Teachers' misconceptions and questionable practices when using Putonghua as the medium-of-instruction: A case study of Hong Kong

Teachers' misconceptions and questionable practices when using Putonghua as the medium-of-instruction: A case study of Hong Kong

• Tam, Angela Choi Fung Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 18(6), 655-673, 2012

Routledge

2012

• F Learning & Teaching
  • FE Medium of Instruction, Language of Teaching, Bi-& Multilingual Education, Problems of Bilingualism, Code-mixing & Code-switching
• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MF Characteristics & Conditions of Educational Workers

Language Policy Teacher Attitudes Code Switching (Language) Putonghua Language of Instruction Secondary School Teachers

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Secondary Education

Immediately after the handover of Hong Kong to China, the teaching of Chinese in Putonghua was promulgated by the Hong Kong SAR government as a long-term goal. However, no clear definition and guidance regarding Putonghua instruction has been provided to teachers to facilitate the smooth implementation of this change. A review of the literature indicates that teachers' beliefs have great value in assisting them to make sense of changes and govern their thoughts and behaviours. However, little is known about how teachers' beliefs help teachers to understand the transition to a new medium-of-instruction (MOI). Thus, the aim of this case study is to examine how teachers' beliefs help teachers to conceptualize the Putonghua medium-of-instruction (PMI) and how these beliefs affect their curricular decisions as well as the implementation of PMI. Data were collected from 10 secondary Chinese Language teachers in one school using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. The findings revealed that since teachers held misconceptions about PMI in the initial phase, the implementation of PMI led to a shift of focus away from Chinese content knowledge. In the second phase, PMI was perceived merely as a code-switching device, and, as a result, only a surface change occurred that appeared unlikely to facilitate effective teaching and deep learning. This paper concludes with the observation that code switching alone is insufficient to achieve a successful transition of MOI if the deeper issue of teachers' beliefs is neglected.
[Copyright of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.746500]

• English

Journal Articles

• 13540602

• 10.1080/13540602.2012.746500

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/e4f2387e

2014-01-18