Undergraduate > LANG 2028/2029 
English Communication for Science Students II LANG 2028/2029
Module Co-ordinator: Benjamin Leung

Campus Beat

Objectives

The objective of this module is to introduce you to the reading and writing of stories in a journalistic style in English. Students will learn how to analyse news stories critically and develop an understanding of the style, language and structure of news writing. You will also learn the basics of interviewing skills for news gathering. This module aims to allow you to become aware of how news is reported.

In LANG 108, you were asked to acquire a range of language skills and abilities. These qualities are looked for across subject areas and will certainly help your university career to be more successful and more enjoyable. At a very general level, you should try to be:

CRITICAL of what you read or hear;
CREATIVE in what you produce;
CLEAR in the way you present your ideas;
ANALYTICAL and IMAGINATIVE in your approach to your studies; and
AWARE of the world around you.

Intended Learning Outcomes

This course encourages each of these qualities while, at the same time, helping you to develop important language skills. We hope that you enjoy the course and that your future studies benefit from the work you do over the next few months. The learning outcomes that you can expect to achieve are outlined below.

Graduate Attributes
 By the end of the semester, you will be able to ...
Competency-building Vocabulary
  • recognise how vocabulary and grammatical choices contribute to the framing of a news report.
Critical thinking and reading skills
  • analyse the needs and expectations of readers of a news article, and the audience of an audio report.
  • analyse and synthesise viewpoints from different perspectives to form reasoned arguments.
Writing skills
  • write a balanced and unbiased news article to summarise or report a current event for a general audience.
  • organise a news article using an 'inverted pyramid structure' to interest the reader.
  • use accurate and unbiased language in a news article or an audio report and appropriately attribute sources of information.
Digital literacy
  • produce audio reports that inform a general audience about current events.
  • use appropriate tools, resources, techniques, etc. to compose and file a news report.

Content

Students will examine:

  • News values;
  • Language in the media;
  • Structure of print media;
  • Podcasting;
  • Interviewing skills;
  • Bias in the news.
Schedule
  1. What makes news news?
  2. Structuring the News.
  3. News vs. Feature Writing.
  4. Interviewing and Sources.
  5. Attributing Your Sources.
  6. Beats: From Politics to Sports.
  7. Putting It All Together: Writing and producing a story.

Course Materials

  1. What is podcasting? HKUST Podcast Workshop
  2. Listen to recent episodes

Online Resources

  1. Language resources for Podcasting
  2. Press release of HKUST
  3. Campus activities highlights

Assessment

Students will be assessed on:

Campus news story
Individual
40%
News podcast
Individual
40%
Participation grade*
Seminar
10%
Individual
10%

*Since this module requires you actively to practise oral skills, participation in class activities is very important. Your participation grade is a reflection of your effort and involvement in class activities. Obviously, if you are often absent your participation in class activities will not be satisfactory.