Innovation in English language teaching
in Hong Kong primary schools: One
step forward, two steps sideways?
BOB ADAMSON – Queensland University of Technology, Australia
CHRIS DAVISON – University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
Drawing on a number of recent research studies, this article evaluates the process
of implementation of a more student-centred task-oriented approach to English
language teaching in Hong Kong primary schools. The reform, essentially a
top-down system-level initiative strongly influenced by curriculum developments
in the UK and Australia, called for sweeping changes to existing learning and
teaching practices by promoting whole-person development, task-based syllabus
design, criterion-referenced assessment and pair and group work. The article
presents an analysis of the various stages of the curriculum decision-making
process – from the intended curriculum as manifested in policy documents;
through to the resourced curriculum, as exemplified in commercially published
textbook resources; to the implemented curriculum – what teachers teach –
and the experienced curriculum – what students learn. The article shows how
the reform was progressively reinterpreted by the various stakeholders, resulting
in a hybrid and evolving set of accommodations to local cultures which ultimately
may be assimilated by them. The article identifies the key factors which have
caused this slippage, including conflicting or unclear expectations, attitudes and
beliefs at all levels, as well as a lack of real understanding of the established
pedagogical cultures, and concludes with some implications for teaching, teacher
education and curriculum innovation.
Introduction
From their first year of primary school, most Cantonese-speaking students in
Hong Kong study English as a second language. As in many other countries,
including Australia, English language teaching in Hong Kong has changed
dramatically in the last few decades. In the post-Second World War period a
variety of methods and approaches was used to teach English, with the
grammar-translation method being officially phased out in the late 1960s
and 1970s and replaced by the oral-structural activity approach. The activity
approach was then replaced by the notional-functional communicative
approach in the early 1980s (Evans 1996; Adamson and Morris 2000),