Letters | Why so many Hongkongers have a phobia of speaking English
Readers discuss the local hesitation to speak English, the practical limitations of the native English teacher scheme, and bamboo scaffolding
Anyone who has been through the local education system typically ends up with a phobia of speaking English.
The local educational backwater is failing generation after generation, trying in vain to raise students’ English standards while offering minimal exposure to native English teachers. Few local English teachers, let’s face it, are truly fluent in the language, let alone have an excellent command of it.
In the Diploma of Secondary Education English examination, the speaking component makes up just 10 per cent of the assessment. It makes one wonder if there is a crusade to keep students’ English fluency at bay: who in this pragmatic, results-oriented city would devote much time to English fluency for a measly 10 per cent, much less put effort into developing eloquence and humour? If you were a student aiming to maximise your English results, would you not buckle down instead to developing skills in reading, writing and listening?
Native English teachers should not be maligned, belittled or marginalised. Rather than be seen as subordinate to local English teachers, it should ideally, I dare say, be the other way around. Native English teachers’ presence is invaluable and their numbers should grow. Make no mistake, there certainly are excellent, passionate local English teachers – but they are few. Children are linguistic sponges, who would succeed or fail depending on what they absorb.
