1.1 Medium of Instruction Issues

Following the publication of the White Paper on Education Policy in 1974, the choice of the medium of instruction (hereafter MOI) in Hong Kong schools was left to the school authorities.

It is the Government’s intention that individual school authorities should themselves decide whether the medium of instruction should be English or Chinese for any particular subject in junior secondary forms.

(Hong Kong Government 1974, p.7, para 2.16, 2.17)

Driven by market demand, about 90% of the secondary schools adopted English as their official MOI in the 1980s (Sweeting, 1991). However, the English proficiency of most of the students who entered these English-medium instruction (hereafter EMI) secondary schools was far from adequate for them to follow the secondary school curriculum. Two studies reported that only about 30% of the students with high level of English proficiency could perform effectively when the text and the medium were in English. They also showed that another 30% or so had serious difficulties coping with the English medium but would be able to learn effectively in the Chinese medium. The rest of the students came somewhere in between. The effects of different MOI were more significant in heavily language dependent subjects like History but less significant in subjects such as Science (Johnson et al. 1985; Brimer et al. 1985).

The findings of the above two studies were confirmed by a longitudinal study of 7500 junior secondary students over a period of two years on the amount of English spoken in class, students’ comprehension of English instruction and the textbooks. The results showed that there was a correlation between language proficiency and academic achievement in other subjects. Students with a high level of English proficiency coped well in EMI contexts whereas those who had low English proficiency suffered. This study further showed that more and more Cantonese was used as the MOI in Anglo-Chinese schools. Teachers often resorted to Cantonese to explain complex concepts because Cantonese or mixed code was more effective in promoting classroom interaction (Ip and Chan, 1985). All these studies suggest that for students to benefit from English medium instruction, their English proficiency must have reached a threshold level, otherwise, their academic achievement would suffer badly.

An observational study (Johnson, 1983) of language used in the classroom by fifteen non-language academic subject teachers in five schools showed that the proportion of English used in these classrooms ranged from 10% to 50%. Replicated studies based on self-report by teachers and schools indicated that the shift has been towards the use of a greater proportion of Cantonese (Johnson, Shek & Law, 1991). The Government attributes this practice to the decline in students’ language proficiency (Education Commission Report No.4, [hereafter ECR No.4], 1990).

1.2 Government Policy

ECR No.4 (1990) emphasized the difficulties children encountered in learning through English and stated that Chinese was undervalued as a MOI. It says,

…there is pressure for children to learn English and to learn in English, since this is seen by parents as offering the best prospect for their children’s future. Many children, however, have difficulty with learning in English; and conversely, Chinese is undervalued as a medium of instruction and the importance of the Chinese language skills is not sufficiently recognized.

(ECR No.4, 1990, p.93, para. 6.3.2)

Since the early 1980’s the Government has espoused the policy to promote mother tongue instruction in secondary schools (ECR No.1, 1984). Positive discrimination and other support measures were then taken to encourage schools to adopt more mother tongue instruction. As well as additional resources, more English teachers would be provided to allow smaller class-size teaching and guidelines would be provided to schools to help them to decide on their MOI. However, the measures were unsuccessful in terms of promoting mother tongue instruction and by 1994 only about 12% of the secondary schools had opted solely for mother tongue instruction (ECR No.4, 1990), far below the ECR No.4 (1990) recommended target of 70%.

In 1990, when ECR No.4 was published, the Government adopted a different approach. Instead of leaving schools to decide on theMOI, the Government for the first time in history, mandated that schools would be provided with guidance on the medium to be adopted. A time-line was laid down which allowed the schools to prepare for the transition. From 1991-1993, schools would still be given the freedom to choose the medium. From 1994-1997, advice would be given to schools on the appropriate medium for their students according to their ability. From 1998 onwards, however, schools would be “firmly guided” by the Government on their choice of MOI.

The Government advises schools on the appropriate MOI according to their

Secondary 1 students intake and publicizes the result. Schools have to adopt a clear-cut MOI policy, that is, all academic subjects, with the exception of Chinese History, must be taught in one and the same MOI. The Government will exercise ‘firm guidance’ to schools that fail to adopt the appropriate MOI, which implies sanctions for non-compliance. The policy was applied to Secondary 1 from the school year 1998/99 and will be progressively extended to higher grades.

The implementation of the‘firm guidance’ policy has raised the proportion of schools using CMI from about 12% in 1994 to 75% in 1998^*. This change means that teachers in about 300 secondary schools have to face a change in MOI. Hence the change involves a significant number of teachers originally using EMI switching to CMI. This leads to the setup of a CMI Centre for supporting teachers using Chinese as the medium of instruction.

^{* The figure 12% in this paragraph is quoted from ECR No.4 (see ECR No.4, 1994, p.22) and 75% is estimated base on that the total number of secondary schools is 471 (see ED statistics) and 114 of them approved to use EMI in 1998/99.}

1.3 Potential Problems for Teachers Switching to Mother Tongue Instruction

Theoretically, many of the affected teachers will have been taught in an EMI context from secondary education upwards, because the English-medium Anglo-Chinese secondary school sector has been expanding since the 1960’s. How ready are these teachers to face the change? Intuitively we may think that the change from the use of a second language to that of mother tongue should not be difficult. This is probably true in the context of student learning. However, the case may not be as simple when teaching of academic subjects is concerned.

 

 

Teaching demands language skills in both writing and speaking. In Hong Kong, mother tongue refers to spoken Cantonese and written Standard Chinese. The latter is associated with spoken Mandarin (or Putonghua), the national spoken dialect of China, which has important differences from spoken Cantonese. Therefore, even though local teachers may have no problem in communicating verbally with students, their writing skills in Chinese may not be adequate to perform the teaching task since the written standard Chinese is acquired primarily through formal education, in English. Secondly, general fluency in mother tongue may not help in the context of the teaching of academic subjects. Cummins’ (1981) conception of the interrelation between language proficiency and context of use has implications in this respect. Cummins distinguishes between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). BICS refers to context embedded, cognitively undemanding use of language, such as in a casual conversation between peers; whereas CALP concerns context reduced, cognitively demanding application. Language use in the context of classroom instruction demands primarily CALP (Baker, 1988). Since teachers have themselves been taught using English as the medium of instruction, it is likely that their CALP will be undermined when exercised in another language. Furthermore, each school subject has a particular set of language, spoken as well as written, which is unique to that specific discipline. This includes vocabulary and notations, structure of discourse, and mode of inquiry (Crowhurst, 1994). An obvious example is nomenclature (i.e. naming system). Teachers cannot directly transfer their knowledge encoded in English, but have to learn the system from anew in Chinese. The implication is that we should not confuse fluency in everyday language with competence in academic language. Teachers who have had their academic training in English and have now switched to mother tongue instruction, have to master discipline specific language from anew in Chinese in order to be able to perform adequately in a CMI context. Obviously, discipline specific language is at the core of instruction and it is, therefore, important for teachers to be able to overcome the difficulty in the shortest time possible. This points to the need for retraining with a special focus on MOI and other related support.

It is too early for us to comment on the outcome of the present MOI change since this is only the first year of mass scale implementation. Fullan (1991) distills from the experience of successful reforms, the principle of pressure and support. He argues that “[s]uccessful change projects always include elements of both pressure and support” (Fullan, 1991, p.91). Fullan further elaborates, “Pressure without support leads to resistance and alienation; support without pressure leads to drift or waste of resources” (p.91). In other words, the role of pressure in the change process is to maintain the intended direction of change. Regarding the present MOI change, the Government’s authority to exercise ‘firm guidance’ and other coordinated regulating measures has successfully directed schools adopting MOI in accordance with its advice. With regard to support, the Government has a package of measures covering various aspects including additional facilities and manpower for CMI schools, in-service teacher training, textbooks and reference materials, and publicity (for a detailed summary, see Education Department [ED], 1997). However, we have yet to find out how adequate these measures are, especially from the perspective of the clients, namely, the teachers and school administrators. Are these measures sufficient, in terms of quantity and quality, to empower the implementers so that they feel confident in carrying out the change? In what ways do they accept or reject the change? We need feedback from the people involved in managing the change of MOI. It is the purpose of this study to investigate what the implementers think and feel and to suggest ways of streamlining the change process.

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