The Liberal Art University in Hong Kong

Thinking Through English (LCE3301)


Class contact hours: 3 hrs (tutorials) Credits: 3

Introduction

This course is designed primarily to improve your ability to communicate ideas in speaking and writing. This will facilitate your studies while at university, and will also be useful in your post-university life. The focus of this course is on enjoyment and engagement in practising English and thinking skills.

Aims & Objectives

The course will enable you to gain more confidence in using English and enhance your skills to:

  • present ideas effectively both in speaking and writing
  • respond appropriately to opinions of others
  • express and justify results of thoughts and decisions
  • explain views and arguments with clarity and accuracy

Intended Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you should be able to:

  • participate effectively in problem-solving discussions by contributing views and evaluating others’ views with justification through problem analysis
  • compose clear informative email messages by considering the writing purpose and intended reader
  • apply some strategies and language functions such as acknowledging the needs of others, making firm/conditional offer, making concession, to resolve conflicts
  • organise and write effective complaint letters to explain problems and to suggest possible course of actions
  • organize and write adjustment letters to resolve a difficult situation/problem to the benefit of both the writer and reader
  • consolidate your skills in writing a unified and coherent short argumentative essay
  • give a self-introduction in a recruitment interview
  • formulate and give an impromptu presentation with a clear message and effective examples

Course Information

Year of Study: 3rd or 4th year
No. of Credits: 3
Teaching Hours: 3 hours (2 hours + 1 hour tutorials)
Category: Free Elective
Language of instruction: English

Prerequisite:

Completion of LCE1010 English for Communication I, LCE1020 English for Communication II and LCE2010 English for Communication III are required for 4-year programme students.

Important Note:

  1. Students are expected to spend a total of 9 hours (i.e. 3 hours of class contact and 6 hours of personal study) per week to achieve the course learning outcomes.
  2. Students shall be aware of the University regulations about dishonest practice in course work, tests and examinations, and the possible consequences as stipulated in the Regulations Governing University Examinations. In particular, plagiarism, being a kind of dishonest practice, is “the presentation of another person’s work without proper acknowledgement of the source, including exact phrases, or summarised ideas, or even footnotes/citations, whether protected by copyright or not, as the student’s own work”. Students are required to strictly follow university regulations governing academic integrity and honesty.
  3. Students are required to submit writing assignment(s) using Turnitin.
  4. To enhance students’ understanding of plagiarism, a mini-course “Online Tutorial on Plagiarism Awareness” is available on https://pla.ln.edu.hk/.

Indicative Content

Tasks activities may include: games, role-play, drama, in-class discussions, presentations, mini presentations etc.

There are four units in this course:
Unit One An effective thinker
Unit Two A win-win situation
Unit Three Be logical
Unit Four Be creative
Teaching Method

Small group/tutorial.

Students will work on their own and collaboratively in small teams and be involved in various communicative tasks and activities that require their creativity and critical thinking skills.

Assessment

The assessment is 100% by coursework (no examination)

Student Comments

“Learned much applicable knowledge and the class atmosphere is good”
“Tutor…gave me lots of comments on my work”
“We have a lot of chances to discuss and express our own ideas. It makes the course interesting”
“We all enjoy learning”
"The knowledge is practical, especially problem-solving skills. The gain is not just language!"
“Focuses on practical communication skills”