The programme is supported by a complete team of full-time academic staff from the Centre for Applied English Studies of the University of Hong Kong. They are all specialists in English Studies and have substantial expertise in teacher development and direct day-to-day experience of the English language classroom.
Guest lectures will also be given by academic staff from the Department of English and the Department of Linguistics of the University of Hong Kong.
Course Director
Ken Hyland After graduating with a degree in Sociology from the University of Warwick, Ken went overseas to teach English. First as a volunteer in the Sudan, and then in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Hong Kong, gaining an MA and a PhD along the way. After nine years at Lingnan and CityU in Hong Kong, he was offered a professorship at the University of London, where he directed the Centre for Academic and Professional Literacies at the Institute of Education for six years. He returned to Hong Kong in 2009 to head CAES.
Ken is a well-known researcher in the field of academic discourse, writing and EAP, and has published 14 books and 140 articles and given over 120 conference presentations around the world. His recent publications include Metadiscourse (Continuum, 2005), English for Academic Purposes (Routledge, 2006), Feedback in Second Language Writing (edited with Fiona Hyland, CUP, 2006), Academic Discourse across Disciplines (edited with Marina Bondi, Peter Lang, 2006), Academic Evaluation (edited with Guiliana Diani, Palgrave-MacMillan, 2009), Academic Discourse, (Continuum, 2009) and a second edition of Teaching and Researching Writing (Longman, 2009). He is currently writing a book on disciplinary identities for Cambridge University Press and an edited book on discourse for Continuum. He was the founding co-editor of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes for seven years and is now co-editor of Applied Linguistics. He is an Honorary Professor at The University of Warwick and a Foundation Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities.
Course Co-ordinator and Admissions Advisor
Ken Lau is the programme co-ordinator and admission advisor for the Postgraduate Diploma in English Studies. He gained his first degree in Translation and Chinese from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He then furthered his education at Lancaster University, UK, where he obtained his Master of Research (MRes) and PhD, both in Applied Linguistics. His research interests include discourse analysis, identities and roles in writing, social learning theory (particularly Community of Practice) and Systemic Functional Linguistics.
Co-ordinators
Clarice Chan worked in multi-cultural settings in business before starting an academic career. She holds an MA degree in Applied Linguistics with Distinction from the University of Birmingham and is currently reading for a PhD in applied linguistics at the University of Hong Kong. She has taught learners of different ages and levels in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the United Kingdom, and has taught business, academic and general English at such institutions as Peking University, the Open University of Hong Kong and the British Council. She currently coordinates the postgraduate diploma module in Written and Spoken Discourse for English Language Teaching, in addition to coordinating a range of English courses for business undergraduates at the University. Her main interests include discourse analysis, genre analysis, business English, cross-cultural communication, task-based language learning and materials evaluation and development.
Lisa Cheung joined the Centre in 2001. She is currently involved in the teaching of undergraduate English enhancement courses across faculties such as Arts, Dentistry, Law, and Medicine (Nursing). She is the Coordinator of the English programme for the Faculty of Dentistry: first-year English for Dental Students courses and fourth-year English-in-the-Discipline course. She also teaches the Introduction to Thesis Writing course for the Graduate School. Lisa’s main research interest is knowledge construction in an online context, the subject of her doctoral research. Other interests include corpus linguistics, IT in English language teaching, and reflection in language learning. She also serves on the editorial team of the Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics and on the editorial board of the Birmingham Journal of Literature and Language.
Patrick Desloge was born in California and has lived and taught in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He is a specialist in the area of Computer Assisted Language Learning and his responsibilities have included digital video editing, desktop publishing, language learning lab design, web-server construction and maintenance, and website design and maintenance. He teaches English enhancement courses and IT for English language teachers in addition to designing IT workshops for language teachers. Primary areas of interest include creating websites that can personalize the learner’s profile and developing the potential of web-based teaching and learning.
Max Hui-Bon-Hoa taught at Tunghai University and National Taiwan University before returning home to Hong Kong in 1985. Since then, he has taught at the University of Hong Kong. He teaches literature courses in the Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics (MAAL) and the Postgraduate Diploma in English Studies (PDES) programs. He is the Course Coordinator of PDES, “Academic English for Arts Students”, and “Professional English for Arts Students”. He also oversees the development of six English-in-the-discipline courses for Arts students. In the last 14 years, he has been actively involved in training English teachers in Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China. In Hong Kong, he collaborates with the EDB and has conducted numerous workshops on the teaching and learning of language arts and literature; he also visits local schools on a regular basis to assist teachers with their professional development. In China, he has been invited to speak at/give short courses at various universities, including Fudan, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Renmin University, Yenching Graduate Institute, Peking University, Yunyang Teachers’ College, Shantou Teachers’ College, and Hong De Teachers’ College. His research interests include the teaching of literature, Biblical literature, and American literature. He is also a translator and has published nine books, one Bible Study series (9 volumes) and two short stories. He has served as Warden of Simon K.Y. Lee Hall since 1994, and has been actively involved in Christian ministries on the HKU campus.
Tess Hogue Born in Sydney, Australian Tess Hogue has lived in Australia as well as Europe, North and South America as well as Asia. She commenced her studies in performance at the N.S.W. Conservatorium of Music, then studied for her Bachelors (Honours) in History at Monash University. She then completed her Masters in Applied Linguistics at Hong Kong University. Currently she works at the Centre for Applied English Studies and is the co convener for the Critical Pedagogy focal group. Her interests include languages, anthropology, dancing as well as performance in classical, Latin American and Javanese songs and writing fiction.
Agnes Lam studied in Singapore and America. Upon graduation, she taught at the National University of Singapore before returning in 1990 to teach at the University of Hong Kong. She specializes in language education in China and Asian poetry in English. She is also internationally known as a poet and some of her poems have been translated into German, Italian and other languages. Representative works are: Language education in China (2005), ‘Defining Hong Kong poetry in English: An answer from linguistics’, World Englishes (2000) and Water wood pure splendour (2001). She has held visitorships from Fulbright, the British Council, the International Research and Development Centre, ASAHIL and Universitas 21. In 2008, she was awarded the Nosside International Poetry Prize (Special Mention) and was made Honorary Fellow in Writing by the University of Iowa. Her current project on Asian poetry in English, funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, involves fieldwork in several Asian cities from Delhi to Macao.
Joanna Lee Upon completion of her PhD in Educational Studies Joanna returned to Hong Kong from the U.K. and worked as a research assistant at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Since she joined the Centre for Applied English Studies in 2005 she has mainly taught English enhancement courses for undergraduates of various disciplines. She is now coordinating English enhancement courses for the Faculty of Law. Joanna is also involved in postgraduate teaching and supervision of MA dissertations. Her main research interests include methods of teaching English in the ESL/EFL classroom, academic writing, language and gender, and language policy in the post-colonial context.
Elizabeth Samson taught in Iran before coming to HKU. Currently, she co-ordinates English Enhancement courses for the Faculty of Architecture and also teaches on a range of other courses. She is involved in teaching on the Centre’s MA and PDipES programmes and has collaborated on the setting up of a pronunciation and speech website for Chinese learners of English.
Wai Lan Tsang received her MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge, specialising in Chinese syntax and L2 acquisition of English. Prior to joining HKU as Assistant Professor, she worked at a number of local universities, where she developed and taught a wide range of linguistics and English and Cantonese enhancement courses. Her research focuses on both linguistics and applied linguistics. In linguistics, her interests include syntax and morphology as well as contrastive analysis of Chinese and English. In applied linguistics, her principal interest is in second and third language acquisition. Her recent publications focus on the influence of a third language on a second language and the acquisition of Mandarin as a foreign language. Currently she is the principal investigator on a project on the construction of a Chinese interlanguage corpus and a co-investigator of a project on learning Chinese and Japanese null arguments as a third language. She is also Editor of the Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics and a member of the Editorial Board of Language in Contrast (John Benjamins).
Clarence Wang Prior to joining CAES, Clarence taught at Beijing Foreign Studies University and worked as a research assistant at the China National Research Center for Foreign Language Education. At CAES, Clarence first worked on his doctoral study exploring teachers’ beliefs and practices, and upon graduation, he started working full-time at the Centre, teaching academic and professional English courses to undergraduates across faculties. He also teaches Sociolinguistics and English as an International Language on the Postgraduate Diploma in English Studies Program, and Introduction to Thesis Writing for the Graduate School. His research interests include English language education in China, language teacher development and sociolinguistics.
Other full-time teachers of the Centre for Applied English Studies may also participate as guest speakers.
Co-teachers
Louisa Chan worked in sales and marketing before joining the teaching profession. She previously taught English in secondary schools and the Open University of Hong Kong. At HKU, she has taught academic and professional English to undergraduates and postgraduates from Hong Kong, China and Japan, and also workplace English to University administrative and support staff. At postgraduate level, she taught “Vocabulary Learning and Teaching” on MA in Applied Linguistics and is teaching “Lexis, Morphology and Semantics” on Postgraduate Diploma in English Studies. She is also Coordinator of specially-funded courses at CAES, and an author of secondary and university course books. Her research interests include vocabulary learning strategies, pronunciation problems of Chinese speakers of English, and lexical borrowing from Japanese into Hong Kong Chinese.
