ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals

Student Information Sheet

English Language Centre

ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals
2016-17
Semester 1
3 credits
Information for Students
I. Objectives
This subject aims to develop the English language skills required by students to communicate effectively
in their future careers.

II. Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the subject, students will be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.

interact professionally in job interviews,

participate actively in workplace discussions,
plan, organise and produce effective workplace correspondence, and
plan, organise and produce technical documents.

To achieve the above outcomes, students are expected to use language and text structure appropriate to
the context, select information critically, and present and support stance and opinion.

III. Learning schedule

Week
1-5

Topics & Contents

Assessment/Timing

Unit 1 Accessing the workplace

Assessment 1
(Weighting: 40%)
Learning outcome assessed:
Outcomes 1 and 2
(i) Individual job interview
and
(ii) participation in group
discussion

Understanding the job-seeking process

Matching personal qualities to job requirements
Researching companies
Identifying employers expectations indicated in job
advertisements

Preparing effective rsums

Planning and writing effective job application letters
Developing the skills and strategies needed to
participate effectively in interviews and discussions

English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

In-class
Week 5
(Friday class: week 6)

ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals

Unit 2 Writing workplace correspondence

6-9

Selecting and organising information in letter and

e-mail
Choosing courteous, concise, clear and correct
language
Presenting information in appropriate formats

Student Information Sheet

Assessment 2
(Weighting: 30%)
Learning outcome assessed:
Outcome 3
E-mail and letter related to
requests/enquiries
In-class: Week 9
(1 hour 45 minutes)

Unit 3 Writing reports for professional purposes

10-13

Identifying readers expectations for effective

reports for professional assessment
Planning, selecting and organising the content of
such reports
Developing and applying the language skills needed
to write clear, coherent and logically organised
reports

Assessment 3
(Weighting: 30%)
Learning outcome assessed:
Outcome 4
Report on training and
experience for professional
assessment
In-class: Week 13
(2 hours)

IV. Materials
In this subject you will be using learning materials written by the English Language Centre. Subject
materials can be downloaded from LEARN@PolyU at: https://learn.polyu.edu.hk/ (Click ELC3421 after
logging in). Make sure that you bring the relevant learning materials to every class. The schedule in
Section III is a guide to the materials you will need for each lesson.
The audio-visual materials for this subject can be viewed on Youtube with the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXuvlaVwcr2rA8QZOTG_Y36uvDSvs1_v6
More updated video materials can be accessed at English @Work in Asia. However, you have to enrol in
an on-line interview course at the following url before you could use the additional resources:
https://www.edx.org/course/english-work-asia-preparing-job-hkpolyux-ewa1-1-2x

English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals

Student Information Sheet

V. Subject completion requirement

To successfully complete the subject, you have to:
1. complete all assessments, as stated in Section VIII; and
2. fulfil a minimum of 80% attendance, as stated in Section VI.
Failure to meet requirement (1) above will result in an overall fail of the subject, and you will have to retake the subject. Failure to meet requirement (2) will result in downgrading the overall subject grade, as
stated in Section VI.
VI. Attendance and punctuality
You are required to attend at least 80% of the classes and to be punctual for all lessons. Failure to meet
the attendance and punctuality requirements normally incurs a deduction from the overall subject
grade. This deduction would be grade or more, depending on the degree of unsatisfactory attendance.

VII. Out-of-class work

In line with PolyU policy, you are expected to do 84 hours of out-of-class work for a three-credit subject.
This means that, in addition to the 3 hours of classroom learning, you are expected to do about 6
hours of out-of-class work in each of the 13 weeks of the subject. This out-of-class work can be:
classwork-related; assessment-related; and self-access activities in the Centre for Independent Language
Learning (CILL, in A305 &Z213) or on the Internet.
Out-of-class work

(i) Classwork-related

(ii) Assessment-related

e.g. exercises, readings,

short writing tasks, online
listening tasks

e.g. writing a CV and a job

application letter

(iii) Self-access language

learning
e.g. additional grammar,
vocabulary and
pronunciation work on
the Internet and/or in
CILL (A305 & Z213)

VIII. Assessments
There are three assessments that evaluate your achievement of the learning outcomes of this subject.
You are required to complete all three assessments in order to pass the subject. The following
regulations apply to this subject and to all ELC assessments.

English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals

Student Information Sheet

Absence from in-class assessments

1. You must inform the teacher as early as possible if there are circumstances causing you to be absent
from an in-class assessment. If the reason is judged to be acceptable, a make-up assessment will be
arranged within ten calendar days of the original assessment date.
2. If you are absent from an in-class assessment without informing the teacher in advance, you must
contact the teacher within 24 hours of the assessment with an explanation for the absence. You
must provide supporting documents (e.g. a doctors note) for the absence within 3 calendar days
after the assessment. Providing the explanation and supporting documents are judged acceptable, a
make-up assessment will be arranged within ten calendar days of the original assessment date.
3. No make-up assessment will be given if you are absent from an in-class assessment without an
acceptable reason and supporting documents. In such cases, you will be considered to have not
taken the assessment and will fail the subject.
Non-submission of out-of-class assessments
1. You must inform the teacher as early as possible if there are circumstances causing you to submit an
out-of-class assessment after the deadline.
2. Late submissions are not accepted unless you can provide a valid reason and supporting documents
within 3 calendar days after the deadline. In such cases, although the assessment will be accepted,
it will be downgraded as follows:
i) by grade if the assessment is submitted within 24 hours after the deadline;
ii) by 1 grade if the assessment is submitted within 48 hours after the deadline;
iii) by 1 grades if the assessment is submitted within 72 hours after the deadline.
3. Cases involving serious illness will not receive a penalty provided that sufficient documentary
evidence is provided.
4. If you do not submit your assessment on time and do not provide an acceptable reason and
supporting documents for doing so, then you will be considered to have not taken the assessment
and will fail the subject.

Academic honesty and avoiding plagiarism

The University takes a very serious view against dishonesty and plagiarism in students work, including
in-class and out-of-class assessments. Dishonesty and plagiarised work will lead to downgrading or other
disciplinary action as described in the Student Handbook.
Assessment 1: Job interview and group discussion task (40%)
Learning outcome assessed: Outcomes 1 and 2
There are two parts in this assessment.
Part 1 - You will be interviewed for an internship / job vacancy.
Part 2 - You will take part in a group discussion on an issue given by your teacher.
You will be assessed individually and be given one grade for your overall performance in this assessment.

English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals

Student Information Sheet

Procedure for Assessment 1

1

Students work in groups of 4 or 5 and form a company/organisation. Each group

then writes a job advertisement for an internship post (for full-time students)
and a vacant post (for part-time students) in their company.

Each company passes their job advertisement to the next group. Each member
of that group then applies for the job by writing a CV and an application letter,
and then passes these back to the first company. The first company reads the
CVs and application letters and prepares relevant interview questions for each
candidate.

Job interviews take place. Each company interviews all the applicants
individually for the internship/ job vacancy. Each interview lasts 5 minutes.

Group discussions take place after all the applicants have finished their job
interviews.

Steps 1 and 2
take place in
Weeks 1-4

Assessment
Part 1
Assessment
Part 2
Steps 3 and 4
take place in
Week 5

Job Interview
The interview panel of the company group will interview each candidate for the internship/ job vacancy
by asking a mixture of open, probing and directive questions in order to get as much information as
possible about the candidate in order to judge his or her suitability for the job. Students not involved in a
particular interview or group discussion should not be present in the room.
You should be yourself in the interviews, rather than some imagined person in order to ensure that you
are consistent about who you are throughout the application procedure. You should write your CV and
application letter accordingly.
Group discussion
Each group will be given a topic to discuss after the company interview. There will be one minute of
preparation time before the discussion. A group of 5, 4 and 3 will participate in the discussion for 12
minutes, 10 minutes and 8 minutes respectively. The topic is mostly related to the current concerns in
Hong Kong and is very likely on construction-related themes. Students are advised to read local English
newspapers such as South China Morning Post (SCMP)and Hong Kong Standard broadly in order to
prepare ideas and language needed for performing the group discussion well. Students could access the
archive of news from SCMP through PolyU library webpage at
https://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk/newspapers.

English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ELC3421 English for Construction and Environmental Professionals

Student Information Sheet

Assessment 2: Email and letter writing task (30%)

Learning outcome assessed: Outcome 3
In this assessment you will be asked to respond, as an employee of a specified firm or organisation, to a
request from a stakeholder (e.g. a client or an institution) of the firm for goods/services. Based on given
information regarding the goods/services your firm can provide, you will need to write:
1. an email to your superior explaining the clients request and suggesting how the request can be
handled; and
2. a letter to the client or institution explaining the situation and making recommendations.
The email and letter should be around 150 and 200 words long respectively. You will need to include
addresses and headings, but these will not form part of the word count.
Activity 25 in Unit 2 of your coursebook provides an example of the writing task you will be asked to do
for this assessment.

Assessment 3: Report writing task (30%)

Learning outcome assessed: Outcome 4
You will write a 600-700 word report on your training and experience for professional assessment.
Details of this assessment are given in a separate handout available in the ELC3421 eLearn site.
This report will be done in-class in week 13. You may bring in brief notes of 150 words only but no
coursebook and dictionaries of any form are allowed. At the end of the assessment you need to hand in
both the completed report and the brief notes.
Activity 18 in Unit 3 of your coursebook provides an example of the writing task you will be expected to
do for this assessment.
Assessment criteria
Your performance in the first assessment will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
Content (20%)
Organisation (10%)
Interaction (20%)
Language: grammar, vocabulary, style and tone (20%)
Pronunciation and fluency (30%)
Your performance in the second and third assessments will be evaluated according to the following
criteria:
Content (25%)
Organisation (25%)
Language: grammar, vocabulary, style and tone (40%)
Conventions: layout and format, and word length (10%)
English Language Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University