Integrating new literacies with ESP course design: A digital video project

Christoph Hafner, Lindsay Miller, Connie Nghttp://www1.english.cityu.edu.hk/acadlit

Outline

1. Background and rationale2. Student video3. Action taken4. Observations5. Reflection

Background and rationale

EN2251: Communication Skills I

• Discipline-specific English course with students from BCH and MA– CILO 2: Orally present the theory, method and

findings of a quasi-experiment, making effective use of verbal and non-verbal delivery techniques.

– CILO 3: Write a scientific report, making effective use of appropriate language, organization and academic referencing conventions

English for Science Project

RATIONALEScientific presentations and reports (such as lab reports) are frequently based on observations which test a hypothesis. In this project you will make some observations of your own and report them, first in the form of a scientific documentary (Assignment 1), then as a ‘lab report’ to your tutor (Assignment 2).

Rationale for the innovation

• How can we motivate students to reflect on and improve their spoken English?

• As teachers of English literacy, how do we prepare students to participate in globalized online spaces, which utilize new forms of multimodal representation?

Oral presentations: Before

Oral presentations: After

http://youtu.be/yubkDwDl5QM

Action taken

Modify English for Science Project

• In class presentation > Scientific documentary• Focus on:– Oral presentation– Multimodal representation– Appropriate communication for a scientific

audience

Technology and support

Observation

Data sources

• Questionnaire (anonymous, open/closed items)• Focus group interviews– Students (21)– Programme leaders in BCH, MA (4)

• Students’ comments in course weblog• Student work

Areas of interest

Data was coded and organized via MaxQDA:

• Authenticity• Autonomy• Creativity• Technology• Language Skills• Motivation• Multimodality• Project process• Suggestions and advice• Teamwork and collaboration• Time management

Student perceptions: Relevance and usefulness

AVG SD D N A SA

Q10. The skills I learned by doing the video project are useful for my studies

3.49 0% 10% 41% 39% 10%

Q11. The skills I learned by doing the video project are useful to my career

3.36 0% 14% 44% 36% 7%

Q12. The skills I learned by doing the video project are useful to me personally

3.78 0% 5% 20% 66% 8%

Q13. The skills I learned by doing the video project are relevant to my major subject

2.88 3% 25% 51% 20% 0%

Relevance to major

Actually, in this project, I learned many skills besides case studies or content, the technique of making a video also as we said before the presentation skills. It also let us become more creative and I have many other subjects require us to present in the class. And I would like to use more multimedia in my presentation later on and I think it would be attract my audience is the difference. (Student Interview)

Authenticity of audience:

Because - um, a lot of people may read it not just our class - classmates, so I would do it - I will pay more effort to do it and I also will treat the documentary as a real documentary because it’s just like the documentary done by BBC or some others although the topic is quite simple or quite basic, so I think that. (Student Interview)

IT skills

The most useful thing is video editing skill, presentation skill. We have to put many effort in doing so. Also, this video project lead me to improve my spoken skill and teach me how to search useful information by using different method. (Student Questionnaire)

[The problem I encountered was…] the editing problem. I am not familiar with the software. Thus, I have to learn it for a long time. (Student Questionnaire)

Students’ perceptions: Skills learned

AVG SD D N A SA

Q18. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English language skills

3.34 0% 10% 47% 41% 2%

Q19. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English research skills

3.66 0% 8% 19% 71% 2%

Q20. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English reading skills

3.31 2% 10% 44% 44% 0%

Q21. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English writing skills

3.41 0% 7% 49% 41% 3%

Q22. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English presentation skills

3.81 0% 2% 25% 63% 10%

Q23. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English listening skills

3.44 0% 14% 36% 44% 7%

Presentation skills

[The most enjoyable thing about the project was…] being an actor, I have to use facial expressions to express my feelings . And I have to speak clearly and pronounce the words in a correct way. (Student questionnaire)

Integrated skills

In this project you cannot only train your English, you could also, I mean more importantly, it trains you how to do research and how to express your idea in English. (Student Interview)

Creativity (1)

English is significantly important for our careers (no matter you are a scientist or not in the future). Scientists always figure out a lot of creative ideas. Yet, these ideas are useless if you do not know how to present. … We have to write papers, read journals, listen to other’s ideas and share our thoughts. (Student Blog Post)

Creativity (2)

We know that the aim of the video project is to express some scientific ideas to audience who may or may not learn science before. So making the video interesting is the biggest challenge to us …we develop our video with our creative thinking. Simply, “Be creative and innovative” (Blog post, T03 Tommy).

Programme leaders’ perceptions

• Generally impressed by students’ presentations• The topics of the documentaries could be more

sophisticated from a scientific point of view

Lecturer Interview

Don: I think your assignment is also, so creative - very creative. [Voice Overlap]

Barry: Terrific assignment.Keith: For science students, I think we don’t really [Voice

Overlap].Don: We don’t really do it like that.Keith: That’s right.Don: We just give some question to doing that, they just do it.

Yeah.Barry: Obviously we’re very impressed that they can actually

do this.

Disciplinary expectations: language

Robert: …they actually use the English a bit too loosely uh when describing uh what exactly they are doing uh because there’s a proper way of doing the um methods description, but they were a bit sort of wishy- washy about it.

Robert: But, it’s true – I mean the whole um presentation was actually quite concise and precise. So in sort of scientific terms that’s spot on…

Disciplinary expectations: topic

Keith: So I think we’re more concerned in the scientific content, but presentation is perfect, I would say….yeah, maybe more experiments, more real experiments, comparison of the literature results, for example.

Way ahead

More sophisticated topics

• Working with target departments to come up with new topics for different sub-specialties

• Some guiding principles for these topics:– Easily relatable to students’ worlds– More sophisticated science, but not too

sophisticated– Retain the focus on English skills development

Technical support

• Further develop our resources for students, e.g. with additional instructional screencasts on animation

Questions?

• Please visit our website or get in touch: http://www1.english.cityu.edu.hk/acadlit