This year, the Department of English has organized the English Creative Writing and Digital Storytelling Workshop and Competition, supported by the Teaching Development Grant, funded by the Centre for Teaching and Learning of the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong.
The workshop designed for secondary students aims to cultivate their creativity and critical thinking through retelling popular fairy tales using animated videos. All team members had participated in the online workshops in earlier stages to learn about how to rewrite fairy tales and create animated videos for digital storytelling. Each team was assigned an undergraduate student from our University as the team leader who guided the participating students to finish their story and video. There were a total of 7 teams participating in the competition, with each team consisting of 4 students.
After careful consideration and evaluation of all the submissions, we are honored to announce the list of award winners for the English Creative Writing and Digital Storytelling Workshop and Competition. Please click here for the results.
We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to all the winners and express our appreciation for your hard work, dedication, and contributions to the English Creative Writing and Digital Storytelling Workshop and Competition.
We also want to thank all the participants for their enthusiasm and commitment to excellence. Their submissions were impressive, and we hope that they will continue to pursue their passions and aspirations.
Finally, we would like to thank our esteemed judges, Dr Annise Lam, Dr Anna Tso and Dr Amy Kong, and also the team leaders for their time, effort, and expertise in making this competition a success.
Once again, congratulations to all the award winners! We look forward to celebrating your achievements with you.
Sustainable Development Grant
HSU English Channel: Experiential Learning of English Speaking and Communication Skills through Digital Technologies”
The project, aimed at providing a real-time, online platform for students and staff to share their opinions and knowledge interactively, received funding from the University’s Sustainable Development Grant in 2020, to run a project entitled “HSU English Channel: Experiential Learning of English Speaking and Communication Skills through Digital Technologies”.
With the funding, we set up a video studio in the ELC and recruited students to be HSU YouTubers to run their own English Channels. They included:
With Karli, Milk Tea JJ, Hello! Secret Union, The Deadline Fighters, A Girl, A Boy, HSU RC English, Channel F, ELC Literature, and English Cooking at HSU.
Participants had the opportunity to:
- Launch their own English Channel related to their interests,
- Receive advice from staff to regularly produce YouTube episodes in English (indoor or outdoor; livestreamed or post-produced),
- Enjoy the privilege of using our studio and equipment to produce episodes,
- Be awarded iGPS/ECA/CS hours, IELAS stamps, and book coupons upon completion of each episode, and
- Be trained to be HSU Edutainers to produce a short video (similar to a TED Talk) on a theme under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal. The most highly voted videos were subsidized to join an overseas conference in summer.
Funded by the HSUHK Teaching Development Grants, the HSUHK Toastmaster Club was established in the Academic Year 2018/19. In full gear since January 2019, the HSUHK Toastmasters Club provided a supportive and positive environment where members had the opportunity to develop their communication and public speaking skills. Guest workshops and group meetings, where students could learn to deliver prepared and impromptu speeches and peer-review each other, were held regularly.
The HSUHK Toastmaster Club members also participated in joint-university meetings and speech contests. Competing against other Toastmasters from HKU, HKU SPACE, PolyU, and CityU in February 2019, one of our Toastmasters won third place in both the International Speech Competition and the Evaluation Speech Competition.
The line-up of collaborative activities included joint-university meetings, speech contests hosted by the home club, and the undertaking of an HKHSU English debate team. This project has now concluded.
The English Peer Mentorship Programme, funded by the Teaching Development Grants (TDG), aimed to provide peer-to-peer mentoring experiences for first-year undergraduate students—individually and as a group—to help them achieve their full potential at the university. Recognizing the importance of supporting students as they transitioned into university, the programme empowered both the mentors and mentees to establish relationships, hone their English language skills, and develop cultural literacy through a wide range of language and cultural activities. It also sought to cultivate a peer learning culture in which students took charge of their own learning and shared learning responsibilities to develop mutual trust and foster self-esteem.
In AY 2019-20, the mentorship programme attracted over 40 first-year students from different academic programmes to receive regular English language training. Nineteen senior year students were selected by the Department of English to serve as English Mentors, planning cultural activities and providing regular English tutorial services for the participants. A vlog competition was organized in April to encourage the mentees to showcase their learning outcomes from the programme.
In the academic year 2019/2020, the Department of English obtained a Teaching Development Grant entitled: Voices Unheard: A Collection of Undergraduate Academic Works – an incentive to enhance students’ academic writing and establish research mindsets.
This project aimed to recognize the hard work and ingenuity of our students for exercising their critical thinking faculties in giving their voices in academia. With the steadily increasing quality of teaching and learning at HSUHK, it was observed that students were capable of producing exceptional research writings in their respective fields. However, while their written works were recognized for their effort (in the form of an assignment), their ideas were seldom brought to public attention (in the form of publication).
Submissions were welcomed starting from early second semester in 2021. Students of all years of study and majors were invited to submit a work of academic research (primary or secondary) for an opportunity to be included in the final publication: HSUHK Undergraduate Journal. Selected students underwent a simulated peer review and editorial process to ensure the quality of their works. Under the rigorous editing requirement, students became more responsible academic writers. Their publication in the Journal also strengthened their academic prowess, which proved valuable in their job hunting and the pursuit of further studies. It was hoped that the project could cultivate a sense of global citizenship and academic atmosphere among students in HSUHK.
Read the journal here: https://eng.hsu.edu.hk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HSUHK-Undergraduate-Journal-2.pdf
