telephone tutoring and the Online Learning Environment.
Face-to-face and telephone tutoring
To supplement your self-study, there are eight two-hour tutorials, two two-hour workshops and two three-hour day schools. In addition, at the beginning of the semester, there will be a student orientation for new students.
In the tutorials, your tutor will answer your questions about any problems you have faced during self-study and hold other activities, such as small-group discussions, to enhance your learning. In the two workshops, you will have the chance to carry out some activities on preparing teaching plans and the development and/or use of teaching resources. Lastly, the two day schools will be concerned with the requirements of, and feedback on, your teaching practice.
More details about the face-to-face meetings are provided in the Manual for Face-to-face Sessions.
When you have any difficulties with your studies, you may also consult your tutor by telephone during the assigned time slots.
Support for teaching practice
A Teaching Practice Supervisor will assess your teaching. After each visit, he/she will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your practice and, where needed, provide suggestions for improvement.
Online communication
You will have the opportunity to use the online mode as an additional means for communicating and discussing － with your peers, tutors and the Course Coordinator － issues arising from course materials and your classroom practice through the HKMU Online Learning Environment (OLE). In addition, the OLE provides you with hyperlinks to useful websites and other relevant resources.
You are required to include in your teaching portfolio (in Assignment 3) evidence of your participation in online discussion (see the Assignment File for details).
A central aim of this course is to enhance your skills in planning, conducting and organizing English Language lessons, and to get you to reflect critically on your own practice for professional development.
Although the study units are arranged in a specific sequence, you should read them in the order that best suits your needs. Obviously, it is essential to read this Course Guide and Unit 1 at the start of the semester. Thereafter, you might need to work through other units selectively to meet your requirements in classroom teaching. This is particularly important in equipping yourself for your teaching practice supervision which will start in late October or, for 'pre-service' students, in March. For example, though Unit 5 is scheduled for weeks 18-22 in the semester, you might need to skim through it and identify the parts that are relevant for your preparation of a PowerPoint presentation for an English lesson in week 9. Similarly, if you are preparing a test for your class in week 12, it will be useful to go to Unit 6 to see how you should plan and set a test paper.
Though you might skim through parts of different units at various times for specific purposes, you must still study each unit in detail within the period suggested in the study schedule provided by your Course Coordinator.
The course is designed to assist you to move easily through the study units and the required Readings to the teaching practice and the development of teaching portfolios.
The course assessment includes (a) assignments and (b) assessed teaching practice.
Assignments
There are three assignments, with the first two leading to the final assignment which is a teaching portfolio. These assignments account for 40% of the overall course score.
As each assignment covers an essential professional skill for English teachers and will provide the basis for examples in the teaching portfolios, all assignments are required.
The relative weightings of the three assignments are as follows:
Assignment 1 25%
Assignment 2 25%
Assignment 3 50%
Therefore, the three assignments are worth 10%, 10% and 20% of the course score respectively.
Assessed teaching practice
You will be visited, observed and assessed by your Teaching Practice Supervisor three times during the course. The first of these assessments is formative – that is, the score will not be counted towards the final course score – and the weightings of the second and third visit are the same.
The teaching practice assessment will include two components, as follows:
Read the Guidelines on Teaching Practice Supervision for details about teaching practice assessment.
The weighting of the assessed teaching practice is 60% of the course score.
To complete the course successfully, you must achieve:
We hope that by studying EDU E865 English Language Teaching: Professional Skills you will enhance your professional skills in teaching English and be able to reflect on your practice for continuing development.
We wish you every success in the course.
