Findings addressing the six Specific Research Questions

Research Question 1: To what extent and in what ways does the ENET Scheme impact teachers’ English language teaching (pedagogical practices)?

A key objective of the Scheme is ‘to strengthen teaching capacity’. The stated objective envisages that this strengthening would be achieved through school-based professional development and collaboration between NETs and English Panel Members¹⁵. Findings related to these two aspects of the Scheme are reported below in relation to Research Question 5. This section focuses on the impact of the NET on the pedagogical practices of his or her colleagues in the English Panel.

CF1: School Principals, English Panel Chairs, and local English teachers felt that the influence of the NET has an impact on the teaching approaches of local English teachers.

As noted above in the descriptions of individual schools, responses to the online survey items about teaching approaches often suggested that the NET influenced local English teachers to adopt approaches involving drama, films, songs, games, debates, poetry, short stories, creative writing, readers’ theatre and multimodal texts. Interviews with key stakeholders helped to substantiate this influence, as well as suggesting that NETs influence other aspects of pedagogy including catering to student needs, focussing on more colloquial varieties of English, making use of media resources, adopting cross-curricular approaches and adopting a more student-centred approach generally:

[The NET] can give us some suggestions in the curriculum how we can perform better or how we can teach better to meet our students’ needs.

(SP Interview)

… as panel members, we like to learn from [the NET] and the students of course, the teaching is very clear and the students follow him closely.

[the NET] is very important in the school because he helps not only the students but the teachers.

(EPC Interview)

… when we talk about colloquial English or we may say, everyday English, actually, we need [the NET], okay, to give us some more ideas.

15 http://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/resource-support/net/enet-objectives.html

146 (Local English teachers FG) Because really the way she speaks, um, the games she introduced, it’s something which we may not have heard before because we all were brought up in Hong Kong. [The NET] can bring us some new ideas like she is from America, something that is popular in the United States, I think this can widen our horizons.

(Local English teachers FG) The influence of a NET on the pedagogical practices of local English teachers can be facilitated in different ways. In one school, an ‘open classroom’ policy encouraged local English teachers to walk in and observe and learn from the approaches that their outstanding NET employed.

Three local English teachers from this school shared their experience of watching the NET:

I think this year because our NET teacher got an open classroom, so we went to his classroom, we were quite surprised and amazed that – it’s a form 2 class, the students can actually answer everything in a full sentence and the vocabulary bank is wider than we expect. So, it’s only two months and they’re form 2 this year, we asked him how he could do that?

(Local English teachers FG) Actually, he was talking about the refugees problem and the news of the refugees and I think he could integrate both historical knowledge and also English in that lesson because he made use of the South China Morning Post and he also relates students’

knowledge to what he had talked about and history lessons and for example, Hong Kong history, our ancestors who might have been a refugee and he could integrate a lot of examples in that lesson and I can see the students not only focus on the text and then can also de-compartmentalise the whole knowledge that they have learnt in other lessons.

(Local English teachers FG) I guess [our] classrooms [have] become more student-based because we always used to have a teacher-centred classroom, like we do all the talking and the students act as a receiver in the classroom. But what he has been doing is inquiry-based learning so he tends to ask quite a lot of intriguing questions and then sometimes have students find the answer at home first and then present in class. I guess he is trying to bring this learning style into our classrooms and we can all actually learn from that as well.

(Local English teachers FG)

147 CF2: Local English teachers valued the different perspective that the NET had brought to English language learning and teaching and the different practices associated with this perspective, but some felt constrained in their ability to adopt similar practices in their own teaching.

One of the local English teachers quoted above prefaced her remarks by saying that the NET in her school could provide insights, but local English teachers did not have the same abilities.

This can be interpreted as implying that ‘insight’ would not necessarily lead to ‘impact’ on her own pedagogical practices:

I think I can get insights from a NET teacher. It’s better to have a NET teacher than not to have one . . . If we have a NET teacher, it’s easier, like the organisation of the activities this is something which I think we local English teachers may not be that professional in doing.

(Local English teachers FG) I like having a NET teacher because I think she’s the only person in the department who dare not to follow, not to be so examination-oriented. To a certain extent I think learning English is not only for examination but because of the existing education system, we local teachers have to force our students, to spoon feed our students to learn everything for their examinations, this is something I don’t like very much. Having a NET teacher, I think we could do something not so examination-oriented, more relaxing, something really like the learning of English, learning culture, learn fun, having fun is very important.

(Local English Teachers FG) One English Panel Chair expressed this kind of limitation in a very positive way, and the NET in the same school reinforced the point by mentioning the discretion and sensitivity needed to operate successfully as a NET:

The NET is very friendly and helpful. He knows what we need in school. He also understands that there are some limitations in school when we cannot follow his suggestions.

(EPC Interview) Well, I help them out with recordings, videos, with the English enhancement scheme we’ve got going on here I’m part of that as well. So, I like to help out as much as I’m asked to do, you know, for us NETs going into schools, we have to be very careful.

(NET Interview) Another teacher in another school was rather neutral in evaluating the impact of the NET on their own practices, while recognising that the NET has the ability to build learner confidence to use English.

I think he doesn’t affect much, right? My class, my autonomy. But in this school, I think, we just treat the NET teacher as a normal guy. Instead of a special figure in school. I think in this way, students would be more, would be feeling more comfortable,

148 easier with a foreigner or English speaker. And this helps build their confidence in speaking or using English. They are just talking to a normal guy, a normal teacher. We don’t take him as special figure.

(Local English teachers FG) Teachers in another school valued the different perspective that the NET had brought to the accuracy-fluency dichotomy and the place of examination-orientation in motivating students to learn.

I think she shows me how we can tolerate students’ mistakes. For a Hong Kong teacher, it’s really sad that we can’t tolerate students making mistakes she shows me how she can do it and then it will be fine if we can communicate and she shows it to students and I find that without correcting students’ mistakes, they can improve. So, I think she can set a really good example to all the colleagues, that we don’t need to focus on accuracy so much, so I think it’s a really good example, a good role model.

… being a local teacher [we focus on] correct grammar, correct English. But I guess they are from different background, and they learn how you can communicate with others effectively, and so they are less concerned about grammar or sentence structure, as long as you can communicate with other people well and each other understand what they are talking, it’s fine. So, it really depends on what kind of principle [you follow]

(Local English teachers FG) Local teachers in another school expressed a lack confidence in their own ability to create an English-speaking environment, and they relied on the NET to provide this English atmosphere in the class:

I feel that the effectiveness is larger in the NET’s lesson as local teachers cannot create the English environment. Students know that local teachers speak Cantonese and feel the NET is more special.

(Local English Teachers FG) Teachers in other schools valued the unique contribution that the NET could bring, since it could help raise their awareness of aspects of English they had not been so aware of before exposure to a NET, such as differences between written and spoken discourse:

I think NET’s function is for exposure. Since Hong Kong [puts] more emphasis on the written form (e.g. grammar), foreigners might use language or the words in many different ways in their culture. As we are living in Hong Kong, we do not know that and the NET can tell us and students. He brings the real use of language to us. I think it is the most valuable to the NET.

(Local English teachers FG) The perceptions of local English teachers in this section can be further illuminated by reference to the views expressed by NETs in the non-school-based NET focus group discussion. In that gathering, NETs expressed the view that some teaching approaches employed in their schools could be changed to better meet the needs of children growing up in the Internet age. Teachers

149 spoke of adopting a multimodal stimulus approach, often based on video input, as a necessary way of getting through to the new generation of school children. These approaches were often contrasted with approaches more commonly adopted by local English teachers which, NETs felt, were based on the teacher’s own successful learning experiences, but failed to stimulate lower ability students or meet their learning needs:

… Now what’s interesting there, from my experience is that you’ve got [local] teachers teaching students the same way that they learnt, in the sense that they were successful at learning in this particular exam-driven mode. They were good at linguistic intelligence and whatever, mathematics, but when they come back, when we’re dealing with these Band 3 students, it’s a different type of learning. And these are smart kids, but in a different way.

(Non-school-based NET FG) Lower ability students, participants agreed, needed a different style of teaching in which the focus was on self-esteem and confidence rather than on academic achievement.

[The Principal] wanted the NET’s opinion on the school, so I prepared twenty pages of notes over the years, but one thing was this, and she was agreeable to it, although I haven’t seen it happen yet … I think we’d agreed that the focus tends to be on student achievement rather than self-esteem. As a teacher, my starting point is the student’s self-esteem. If you start with their self-esteem and giving them confidence, you’ll get a lot more achievement.

And, I’ve found that throughout the years. If you give them a little bit of achievement in something simple, you know, the experience of success makes you feel good about yourself. And so many of our students have their self-esteem and self-confidence totally shattered. From the beginning. I saw that on my first day.

(Non-school-based NET FG)

150 CF3: The impact of the NET on local English teachers’ pedagogical practices is affected by NET deployment patterns.

A diverse range of views was expressed by stakeholders regarding the most appropriate deployment for a NET. Some considered the NET as bringing added value in the teaching of oral skills and co-curricular activities. Others felt that it was important for the NET to gain experience of mainstream teaching in addition to organising activities in order that they could acquire the local knowledge which was considered essential to effective teaching in Hong Kong.

I think if I only have the NET teach the oral lesson, then he [will not be] so familiar with the syllabus or the curriculum in Hong Kong. Therefore, I talked to the panel [and]

we thought that the NET needed to have a full class, so that he can [become] familiar with what is going on in Hong Kong, otherwise he just has his mindset in England... In Hong Kong, it’s different, totally different… Therefore, I do think that [for] the NET the first thing is not only create an English learning environment at school but also perform… the tasks just like other teachers.

(SP Interview) In teaching one whole class in this way, the likelihood that the NET’s different approaches would impact on local English teachers’ approaches is enhanced through the development of shared curriculum resources discussed below in relation to Research Question 4 and the co-planning discussed in relation to Research Question 5.

Another School Principal deployed the NET to teach full classes for other reasons, including acknowledging the expertise of local English teachers, avoiding tension arising from assigning the NET an easier workload when he or she is seen as being paid more than local English teachers, and also maximsing the potential of the NET in different curriculum areas:

[First,] I think [if] NETs only teach oral lessons… it is degrading what Hong Kong education is for our local teachers. It seems [to imply] that our local secondary school or universities are not providing enough support for local teachers to be able to teach oral in the classroom and I think this is wrong... we have different strengths so we should have a better mix… [Second] NET teachers are better paid so to speak and other teachers might have some tension with him or her if they only do two periods a week in a class and no marking, no preparation, if he is only teaching oral lessons, he will be preparing once and then he will be teaching five classes. Same thing. So, I was thinking, to ease the tension between the NET teacher and the local teacher. And a NET teacher has a lot more to offer than just being a speaker in the classroom. [Our NET] is also teaching our teachers how to teach literature. If I only gave him oral lessons, he would not be contributing any of these.

(SP Interview) In another school, the Panel Chair deployed the NET to teach full classes, because he felt the NET was not able to offer any specialist expertise which would justify assigning him to teach non-mainstream areas:

151 [The NET is assigned full classes], and in some forms, maybe speaking classes. It actually depends on the expertise of the teacher. If we can find a good drama teacher, then we will organise drama classes. Then he may not have so many regular lessons.

If the NET has no special skill in any aspect, then he can only be an ordinary teacher in a classroom. And of course, you have to teach three classes. Otherwise, how can you justify it? Because even his non-teaching duties are not as many as we local teachers.

And you cannot give them too many, they won’t entertain you. And that could create a conflict.

(EPC Interview) Other deployment practices were also coloured by perceptions of what the NET could offer.

For example, NETs are rarely assigned to senior form classes, as local English teachers are not confident that NETs can prepare students in the most effective ways to help them meet the challenges of the HKDSE:

… one of the NETs taught form 6 level class… we thought that it was better for him to teach a senior class so that students would understand him. The fact was that he didn’t teach the right level of English. He thought that their English was very poor so he tried to use some simple stuff for them so you can see the discrepancy here, they expected to learn something so that they can get into university, but he thought that their English was very poor… they spent a year together and then we had to change teachers.

(EPC Interview) And also, honestly, NET teachers are new to Hong Kong, the culture, the exam syllabus, so they could be a nightmare if they take up senior forms, they don’t know much about the exam-orientedness. They don’t like exam-orientedness, that’s not how they grew up, that’s why students would prefer some local teachers actually.

(Local English teachers FG) In one school, the English Panel Chair evaluated the NET as having strength in speaking, and with less to offer in the teaching of other skills:

… because their strength is speaking. So, if we ask them to teach reading and writing, they may not be using their potential.

(EPC Interview) The NET referred to in this quote was deployed to teach small withdrawal groups of students in need of oral practice for a variety of reasons – exam preparation, remedial support etc. The NET herself, however, had a very different view of her potential contribution and felt severely under-utilised as a result:

I think that we bring ideas, I mean, it’s so variable the person who comes in, but we [NETs] do have experiences especially the older ones, we have a whole breadth of experience, a whole breadth of studies, so I’ve got my master’s in education, I’ve done studies recently in pedagogical frameworks and studied educational leadership, so there’s this whole thing that we bring that is often untapped.

(NET Interview)

152 Although the NET in this school felt under-utilised, the Panel Chair and the Principal clearly did value that NET’s strength in teaching and modelling spoken English and cultural aspects of the language which would be maximised in small group mode.

We think that small group is easier to get started and build up relationship with NET.

So, we arrange five students with one NET in a lesson. The NETs can input some cultural elements in the activities and have more interactions with students.

(SP Interview) This recognition of the unique contribution of a native-speaking teacher is reflected in other quotes in this section valuing the ability to model and expose students to everyday colloquial English. It is reflected also in the views of another English Panel Chair:

… with him as a symbol, then the students will work very hard, and [they will think]

‘Oh, this is the perfect English, we have to model on’.

(EPC Interview)

Changes in the linguistic landscape of Hong Kong in the 20 years of the NET Scheme’s operation in secondary schools mean that NETs may no longer be the sole source of natural English in the way that they used to be. This complicates decisions as to how best to deploy the NET to have maximum impact on student learning.

I think it’s because times have changed. Before, I remember when I was young, the NET teacher was considered as the source of authentic English speech but now because of the media, because of the technology the kids no longer rely solely on the NET and so I think the kids know American culture or Canadian culture better than the NET.

Right? So, I think there’s another approach from the school, why don’t we put him as an ordinary… teaching staff to be responsible for the teaching load, share the teaching load like the local English teachers. I think this is a very high order question, how can the NET benefit the school… whether the approach should be the NET teaching a few forms but each form, each class, one lesson, the old way of treating the NET like an authentic English speaker… Or should we put him or her as one of the teaching staff, to be responsible for a three-class teaching load.

(Local English teachers FG) The impact of the Primary NET Scheme is also felt in secondary schools, in that students entering secondary school are already familiar with native-speaking teachers, as well as being more confident in using English, after having been taught by PNETs.

I don’t think having a NET changes a lot in my school but students coming from primary schools which had very strong NET programmes does help. In the recent five years, we see students more vocal, they are not afraid of speaking English at all. And this is the merit coming from primary schools, not secondary schools, we didn’t do that.

It’s all the merit from primary school. So, it really doesn’t matter if we have a foreign teacher teaching mathematics or geography, students can handle that. All because of