UIC reopened for on-campus teaching and learning and over 1,940 new students arrived following a 14-day campus quarantine. All new freshmen students joined the English Enhancement Programme (EEP).

EEP has been the first classroom experience new students encounter at UIC for the past twelve years. It is a five day, all-English programme run by the English Language Centre (ELC). However, with more students enrolling than ever before (1,948), ten teachers still unable to get back into China, and social distancing, how did it work?

In order to allow for social distancing, classes were held on different floors and different buildings throughout the campus. Teachers also ran innovative activities outside of the classroom, such as surveys and scavenger hunts. Other activities included interacting with mobile phones and iSpace, as well as other speaking and listening language-related tasks.

In order to allow all 1,900 students to see the five large lectures, we staggered the lecture start times, spread the students out, and presented the large lectures twice a day.

In order to maintain social distancing, the large lectures could not be held in five lecture halls. Instead, ten lecture halls were used, each with only 40% capacity. 

Faced with this problem, ITSC was able to help. They set up video cameras and a film crew (including some of our CTV students), then transmitted a live broadcast from the main lecture room to another five lecture rooms.

The students enjoyed being able to watch a different lecture each day, which gave them a real variety of information on interesting topics.

Chris Lydon: “Making the most of four years at UIC”

Chris Dockstader: "Health, Nutrition and Fitness”

John Ulrich: "Western Music and the Guitar”

Paul Stevenson: "Critical Thinking”

Darrell Rea: "UIC-ELC-EEP-IT”

ELC had 1370 student responses to the online EEP feedback - that’s a 70% response rate. ELC will use this feedback to continuously improve the EEP in the future.

Well done to all our year-one students for a very successful first week in UIC. We wish you the best of luck for your first year of study in the College.