Teachers’ misconceptions and questionable practices when using Putonghua¹

1. Putonghua is also known as Mandarin, means the ‘common language’ and the spoken form of modern standard chinese. The term ‘Putonghua’ is commonly used in Hong Kong official documents.

as the medium-of-instruction: a case study of Hong Kong

Abstract

Immediately after the handover of Hong Kong to China, the teaching of Chinese in Putonghua was promulgated by the Hong Kong SAR government as a long-term goal. However, no clear definition and guidance regarding Putonghua instruction has been provided to teachers to facilitate the smooth implementation of this change. A review of the literature indicates that teachers’ beliefs have great value in assisting them to make sense of changes and govern their thoughts and behaviours. However, little is known about how teachers’ beliefs help teachers to understand the transition to a new medium-of-instruction (MOI). Thus, the aim of this case study is to examine how teachers’ beliefs help teachers to conceptualize the Putonghua medium-of-instruction (PMI) and how these beliefs affect their curricular decisions as well as the implementation of PMI. Data were collected from 10 secondary Chinese Language teachers in one school using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. The findings revealed that since teachers held misconceptions about PMI in the initial phase, the implementation of PMI led to a shift of focus away from Chinese content knowledge. In the second phase, PMI was perceived merely as a code-switching device, and, as a result, only a surface change occurred that appeared unlikely to facilitate effective teaching and deep learning. This paper concludes with the observation that code switching alone is insufficient to achieve a successful transition of MOI if the deeper issue of teachers’ beliefs is neglected.

Keywords:

• medium-of-instruction
• teachers’ beliefs
• implementation
• Putonghua
• Chinese Language

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Direct Grant from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and Professor Frances Rust for their valuable comments which improved this paper.

Notes

1. Putonghua is also known as Mandarin, means the ‘common language’ and the spoken form of modern standard chinese. The term ‘Putonghua’ is commonly used in Hong Kong official documents.

2. Several terms have been used by various scholars including conceptions, beliefs and orientations;these terms seem to be synonymous and are interchangeable (Calderhead, 1996; Pajares, 1992).The term ‘belief’ is used in this paper.

3. According to the Hong Kong secondary school place allocation system, the top, mid and bottom 33%of students with respect to their academic accomplishments are allocated into bands 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

4. All informants agreed to be video-recorded during their classroom instruction. In order to alleviate their anxieties, the researcher explained the purpose of adopting this device before the classroom observations were scheduled.

5. Grossman (1991) has identified two types of beliefs that English teachers hold about literature, namely text-orientation and reader orientation. Teachers holding the text-orientation view adhere closely to texts while teachers with reader-orientation use the texts as a springboard to integrate learners’ experiences with the texts.

6. Tam (2005) has identified that there are two types of teaching beliefs held by Chinese Language teachers. Transmission-oriented teachers believe that they transmit knowledge while students are the recipients of knowledge. Heuristics-oriented teachers favour interactive teaching approaches. They regularly arrange group activities for students and let peers learn from each other.