Thursday, May 12, 2005
On Language 5/12: Teaching English in Hong Kong, Or Not
Hong Kong’s students left at a loss for words
Chicago Tribune, May 12, 2005
By Nathan Bierma
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Hong Kong’s linguistic situation is nearly as complex as its political situation. Hong Kong has partial independence as a “special administrative region” of China. Both English and Chinese are official languages of the territory, although English is, in practice, mostly restricted to politics and business, while Chinese is used in the home and in social settings.
To make matters more complicated, the Hong Kong government says it wants students to be “biliterate but trilingual.” That is, students should be able to write in both English and standard written Chinese, and they should be able to fluently speak English, Cantonese (a regional dialect of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong and parts of mainland China) and Putonghua (the spoken equivalent of standard written Chinese, which has its own distinct features).
Dan Lu provides more background by e-mail:
On the intent of mother-tongue teaching:
The government believed that the policy of mother tongue education could really help the students to learn. This belief was based on the fact that many schools taught subjects in Chinese though they were labelled as English-medium schools or Anglo-Chinese schools. The government thought learning English is not exactly learning in English. Even if English is not used as the medium of instruction in subjects like physics, accouting, mathematics, students can learn English in the subject of English. Since mixed code wastes time and hinders the growth of both English and Chinese, a clear policy of mother tongue education can rectify the chaotic stiuation.
On code-mixing:
By definition code-mixing means a mixed use of two languages, usually without a change of topic. For example, one may speak English sentences on a certain topic; however, some French words might be mixed in his English sentences: What do you think of the newly-published French dictionnaire des expressions polulaires? Likewise, Hong Kong people like to mix English words in their Cantonese utterances. For example: nei5 jau5 mou5 sik6 gwo3 lunch? (Have you had your lunch?)