Research conducted in the 1980s and 1990s pointed to a widening gap on Hong Kong university campuses between institutional language policy, which stipulated the use of English, and classroom practice, which often involved the use of Cantonese to explain and discuss English written materials. This article presents the findings of a multidimensional study which sought to uncover patterns of in-class and out-of-class language use at one officially English-medium institution between 2000 and 2010 and to identify the challenges that its mainly Cantonese-speaking undergraduates experience when listening to and speaking English for academic purposes. The findings were derived from two campus-wide questionnaire surveys and an interview-based longitudinal study of the student experience of English-medium higher education. The findings indicate that the gap between policy and practice has closed noticeably in the past decade in consequence of the increasing internationalisation of the student body and institutional initiatives to enforce the medium-of-instruction policy. While there is a closer, though not watertight, alignment between policy and practice in lectures and seminars, the evidence suggests that students have little need or desire to speak English outside the classroom, apart from situations in which international students or non-Cantonese-speaking students from mainland China are present.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2011.553287]

During the last two decades of colonial rule, a wide gulf existed between policy and practice in Hong Kong's English-medium secondary schools: while English was the medium of textbooks, assignments and examinations, Cantonese and Cantonese-English mixed code were the dominant media of classroom communication. Although mixed-mode instruction was defended in some quarters, during the 1990s it was regarded in government circles as the main cause of unsatisfactory English standards. To eliminate mixed-mode instruction, and thereby ensure the consistent use of English or Chinese as teaching media, the postcolonial government introduced a controversial language policy in 1998 which permitted only 112 schools to remain English-medium, while most schools were forced to switch their medium of instruction from English to Chinese. This paper presents the findings of an investigation which aimed to gauge the extent to which the new policy has been translated into classroom practice in the 'reformed' English-medium stream. The findings indicate that teachers and students make greater use of English in the classroom than their counterparts during the era of 'mass' English-medium education, although, as might be expected, the language-learning experience provided in the 'reformed' English-medium stream generally falls short of the full immersion programme envisaged by policy makers.
[Copyright of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434630802147940]

In September 1998, the Education Department of the fledgling Hong Kong Special Administrative Region implemented a controversial medium-of-instruction policy which compelled around three-quarters of the territory's hitherto English-medium secondary schools to switch to Chinese-medium teaching in Forms 1–3 (years 7–9). Only 112 schools were permitted to remain English-medium, but only on the condition that their content-area teachers make consistent use of English as the language of classroom instruction and interaction rather than, as had been the case in the last two decades of colonial rule, a mixture of Cantonese and English. This article presents the findings of a study which sought to determine the extent to which the post-colonial government's language policy has been translated into classroom practice in the reformed Chinese and English streams since 1998. The findings were derived from a questionnaire survey of a sample of undergraduates from the first two cohorts to complete their studies in the reformed Chinese and English streams, together with semi-structured interviews with students and teachers currently studying and teaching in the two streams. The findings indicate that teachers in both the Chinese and English streams have found it difficult to fully implement the new policy in their classrooms.
[Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02671520802172461]