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This study tracked the development of Hong Kong’s assessment practices for English pronunciation over the past four decades, with reference to the nativeness and intelligibility principles in L2 pr...

The past 40 years have witnessed significant developments in ELT research, reflecting the changes in learners’ language needs and the extensive development of various language learning/teaching methods in different times and places. The aim of this study is to provide a systematic and comprehensive account of changing ELT methods (oral-structural approach, communicative language teaching and task-based language teaching) in Hong Kong’s secondary education between 1975 and the present. By adopting Richards and Rodgers’s (2014) framework (approach, design and procedure), it examined how ELT theories have been transformed into local curricula (1975, 1983, 1999 and 2002/07) and commercial textbooks (Longman, Oxford University Press) via detailed content analysis. The findings suggest that research into ELT methods in Hong Kong over the past decades has generally directed the designs of the language curricula. Changes in the textbooks, however, have been relatively limited, although considerable attempts have been made to align textbook design with ELT trends. By considering various constraints in the theory-to-practice process, this study offers suggestions for future research and language teaching, particularly regarding the recent debate over the choice between the ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ versions of task-based language teaching in EFL contexts, and the post-methods perspective in language teaching.

The study reported in this paper adopted both direct (a large-scale questionnaire survey) and indirect (a verbal-guise test) measures to investigate gender differences in second language (L2) learners’ attitudes towards different English varieties in secondary schools in Hong Kong. The investigation considered various factors affecting students’ attitudes to language including their affective feelings, cultural identity, awareness of language variations, experience of language use, perceived intelligibility of English accents and, more importantly, situational language choices. Consistent with previous studies, the findings suggest that the female learners were more positively oriented towards native speaker (NS) pronunciation and tended to adopt it as their teaching model and learning target; they also had greater confidence than males in their ability to understand British English pronunciation. However, their greater sensitivity to NS standards was found to be limited to high-stakes English-speaking contexts. In contrast, male learners had greater tolerance or acceptance of local pronunciation. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of L2 learners’ gender differences in attitudes for English language education and the design of English language teaching materials and assessments.

This study examined the choice of English pronunciation goals by Hong Kong’s major stakeholders (i.e. professionals, teachers and students) via semi-structured individual/focus group interv...

With increasing global demand for English and Chinese language education, the existence of linguistic variation in (and varieties of) both languages has focused scholarly attention on the choice of...

A major controversy in the fields of World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been the application of exonormative Inner Circle norms to ELT classrooms in diverse multilingual societies. This article seeks to examine the suitability of adopting a WE and/or an ELF-oriented pedagogical model, as well as the corresponding research findings, in Hong Kong's ELT classroom. More specifically, the study investigated the use of English by the local professionals and, furthermore, evaluated the comparability of Hong Kong's sociolinguistic reality to typical WE and ELF contexts via a structured questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews.

This study examines Hong Kong major stakeholders’ (secondary students, university students, teachers and professionals) perceptions of language variation, English language teaching (ELT) and language use in their everyday communication via a large-scale questionnaire survey (N = 1893). Based on principal components analysis of the questionnaire statements, 10 factors were identified that corresponded with the stakeholders’ knowledge and recognition of inner-circle vis-a-vis outer-/expanding-circle English varieties, real-life English use (e.g. exposure to language variation in contexts, interlocutor identity and difficulties in English communication), preferences of English varieties, perceptions of English teaching/learning and local cultural identity. Although the findings indicate an overall Anglophone-centric attitude among the participants, particularly in terms of the choice of teaching model, they also reveal differences in the participants’ views and experience of language use depending on...

The study reported in this article examined Hong Kong students' attitudes towards English accents from three interrelated perspectives: (1) their awareness of accents, (2) their perception of accents in relation to the dimensions of status and solidarity, and (3) their choice of accents in various local language-using contexts. By means of the verbal-guise technique, it explored the issue from multiple perspectives by comparing the attitudes among English learners at differing stages of study (i.e., junior secondary, senior secondary, and university students). These participants had different perceptions of English based on their prior knowledge, learning experience, and exposure to English. The findings indicate that the university students perceived the local accent more negatively than their secondary counterparts in the dimensions of both status and solidarity, despite their greater awareness of accents. Nevertheless, all the participants showed fewer reservations about the use of second language English accents in more casual and interactive English-speaking situations. The article concludes by discussing the potential for the design of language awareness tasks in TESOL materials and assessments for secondary school as a crucial step to initiate attitudinal changes.

The present study evaluates the impact of the fine-tuning medium of instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong in the early stages of its implementation. It explores the key stakeholders’ perspectives on a school-based policy via a case study, which gathered multiple sources of qualitative data (i.e. focus groups/interviews, open-ended questionnaires, school documents and lesson observations). The findings reveal that the increased amount of English-medium teaching encouraged by the new policy has led to the emergence of numerous controversial pedagogical and practical issues, many of which resemble those also occurring in bilingual education programmes worldwide. The evidence suggests that the school-based MOI policy and practices have only benefited the more capable students but sacrificed the interests and learning needs of less able students. The paper, therefore, highlights the need to inform local teachers and administrators on how to confront these difficulties based on their own experience so as to max...

The present study evaluates the pronunciation target in Hong Kong's ELT education at senior secondary level with reference to the pedagogical proposals of World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF). It triangulates information from various documents, namely the new ELT curriculum, public examination papers and reports, and three sets of listening and speaking commercial textbooks. The findings suggest that the new curriculum apparently has taken account of the WE and/or ELF perspectives in its design such as (i) promoting communicative competence, (ii) downplaying the importance of NS norms, and (iii) exposing students to more varieties of accent, but seems to be conceptually still guided by native-speaker norms. In practice, one breakthrough in the listening examination is the inclusion of Hong Kong English phonological features in localised tasks. However, the commercial textbooks seem to be lagging behind this development in the curriculum, though textbook writers do seek to include ELF-using contexts in some of the textbook tasks due to Hong Kong's global status. The paper argues that an important step in the move towards a WE/ELF-oriented pronunciation teaching is to recognise the role of English in particular sociolinguistic settings because by embedding the tasks in a simulated authentic language-using context, it is likely that teachers and students will be aware that the speech and pronunciation of non-native speakers are most relevant.

This study seeks to explore the controversial issue of pronunciation modelling in the secondary classroom in association with the medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong. The investigation centres on two dimensions: (1) students' exposure to English accents throughout their weekly school timetable by means of a data log sheet and (2) the phonological differences between the speech of local subject and English language teachers. The findings suggest that students' main source of English exposure at school is the English pronunciation of both English language and content-area teachers in English-medium lessons, who shared numerous Hong Kong English (HKE) features although in differing proportions. The paper concludes by prioritising the educated HKE vowel and consonant features and promoting an internationally intelligible endonormative model in the globalised world. 本研究旨在探討具爭議的英語發音模式，與香港中學教學語言政策的關係。調查主要涉及兩範疇：（1）從學生填寫的數據記錄表推算他們在每周課堂接觸的英語口音；（2）比較本地學科教師與英語教師在英語語音上的差異。結果顯示，學生在以英語授課的課堂上，接觸的主要是本地英語教師及學科教師的英語發音，當中帶有相同但數量不一的香港英語特點。最後，本研究按優次具列各組受教育的香港英語元音及輔音，從而提倡一種國際互通的本土語言規範模式。

This study assesses the extent to which situational authenticity has been implemented in three commercial ELT textbook series in Hong Kong, which are designed to reflect the local sociolinguistic setting. The analysis involved the quantification and categorization of both written and spoken texts in the textbooks. The results of this analysis were subsequently compared with empirical evidence about Hong Kong people’s real-life language use. The findings suggest that a close alignment between the language-using contexts in textbooks and the real world is unrealistic, inappropriate and virtually impossible at school. The paper discusses the actual challenges faced by textbook writers, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, namely the difficulties in dealing with (1) the contrast between real-world and classroom language needs, (2) local educational constraints, (3) the restricted societal role of English in EFL societies and (4) the lack of a needs analysis of the local language-using contexts for textbook design. It recommends that textbook writers adopt a more straightforward approach to designing tasks and highlights the important role of teachers in promoting interactional authenticity in the classroom.

The 2010/2011 academic year marked an important turning point in the development of Hong Kong's medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy as it offered secondary schools greater autonomy in determining their MOI policy. This paper examines the implementation of the new fine-tuning MOI policy in a representative secondary school. It compares its school-based language policy with students' (Years 7, 8 and 10) self-reported data about their actual use of English over a five-day week. At the junior secondary level (Years 7 and 8), the findings indicate a close alignment of policy and practice only in the English-medium subjects, whereas in some other subjects, the proportion of use of English could not be clearly determined due largely to the complexity of the school-based policy and teachers' flexibility and autonomy in practice. Furthermore, it is revealed that a highly sophisticated language-using situation at the senior secondary level (Year 10) poses potential challenges for the transition of students ...

One of the decisive factors in Schneider's innovative Dynamic Model for the transition from phase 3 (nativisation) to phase 4 (endonormative stabilisation) for the case of Hong Kong English (HKE) is the parameter of local acceptance. This paper examines the attitudes of young professionals towards native vis-a-vis non-native English accents in a number of English-speaking contexts in Hong Kong by means of the verbal-guise technique, focus group discussions and a written task. The findings suggest that many of the participants have the ability to distinguish native speakers’ from non-native speakers’ accents. Although an Anglophone-centric attitude is still found to be prominent in high-stakes English-using situations, there seems to be a tendency that the less formal and more interactive the communication context, the fewer reservations the participants have about non-native accents. The correlation analysis indicates a lack of association between the participants’ perceived intelligibility and their preferred accents in nearly all of the designated contexts for the case of HKE and, thus, the paper offers explanations based on the tension between English pronunciation as economic capital and identity carrier in local people's perception. It concludes by discussing the implications of this contextual variation in pronunciation acceptance for future attitudinal studies.