On the afternoon of September 19, 2025, a seminar titled "Optimising Academic Communication through ESL Awareness" was held at the UK Program Venue. Teachers from all disciplines within the UK Curriculum gathered to discuss strategies for helping students overcome academic reading, writing, and expression obstacles in international courses, injecting new ideas into bilingual teaching.
The seminar focused on the pain points of Chinese students' language learning under courses such as the Cambridge IGCSE. The Academic Vice Principal Daniel Downer emphasised: "Academic communication ability is a core competency in international courses, and the cultivation of ESL awareness is the key to breaking language barriers." Based on the morning's expert presentation on reading and writing teaching, the meeting promoted the integration of theory and practice through three key sessions.
Exploring Multi-Dimensional Practices to Build an ESL Teaching Support System
At the initial stage of the activity, teaching and research groups analysed cases of "Chinese Students' encountering IGCSE Reading and Writing Challenges" through case-study materials.
The teaching team analysed a lesson framework sample in the bilingual lesson plan discussion session. This framework embedded language awareness cultivation into subject teaching. "Integrating subject teaching and language support is essential to success in bilingual teaching."
The exploration of scaffolding strategies was a highlight of the seminar.
Teachers were divided into groups to experience tools such as visual glossaries, sentence structure frameworks, and graphic organisers: Visual glossaries connect disciplinary concepts with images to enhance memory; sentence structure frameworks provide expression templates of "opinion - evidence - counterargument"; graphic organisers highlight the logic of core knowledge. These scaffolding tools all assist the teacher in narrowing the gap between "current level" and "potential development level".
UK Academic Vice Principal Daniel Downer emphasised at the seminar's conclusion, "Developing our ESL teaching system is a long-term project that requires continuous iteration and exploration. Significant progress has been made during our seminar today, and I look forward to our combined efforts to enable students to demonstrate their academic literacy confidently in international courses."
