Enhancing Student Communication: Integrating Language Expertise in Subject-Specific Assessments

Over the past decade, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has extended English Across the Curriculum (EAC) support to various departments. While traditional collaborations primarily involved providing language tips for subject assignments, recent study suggests that explicitly incorporating language components into subject assignments can significantly enhance students' awareness of communication's importance in their disciplines (Poster, et al., 2019; De la Barra, 2018).
This study explores the implementation of a novel approach in a nursing service-learning subject, involving approximately 30-35 students per class and 2-3 disciplinary teachers. The approach provided comprehensive language support including language tips on writing reflective essays, designing group poster, delivering online poster presentations, and conducting face-to-face forums. Crucially, it integrated a dedicated language component into the assessment rubric specifically for the verbal aspect of poster presentations, with language experts grading this component alongside subject specialists.
A survey among participating students revealed that a majority of them found the additional language-focused grading component for poster presentations to be either useful or very useful. These findings suggest that explicitly assessing language skills within a specific, discipline-relevant context can heighten students' metacognitive awareness of their language use and its importance in their disciplinary context. This approach may provide valuable insights for integrating language instruction in other disciplines
References:
De la Barra, E., Veloso, S., & Maluenda, L. (2018). Integrating assessment in a CLIL-based approach for second-year university students. PROFILE Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 20(2), 111–126. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v20n2.66515
Prosser, M., Chik, P., Shiu, A., Chow, J., & Zhou, L. (2019, April 10). Rubrics in instruction and subject assessment moderation. https://www.polyu.edu.hk/wgsqa/images/content/WGSQA_Rubrics-in-Instruction-and-Subject-Assessment-Moderation.pdf