This paper investigates the language ideologies held by a group of international students in an English medium instruction (EMI) university in multilingual Hong Kong. The findings indicate that the participants' beliefs about English extend beyond its role as an instructional medium and encompass its use as a lingua franca and as a means of social inclusion. It is also found that the participants hold complex yet sometimes contradictory ideologies about the kinds of English to be used and/or accepted and about the monolingual and multilingual uses of English in the EMI university context. Taken together, the study suggests that the participants' ideologies with respect to the roles of English and the norms of English use in the EMI university context are much more complex than what language policy from above suggests. The findings also reveal the ideological tensions over the norms of English use in the EMI university context and the closely intertwined relationship between the participants' language ideologies and the maintenance of their interests, especially in relation to access to learning opportunities in the classroom. The study calls for attention to broader issues pertaining to social inclusion/exclusion, linguistic advantage/disadvantage and educational equality/inequality in the multilingual EMI university context. Copyright ©2021 Routledge.

Ever since the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China on 1 July 1997, policy makers in Hong Kong have instituted a series of de-colonising language policies, notably Mother Tongue Education (Education Department, 1997. Medium of instruction guidance for secondary schools. Retrieved from https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr97-98/english/panels/ed/papers/ed1508-6.htm.) which emphasises the importance of the Chinese language in rebranding the city as a cosmopolitan bilingual city in Asia. One unintended consequence is that linguistically and culturally diverse pupils in the system are struggling to learning Chinese as an additional language (CAL). Against the backdrop of existing CAL policies which promote decentralisation and school-based curricula, this exploratory paper aims at examining the extent to which the language planning context has facilitated and constrained CAL teachers’ agency in Hong Kong secondary schools. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 CAL teachers purposively recruited from three local secondary schools, this study finds that certain features of the language planning contexts have constrained and transformed teacher agency in ways that lead to what Cummins’s (2000. Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.) refers to as ‘the narrowing of the curriculum brought about by teaching to the test’ (p.248). The resultant emphasis on the short-term CAL goals, as manifested by this maximum-variation sample of teachers, is discussed with attention to how teacher agency is ecologically achieved and claimed, and a call for restructuring existing CAL policies to attend more to the mediating impact of the ecology on teacher agency, and to purposively channel teachers’ agentive action towards the long-term goal of mainstreaming. In doing so, CAL teachers can truly be ecologically set up as agentive language planners in the face of increasing

This paper provides an overview of English language education policies and practices in Hong Kong. It examines changes and developments in policymaking and implementation across the education system. Based on a qualitative analysis of government documents and empirical studies, this review utilizes a sociocultural framework in characterizing language policy decision making processes and implementation strategies in colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong. Findings revealed a multilayered context within which English language education policies and practices are enacted, highlighting the interplay among political, social, economic and educational agendas in policy formulation and implementation. The incongruence between policy recommendations and actual classroom practices, as well as the relationship between government responsiveness and public preferences suggested the power and agency of multiple stakeholders (e.g. parents, teachers and community members) in the interpretation and appropriation of language education policies. This review provides additional insights to understanding the status of English against the backdrop of changing local conditions and to identifying forces of continuity and change in the development of language education policies and practices in Hong Kong. Implications for practice, policy and research are discussed. Copyright ©Routledge.

This paper examines the unintended consequences of state language policy and planning (LPP) that adopt subtractive approaches on teachers' subsequent receptivity to policy fine-tuning. A comparative approach is adopted in this statistical study of two strategic contexts, where the influence of the world's two leading languages—English and Mandarin—manifests in the home language conversion patterns of ethnic Chinese teachers of Hong Kong and Singapore. The interplay among state, education, and family linguistic domains provides the framework to understand how teachers exercise agency underpinned by their sociolinguistic background (childhood home language—CHL) and home language conversion preference (home language as adult—HL). The results show that teacher CHL–HL conversion preferences underlie their response to state LPP initiatives and influence LPP outcomes in the education domain. The results are theorized in terms of the prevailing values in Hong Kong and Singapore that shape teacher agency, the unintended outcomes of subtractive LPP in education, and the probable outcomes on the linguistic vitality of local and dominant languages in Hong Kong, with the interplay between future subtractive LPP and teacher agency. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In the era of globalisation, language-in-education policies continue to present challenges as policy-makers across the globe aim to balance the emphasis given to students' first language and the pressing need for students to be proficient in English as the global lingua franca Hanna, P. (2011). Gaining global perspective: Educational language policy and planning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(6), 733-749]. Within this debate, the impact of the medium of instruction (MOI) on students' linguistic, cognitive and affective development has received much attention (Tam, A. C. F. (2011). Does the switch of medium of instruction facilitate the language learning of students? A case study of Hong Kong from teachers' perspective. Language & Education, 25(5), 399-417]). This study focuses on the case of the Maldives, a small Asian nation with its own unique language and homogeneous culture that adopted English as an MOI in an early partial immersion model half a century ago. Using a case study research design, it seeks to uncover the perspectives of students, educators and parents on the benefits and challenges of a policy that adopted a second language as the MOI in a monolingual, monocultural situation, without providing any options for gaining an education in the first language. The survey data indicate that while the need for students to be proficient in English is not disputed, questions are raised regarding its role as the MOI throughout a student's school education. Observational data from classrooms and analysis of instructional materials show the need for urgent reform of the language policy so as to promote students' linguistic diversity and enhance academic achievement. Policy changes that can foster student learning and satisfy language-based civil rights are recommended.
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Language-in-education policies within post-colonization, nationalism, and globalization are currently key concerns of the sociology of language as they impact language teaching and learning in multilingual contexts. Despite these concerns, studies of educational language policies for ethnic minorities, in this case, those of South Asians in Hong Kong, are rare. This paper looks at colonial and post-colonial language policies in education with an eye to shedding light on continuity and change of linguistic capital for this group. Given the complexity, contextuality, complicity, complementarity, and continuity of the approach, the research analyzes the influences of educational language policies concerning South Asians, especially at primary school level, in pre- and post-colonial times. It argues that while English linguistic capital predominates during both pre- and post-colonial periods, this predominant status has begun to be shared by Cantonese, which has emerged as the'high' language in post-handover Hong Kong and forms the main barrier for South Asians to learn Chinese as a second language to enable upward mobility in Hong Kong society.
[Copyright of Current Issues in Language Planning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.609687]

In some settings, medium of instruction (MOI) policies in multilingual education break out into public debates in mass media involving politicians, business leaders, government officials, parents, and school children. These public discussions of MOI often index struggles over the distribution of political power and economic resources, and issues such as national cultural identity, national security, equity, and social justice. Although there is a vast scholarly literature on framing and media effects, very little research has examined the role of mass media in MOI policy-making. Specifically, how do mass media shape the policies that are adopted in multilingual contexts? This article reports on a comparative analysis of the coverage in major newspapers of two important MOI controversies in multilingual education: mother tongue versus English MOI in Hong Kong and the continuing discussion of the role of English and Spanish in Arizona. Using the conceptual frameworks of representation theory, legitimization theory, and framing, I identify the major components of the ideological framing of MOI policy in these contexts, the political agendas implicit in media texts about MOI, and the implications for language policy research and practice.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2014.947018]

One major impact of globalisation on education is denoted by the growing trend to use English, the global language, as a medium of instruction (MOI) in emerging polities that are trying to enhance their English-speaking capacities. This article emphasises developing an understanding of MOI from a language policy and planning as well as an educational perspective. It explores the policy and practice of MOI in 10 polities in Asia including Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, using a broad-based framework that aims to explicate the context, motivation, goals, actors, implementation process and outcomes of MOI. The article points out the dominance of English as MOI which is used in eight of the polity studies included in the analysis. It concludes that while the Asian region as a whole reflects the globalisation of English as medium of instruction policies, individual polities may have specific motivations and goals and that they may develop specific strategies to protect their own interests and identities. More crucially, at the macro-policy level, there seems to be a simplistic understanding of MOI as a cheap solution to complex language problems for achieving overly ambitious politico-economic goals and that this leads to less than ideal MOI implementation illustrated by teachers' and students' struggles as policy actors at the micro level.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2013.792130]

Medium of instruction (MOI) is a highly controversial and thorny educational issue in Hong Kong. Despite the Hong Kong government's strenuous efforts to promote Chinese-medium instruction since 1984, social and community pressure for English-medium instruction (EMI) has been immense and continues to increase. However, the dominance of English as MOI has raised various educational, linguistic, and socioeconomic issues such as rote learning, motivation, declining language standards, and restricted social mobility. Against this background, this article examines the potential of the recently introduced fine-tuning of MOI policy in addressing such concerns and ensuring the benefits of EMI. The article draws on language-planning theories and various concepts of bilingual education for framing the argument and relies on government statistics, empirical studies, and newspaper and magazine articles as sources of data. It is concluded that a policy approach is not sufficient to treat language problems, and that MOI should be planned holistically together with language teaching in the entire school curriculum.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2013.791223]

Language-in-education planning in the form of materials planning has an important role to play in achieving a society's social goals. Gender stereotyping has been found in previous language textbook studies. Although gender bias has declined, some recent studies suggest that it still exists. This study analysed the content and language of a recently published Hong Kong English language textbook series for grade one students to explore its gender representation. The results of the study showed that males and females were almost equally represented and were portrayed in a similar range of activities. Females were also more visible in both illustrations and texts. The phenomena of females being underrepresented and male dominance that occurred in the previous textbook studies did not exist in the textbook series examined, though males were still mentioned first when two nouns were paired for gender. One implication that can be drawn from the results is that gender stereotyping or how gender is represented in textbooks should be an important factor to be considered when school teachers select textbooks for their students, and this aspect should be highly emphasized in the government's policy manual for selection of textbooks for use in schools, given the fact that textbooks may have strong influence on children's development of values and attitudes.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.541390]