Opinion | How Google Translate may disrupt English classes, and every other subject, in Hong Kong schools

Paul Stapleton says machine translation is advanced enough to produce believable versions of primary school students’ compositions. What are the implications for the way English and other subjects are now taught in Hong Kong?

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Many subjects are taught in English in Hong Kong schools. Photo: Raymond Mak

Published: 6:30am, 16 Jan 2019Updated: 6:43am, 16 Jan 2019

We may be seeing the beginning of a technological disruption to our educational system, which could have far-reaching effects on the medium of instruction in our schools.

Presently, one of the most enduring issues in Hong Kong schools is the role English plays in the classroom. Although the English language enjoys preferred status and is one of four subjects in which students must attain high grades to advance to tertiary education, it is not the native language of the vast majority of the local population. Most students spend years struggling to master it, often to the detriment of those who have no natural affinity for languages. Moreover, English teachers spend hours of their evenings and weekends poring over and correcting their students’ compositions.

These challenges are pertinent to a study we recently completed in a Hong Kong school, using newly revamped technology that has the potential to play a key role in language education and curriculum guidelines because of cutting-edge neural network software coupled with brute-force computing power.

I speak of machine translation, particularly Google Translate, which has made remarkable advances in the past couple of years.

For years, machine translation was a bit of a joke. Most people who have tried translating text from one language to another have probably encountered results that are mangled at best and gibberish at worst. And, while the results from Google Translate are still not perfect, they are a far cry from the drivel of just a few years ago.