The Journey from Specialist to Generalist: Creating a Skills-Based Program for Undergraduates at a Private University in Seoul

Abstract

This paper is intended as both a brief history and a reflection by the author on the creation of the four-skills-based undergraduate program for students in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hanyang University’s Seoul campus. It shows the journey from a handful of unrelated courses taught primarily by faculty from the Practical English Education Committee’s Freshmen English program into a top-ranked and successful program within a program offering a mixture of CBI, ESP, EAP, and SBELT courses to better train the department’s students for life after graduation as graduate students or full time employees at domestic or international companies. Finally, it offers an analysis of what worked and what did not to help other programs/curriculum designers avoid some of the inevitable pitfalls involved in creating an all-new program of this kind.