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The Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) was established in 1979 as the English Language Proficiency Unit (ELPU). It is a non-faculty teaching department in the National University of Singapore. This section describes the Centre's various roles within the University and how we carry them out.

Objectives

A basic goal of the University is to be a centre of academic excellence. To achieve this goal, the Centre aims at

  • increasing students' English proficiency;
  • developing students' communication skills for academic and professional purposes;
  • providing training in English for specific purposes; and
  • researching issues related to language teaching and learning.

Increasing Students' English Proficiency

Some students in the University demonstrate ability in their core subjects but have difficulty generating and organising information when they write or speak. Some of them also have poor lexico-grammatical proficiency. One of our roles is to help these students develop their English proficiency to enable them to complete their course work successfully.

To this end, we have designed courses to increase the students' ability to speak and write in ways valued by the academic community.

Developing Students' Communication Skills

Business, government and industry in Singapore are calling for tertiary graduates who possess strong communication skills. Thus, we have developed communication courses which prepare our students to meet the demands of their prospective employers. These courses include critical thinking and communication skills for engineering students; business communication skills for business students and communication, job interview and meeting skills for computer science students.

Providing Training in English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Our third role is to provide special language-based training programmes for specific purposes. One such programme offers graduating students training in areas such as job search skills and oral presentation techniques.

In the last few years, we have offered English for academic purposes to an increasing number of postgraduate students from countries such as Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, the People's Republic of China, South Korea and Taiwan. The postgraduate courses cater to these students' diverse proficiency levels and enable them to conduct research, write academic papers in English and communicate research findings effectively.

We have also been commissioned by the Ministry of Education to run intensive English language courses for pre-matriculation students from the People's Republic of China. The courses aim to equip students with English communication skills required for their academic work. Occasionally, we conduct summer courses for undergraduates from Japan.

Researching Issues Related to Language Teaching and Learning

Because we have access to a large number of students with a wide range of language abilities, we are in a unique position to investigate language teaching and learning issues at the tertiary level. Our research findings are disseminated through the Reflections on English Language Teaching (RELT), a biennial publication, as well as through regional and international journals. We will also be launching a web-based journal, English Language Teaching World Online (ELTWO) in August.

As part of our staff development programme, we run regular in-house seminars to share our research findings, experiences and ideas on how to improve our teaching skills.We have also provided a platform for academic discussion on English Language teaching through two Iinternational Symposia, held in 2004 and 2007. We are now enthusiastically looking forward to our Third International Symposium in 2010.