English-medium instruction in Hong Kong: illuminating a grey area in school policies and classroom practices

ABSTRACT

Research into the medium of instruction (MOI) in Hong Kong has traditionally focused on years 7–9; thus, little is known about school policies and classroom practices in the crucial senior-secondary years which fall beyond the ambit of government diktats. This lacuna is particularly conspicuous in the case of Chinese-medium schools, whose students are permitted to take public examinations in English in year 12. This article seeks to illuminate this “grey area” by examining findings from a large-scale, mixed-methods study which sought to determine the nature of MOI policies and practices in Chinese as a medium of instruction (CMI) and English as a medium of instruction (EMI) schools in years 10–12 and the effects of students’ differing school experiences on their English ability and ease of adjustment to English-medium higher education. The findings indicate that students preparing for English-based examinations in CMI schools are taught mainly in Cantonese or in a mixture of English and Cantonese, whereas their counterparts in EMI schools are instructed mainly in English. Students from CMI schools reported lower levels of confidence in their English ability, received inferior examination grades and adjusted less well to university study than graduates of EMI schools, thereby highlighting the disadvantages experienced by students assigned to CMI schools on the basis of their primary-school attainments.

KEYWORDS:

• English-medium instruction
• Hong Kong
• language-in-education policy
• medium of instruction
• mother-tongue teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Stephen Evans is a Professor in the Department of English at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in sociolinguistics, English as an international language and English for academic and professional purposes. His research interests include language policy and planning, world Englishes, advanced academic literacy and professional communication.

Bruce Morrison is Director of the English Language Centre at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In addition to having taught in Egypt, Spain, England, Malaysia, China, South Korea and Hong Kong, he has extensive experience as course and curriculum developer, teacher trainer and pedagogic administrator. His research interests focus primarily on the non-native speaker tertiary learning experience, independent and self-access language learning, and language programme evaluation.

ORCID

Stephen Evans http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5626-7079

Bruce Morrison http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0775-0536

Notes

1 In 2012, the last cohort of HKALE students entered university to study for a 3-year degree based on the British system of initial disciplinary specialisation. That year also witnessed the admission of the first cohort of HKDSE students. These students undertook a 4-year programme featuring a first year of general education. In Figure 2, the year 2010 refers to the introduction of the fine-tuning policy rather than to the inauguration of the 4-year programme.

2 These figures relate to ‘day school candidates’, that is, the vast majority of candidates who take public examinations each year. In the year of the ‘double cohort’ (2012), 31,282 candidates took the HKALE, whereas 70,282 sat the HKDSE. In 2010, when the 2012 HKALE cohort took the HKCEE (year 11), some 83,350 candidates were examined. This highlights the more selective nature of the HKALE.

Additional information

Funding

This work was wholly supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, under grant number PolyU 542412H.