Incorporating theories into a course in international business communication

Conference Theme: Research into Practice in the Four-year curriculumIn developing a business communication course for a group of business majors on an elite international business degree programme at the University of Hong Kong, cross-cultural communication theories and relevant research findings were incorporated into the syllabus and these underpin all the in-class activities and assessments. Central to the aims of the 2012 four-year curriculum is to broaden the experience of university students in Hong Kong and enhance their communication skills in the global market through various experiential learning opportunities, broadening courses and exchange programmes. Our presentation will describe how we incorporated experiential learning into the teaching of business communication skills and explore how different elements of the course are informed by theories in the area of cross-cultural communication. We also discuss how we view our roles as co-developers and co-teachers in the process of updating and improving the course and the implications of our approach for course design and teacher development.published_or_final_versio

The processes and challenges in developing text-based courses for Business and Economics students

The Conference program's website is located at http://symposium2011.elc.polyu.edu.hk/index.php/SELC/SELC2011/schedConf/programTheme: Developing Students as Readers and Writers in the four-year Curriculum: the role of the English Language CentresThe reformed curriculum at HKU will see students taking 12 credits of English in two courses. The first of these will be a General University English course in their freshman year and the second a more discipline-specific English course in their second year. For business and economics students this second year English in the Discipline course aims to take a broadly genre-based approach sets out to develop students' awareness of the generic features of the texts they would be required to read and produce in their major studies. While this approach allows students a more integrated learning experience that is relevant to their communication needs during their course of study, it also represents considerable challenges in material development. This paper reports on the ongoing development of this course and the challenges faced. It describes the process of the needs analysis and how the target communicative demands in the faculty were investigated. It further elaborates how student involvement in the project was sought. The paper also describes the challenges in working and liaising with the business faculty, and the challenges in identifying and selecting suitable texts within this course approach.postprin

A Single Polar Residue and Distinct Membrane Topologies Impact the Function of the Infectious Bronchitis Coronavirus E Protein

The coronavirus E protein is a small membrane protein with a single predicted hydrophobic domain (HD), and has a poorly defined role in infection. The E protein is thought to promote virion assembly, which occurs in the Golgi region of infected cells. It has also been implicated in the release of infectious particles after budding. The E protein has ion channel activity in vitro, although a role for channel activity in infection has not been established. Furthermore, the membrane topology of the E protein is of considerable debate, and the protein may adopt more than one topology during infection. We previously showed that the HD of the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) E protein is required for the efficient release of infectious virus, an activity that correlated with disruption of the secretory pathway. Here we report that a single residue within the hydrophobic domain, Thr16, is required for secretory pathway disruption. Substitutions of other residues for Thr16 were not tolerated. Mutations of Thr16 did not impact virus assembly as judged by virus-like particle production, suggesting that alteration of secretory pathway and assembly are independent activities. We also examined how the membrane topology of IBV E affected its function by generating mutant versions that adopted either a transmembrane or membrane hairpin topology. We found that a transmembrane topology was required for disrupting the secretory pathway, but was less efficient for virus-like particle production. The hairpin version of E was unable to disrupt the secretory pathway or produce particles. The findings reported here identify properties of the E protein that are important for its function, and provide insight into how the E protein may perform multiple roles during infection

RNA interference approaches for treatment of HIV-1 infection

HIV/AIDS is a chronic and debilitating disease that cannot be cured with current antiretroviral drugs. While combinatorial antiretroviral therapy (cART) can potently suppress HIV-1 replication and delay the onset of AIDS, viral mutagenesis often leads to viral escape from multiple drugs. In addition to the pharmacological agents that comprise cART drug cocktails, new biological therapeutics are reaching the clinic. These include gene-based therapies that utilize RNA interference (RNAi) to silence the expression of viral or host mRNA targets that are required for HIV-1 infection and/or replication. RNAi allows sequence-specific design to compensate for viral mutants and natural variants, thereby drastically expanding the number of therapeutic targets beyond the capabilities of cART. Recent advances in clinical and preclinical studies have demonstrated the promise of RNAi therapeutics, reinforcing the concept that RNAi-based agents might offer a safe, effective, and more durable approach for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, there are challenges that must be overcome in order for RNAi therapeutics to reach their clinical potential. These include the refinement of strategies for delivery and to reduce the risk of mutational escape. In this review, we provide an overview of RNAi-based therapies for HIV-1, examine a variety of combinatorial RNAi strategies, and discuss approaches for ex vivo delivery and in vivo delivery

The importance of the altricial – precocial spectrum for social complexity in mammals and birds:A review

Various types of long-term stable relationships that individuals uphold, including cooperation and competition between group members, define social complexity in vertebrates. Numerous life history, physiological and cognitive traits have been shown to affect, or to be affected by, such social relationships. As such, differences in developmental modes, i.e. the ‘altricial-precocial’ spectrum, may play an important role in understanding the interspecific variation in occurrence of social interactions, but to what extent this is the case is unclear because the role of the developmental mode has not been studied directly in across-species studies of sociality. In other words, although there are studies on the effects of developmental mode on brain size, on the effects of brain size on cognition, and on the effects of cognition on social complexity, there are no studies directly investigating the link between developmental mode and social complexity. This is surprising because developmental differences play a significant role in the evolution of, for example, brain size, which is in turn considered an essential building block with respect to social complexity. Here, we compiled an overview of studies on various aspects of the complexity of social systems in altricial and precocial mammals and birds. Although systematic studies are scarce and do not allow for a quantitative comparison, we show that several forms of social relationships and cognitive abilities occur in species along the entire developmental spectrum. Based on the existing evidence it seems that differences in developmental modes play a minor role in whether or not individuals or species are able to meet the cognitive capabilities and requirements for maintaining complex social relationships. Given the scarcity of comparative studies and potential subtle differences, however, we suggest that future studies should consider developmental differences to determine whether our finding is general or whether some of the vast variation in social complexity across species can be explained by developmental mode. This would allow a more detailed assessment of the relative importance of developmental mode in the evolution of vertebrate social systems

Creative writing in non fiction; Hong Kong stories by second language students at the University of Hong Kong University in an English in the Discipline course, ‘Language and Style in Narrative Journalism’

Parallel Session 9b: Telling non-fictionNote: CAES9924 Course: Language and Style of Narrative JournalismNarrative is a form of empowerment that enables the writer to manipulate language through storytelling, creating a means for self-expression and identity. This paper examines storytelling in a second language context among EAP (English for Academic Purposes) students at the University of Hong Kong, and focuses on how storytelling creates opportunities for creating social identity and the expansion of language skills. Language and Style in Narrative Journalism is an English in the Discipline course for undergraduate Hong Kong University students specifically targeted to Journalism majors. This course as others, at the Centre for Applied English Studies, caters to the second language needs of students studying through the medium of English. The Narrative Journalism course aims include genre awareness of nonfiction writing and consequently students are expected to produce their own narratives involving the conduct of interviews and to apply creative writing techniques in the context of a ‘true’ story. Their narratives range from stories on the abuse of domestic helpers, being gay in an unaccepting environment up to the recent protest movements of 2014 against the Chinese government. More importantly, their stories reflect the views of Hong Kong students at a crossroad in their own history and the uncertain implications for the future of their city and themselves. The stories that are written often reflect a strong ‘moral’ element to the conflict of Hong Kong teenagers and their experiences in the diaspora of Hong Kong. Reflecting on the strategies that these students use to construct a social identity through narrative, I argue that the act of story telling can compensate for deficiencies in language proficiency and enables them to creatively extend their language skills. Furthermore, there are insights that teachers can gain from the second language writer that could have potential into future teaching practices. f) narrative journalism, EAP, non fiction, Hong Kong, Hong Kong students, second language, social identit

The effectiveness of a learning management system in an English in the Discipline Business Course HKU

In this presentation, I will be examining the relationship between teaching and learning business skills, and the elearning platform, moodle in the English in the Discipline Business Course at the University of Hong Kong. To what extent is moodle, an effective platform in the course’s ‘flipped classroom’ approach? More importantly how does elearning support the shift from a fairly rigid education system with a strong emphasis on the examination system and a tiered student classification, towards a a broader, liberal model of education. Can we meet the goal of developing critical thinking and an experiential approach of business discourse? These questions will be addressed within the context of the introduction of the new Hong Kong 3+3+4 educational curriculum introduced in 2012