PLANNING AND DEVELOPING AN ONLINE ENGLISH WRITING COURSE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE

Abstract

An online English course for computer science students at the B2 level was conceptualized for the E-learning institution Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern between Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Technische Hochschule Nuremberg Georg Simon Ohm. The course consists of four separate modules that cumulatively target writing and language skills relevant to computer science students. Individual assessments at the end of each module serve as a review. Further, students write keystone pieces throughout the course that constitute a writing portfolio. The students’ written pieces are targeted assignments that encapsulate both the writing and the language skills addressed in each module. For instructors, these provide insight into how well students acquired the requisite skills. The writing skills cover online writing tools (COCA, AntConc, OneLook, Quillbot), software documentation, expository text based on pseudocode, and finally, summarizing/paraphrasing tools. These are reinforced through language skills that either have greater prominence in the computer science field or are frequently used for the respective writing skills. Comma and hyphen rules, maintaining objectivity in writing, describing data in figures, and embedded clauses in English are some of the language skills covered. For materials development, a combination of corpus and AI writing tools were implemented to analyse and modify authentic scientific literature. Examples, keywords, and patterns of writing taken from authentic texts were modified to create exercises relevant to topics presented in the modules. The course provides strong didactic support for instructors whose aim is to facilitate a more natural set of writing tasks and students' ability to apply the learned skills beyond the classroom.