What happens when policy revision allows for more L2 (English) in the curriculum?

What happens when policy revision allows for more L2 (English) in the curriculum?

• Kan, Wai Him Vincent
• Kirkpatrick, Thomas Andrew

The Languages of education: The Chinese context conference (2010: The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China)

• F Learning & Teaching
  • FE Medium of Instruction, Language of Teaching, Bi-& Multilingual Education, Problems of Bilingualism, Code-mixing & Code-switching

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Hong Kong provides an excellent case study of language policy in a multilingual world. Cantonese is the medium of instruction for all government primary schools, where English and Putonghua are taught as subjects. The majority of HK's secondary schools are also Chinese (Cantonese) medium, but about a quarter are English medium. This policy has not been popular with parents and the government has now bowed to parental pressure for more access to English and announced a ‘fine-tuning' of the current policy, to take effect from the school year 2010-2011. This new policy will allow secondary schools to teach more subjects through English, as long as certain criteria concerning student and teacher capabilities and resources are met. After a brief historical review of Hong Kong's language policy, the paper will report on an empirical study into the practical and pedagogical consequences of the new fine-tuning policy. The study surveyed 127 secondary schools to identify what changes in practice were planned. The hypothesis was that schools would be primarily influenced by parental demand and that therefore the overwhelming majority of them would plan to use the maximum allowance given by fine-tuning to increase their teaching through English as a subject and as a medium of instruction. In reporting the findings, the paper will show whether these predictions were in fact met, and the effects it could have on schools, teachers and students.

Paper presented at the Languages of education: The Chinese context conference, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/2972c109

2015-09-17