Volume 3, Number 1, June 1998
List of Articles--
Click on a title to view the abstract.Colonialism's Aftermath in Asia: A Snapshot View of Bilingualism in Hong Kong
M.C. Pennington
University of Luton, U.K.From Text to Test, Automatically - An Evaluation of a Computer Cloze-Test Generator
David Coniam
The Chinese University of Hong KongWriting in the Hong Kong secondary classroom: Teachers' beliefs and practice
Icy Lee
Douglas College, B.C., CanadaA Principled Approach to ESP Course Design
Chris Offord-Gray and Deborah Aldred
The University of Hong KongThe Morrison Education Society School and the Beginning of Anglo-Chinese Education in Hong Kong
Stephen Evans
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Colonialism's Aftermath in Asia: A Snapshot View of Bilingualism in Hong Kong
M.C. Pennington
University of Luton, U.K.Abstract
This paper takes a brief look at the shifting profile of bilingualism in Hong Kong. Whereas the Hong Kong society could once be described in diglossic terms, i.e. with a differentiation of English and Cantonese in terms of their functions and status as "high" and "low" languages, it is currently undergoing a rapid shift away from this diglossic profile and towards the localisation of discourse.
From Text to Test, Automatically - An Evaluation of a Computer Cloze-Test Generator
David Coniam
The Chinese University of Hong KongAbstract
This paper investigates the application of corpus data to computerised test design. It describes Autotest - a computer system which produces multiple-choice vocabulary tests from a plain text by means of a word class tagger and lists of the most frequent words in English. Tests produced by the system are envisaged as being printed out and used as traditional pen-and-paper exams by English language teachers in Hong Kong. The paper describes the procedure for getting from a text to a test, and presents an analysis of two cloze tests which have been produced by the system and trialed on classes of students in Hong Kong secondary schools. Results are encouraging in that while the system did not produce as many good test items as would be expected of a competent human test setter, the test items produced by the system were far from what might be expected of a potential 'garbage in, garbage out' methodology. The system is not intended, however, to be seen as a stand-alone test-producing system, and it is stressed that the system has to be viewed as an aid to a teacher producing tests herself.
Writing in the Hong Kong secondary classroom: Teachers' beliefs and practices
Icy Lee
Douglas College, B.C., CanadaAbstract
This paper reports the findings of an investigation into secondary teachers' beliefs and practices regarding writing. The study makes use of a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews to elicit: (1) teachers' views of students' abilities in different aspects of writing; (2) teachers' self-reported practices in the classroom; and (3) teachers' beliefs about the teaching and learning of writing. The findings of the survey reveal that there exists a gap between teachers' beliefs and practices. Although most of the teachers think that discourse coherence is essential to writing instruction, the findings suggest that they primarily attend to grammar in their evaluation of students' writing and in their own teaching. The paper concludes that teachers need to be made aware of their role as writing teachers rather than language teachers.
A Principled Approach to ESP Course Design
Chris Offord-Gray and Deborah Aldred
The University of Hong KongAbstract
For an ESP/EAP writing course to be directly relevant and useful to the learners of a specific discourse community, it needs to have certain theoretical and practical principles underpinning it. Such principles should not only reflect a theory of language learning and the kind of methodology that it implies but should also be grounded in research into the learner needs as perceived by the discourse community, and a linguistic analysis of the texts produced by that community, together with knowledge of the learners' previous language learning experience in the wider educational context. Although the principles adopted here are discussed in relation to a research and materials development project that was undertaken to address the written business communication needs of the accountancy profession, it is argued that such principles could have a wider application.
The Morrison Education Society School and the Beginning of Anglo-Chinese Education in Hong Kong
Stephen Evans
Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityAbstract
The beginnings of Anglo-Chinese education in Hong Kong can be traced to the opening of the Morrison Education Society School in November 1842. The Morrison Education Society, which had been founded in Canton in 1835 to commemorate the life of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in China, established the school in Macao in 1839. Three years later the school moved to a purpose-built site on a hill (now called Morrison Hill) overlooking Victoria Harbour after the cession of Hong Kong to the British, and remained there until 1849, when it was forced to close as a result of financial difficulties. The activities of the Morrison Education Society and its school are recorded in considerable detail in its annual reports which appeared in the pages of the Chinese Repository (hereafter CR), a Canton-based missionary journal, from the mid-1830s until the school’s closure in the late 1840s. The records of the school provide a valuable insight into the nature of Anglo-Chinese education in early Hong Kong, as well as the more general objectives of Western education on the China coast in the mid-nineteenth century. This paper traces the history of the Morrison Education Society School from its inception in Macao in the years immediately preceding the Opium War to its closure ten years later. In particular, it examines the aims of the school in relation to both general education and English language education, the content of the school’s Chinese and English curricula, the methods and approaches which were used to teach and learn the Chinese and English languages, and the influence which the school’s Western teachers and curriculum exerted on its Chinese students.
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