REFORMS UNDER ECR 1 AND ECR 2

87

CHAPTER 6 : LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION

88

recruited for the Colleges of Education and the Institute of Language in Education (ILE).

Secondary schools should be encouraged to employ locally available native English speakers with teaching qualifications to teach English;

(c) strengthening the teaching of English in secondary schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction. Additional resources including additional teachers of English and moveable partitions for dividing classrooms for split classes should be given to such schools to strengthen the teaching of English to avert any consequential fall in the standard of English owing to reduced exposure.

(This recommendation was subject to research findings on the assumption that, all other things being equal, teaching and learning would generally be more effective if the medium of instruction were the mother tongue and the consequential loss of exposure to English might result in a fall in the standard of English.); and

(d) assisting schools to decide on the medium of instruction. A set of comprehensive guidelines should be made available to secondary school authorities in order to assist them to decide on the language of instruction. Secondary schools should be provided with information on the English proficiency of their Secondary 1 entrants. Chinese and English syllabi should be re-designed and textbooks in both languages should be made available to all schools.

6.2.2 Our recommendations were accepted by the Government. We note that the Government has taken the following action

-89

(a) as regards encouraging a wider use of Chinese in the classroom : since September 1989, all Government and aided secondary schools with 18 classes or more have been provided with an additional graduate teacher of Chinese. Of the 361 Government, aided and caput secondary schools, 126 have adopted Chinese either fully or partly as their medium of instruction. 38 schools will soon follow suit. A further 120 schools are considering the issue. Since September 1986, teacher training courses have been modified to train teachers for a wider use of Chinese. For existing teachers of specific subjects, part-time training on the use of Chinese has been jointly organised by the Advisory Inspectorate, the Colleges of Education and the ILE. More recently from September this year, a course on Chinese Communication Skills will be arranged by the ILE for secondary school teachers. Putonghua has been offered as an optional subject in primary schools and in junior secondary classes since September 1988. Starting in 1989-90, a recurrent grant has been provided to secondary schools for the employment of part-time instructors to run special programmes in Putonghua after school;

(b) as regards improving the standard of English teachers and strengthening the teaching of English in secondary schools : the recruitment of expatriate lecturers for the ILE and Colleges of Education has ceased since all vacancies have been filled. Should vacancies arise, expatriate lecturers will be recruited. The Expatriate English Language Teacher Pilot Scheme was completed in July 1989. As a result of the final evaluation of the pilot scheme, it was decided that a permanent scheme should be introduced in September 1991;

90

(c) as regards strengthening the teaching of English in schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction : research findings have substantiated that learning and teaching would generally be more effective if the medium of instruction were the mother tongue and the consequential loss of exposure to English would result in a fall in the standard of English. Since September 1988, about 80 secondary schools which use Chinese as their medium of instruction for more than 25% of their classes have been provided with additional resources to strengthen the teaching of English. These include the provision of additional teachers of English, additional equipment such as moveable partitions for split classes and a second wire-free induction loop system and a one-off library grant; and

(d) as regards assisting schools to decide on the medium of instruction : in April 1986, guidelines in the from of sample language medium models were sent to secondary schools. With the help of a teacher handbook published in 1988, teachers may now interpret their students' scores in the HKAT in English for the purpose of grouping students, should they so wish. In September 1988, the new English syllabus (Secondary 1 to Secondary 5) was implemented while the new Chinese language syllabus will be implemented in 1991-92. Nearly 70 sets of Chinese textbooks covering 19 general subjects have been made available since September 1989 with more coming on stream covering practical subjects in September 1991.

6.2.3 In ECR 2, published in August 1986, we made three more recommendations relating to language in education. These were that

-91

(a) an additional half of a non-graduate post for teachers of Chinese should be provided to Government and aided secondary schools with fewer than 18 classes;

(b) given the research finding that the effects of split class teaching of English on students' proficiency was marginal, except in improving their listening performance, the recommendation in ECR 1 that resources be provided for split classes should be implemented with sufficient flexibility, so that schools be allowed to use these resources for other measures to strengthen the teaching of English;

and

(c) there should be further research into split class teaching of English and other measures to strengthen the teaching of English.

6.2.4 These too were accepted by the Government. In terms of implementation -(a) the additional posts have been provided since September 1986;

(b) as stated in paragraph 6.2.2(c) above, funds for additional teachers of English, additional equipment and a one-off library grant have been provided to schools since September 1988 and these are used flexibly; and

(c) the further research on split class teaching was completed in 1988 and the findings were favourable as regards teaching and learning attitudes. ED has therefore encouraged schools to use split class teaching in its guidelines, first issued to all

92

secondary schools in 1987 and later revised in 1990.

6.2.5 In ECR 3 published in June 1988, we did not address the issue of language in the primary and secondary sectors as such, but we briefly mentioned the progress made in implementing previous recommendations which we have already described in paragraphs 6.2.2 and 6.2.4 above. We also recommended that the Government should consider providing additional resources for the teaching of English at tertiary institutions, where this could be justified as a remedial measure.

6.3 REVIEW OF CURRENT POLICY BY EDUCATION DEPARTMENT