History of English Language Teaching in Hong Kong:
Classroom Practice in 150 yearsAbstract
This paper gives a brief history of ELT in Hong Kong in the past 150 years covering the Direct Method, Situational Method, Communicative Language Teaching and Task-based Approach. While narrating the significant events in ELT, the paper provides samples of English materials used at different times in Hong Kong as illustration. There have been great changes over these years. In 1850, a government sponsored Education Committee was set up in Hong Kong and in the Education Committee report for 1859, it was stated that there were 19 schools and about 1,000 students. At present, there are more than 1,000 schools and one million students. It should be interesting to highlight some of the key issues related to ELT from the Education Commission Reports in the last decade and see how far we have moved. At the same time, the reasons for changing teaching approaches and the consequences of the change should help to shed light on what makes ELT effective.
IntroductionThe history of English Language Teaching (ELT) in Hong Kong reflects the changing methodology in ELT worldwide (Richards and Rodgers, 1986). It is also a record of the governing of a people whose culture is renowned and long developed by an authority half the globe apart. As language, culture, economics and politics are all intertwined, ELT seems to be a product of an intriguing development of Hong Kong.
The fact that Hong Kong has undergone tremendous changes from a small fishing village to a big international financial centre has influenced education of the local people to a great extent. Looking back at how English was taught under different situations may help to improve ELT both in Hong Kong, in the mainland or in places with similar backgrounds. This paper is both a narrative of the history of ELT and an analysis of the methods employed.
More than 100 years agoTwo distinct influences were felt in Hong Kong’s education scene in the early days, traditionally British and traditionally Chinese. The first Western schools were set up by charitable voluntary organizations mainly churches. The local Chinese either sent their children to the mainland for education or taught them Chinese Classics in village schools. The strong belief then was Chinese knowledge as the foundation for life and Western knowledge as an instrument for scientific development.
In terms of Western schools, the Morrison School and St. Paul’s College were the two founded earliest, around 1843. In 1850, a government sponsored Education Committee was set up and in 1860, a Board of Education was established. In 1862, the Government Central School, the forerunner of Queen’s College, was established (Hong Kong Triennial Survey, pp1-3).
As re-told by Bickley (1991, p54) the Hong Kong Governor, John Pope Hennessy, called a one-day Education Conference on 25 Feb. 1878 and came up with six resolutions:
That the primary objective should be the teaching of English.
That the Central School should give more time to English without diminishing the amount of Chinese knowledge.
That 5 hours be given every day (except Saturday) to English (obligatory) and 2.5 hours to Chinese studies (optional).
That increased accommodation, more English-speaking teachers, and smaller classes are essential to the proper teaching of English at the Central School.
That as a preliminary step, the staff of English Masters be doubled.
That English should be taught in all other Government Schools.
That was probably the first attempt to improve ELT because of complaints from businessmen that too few English-speaking employees were available.
1950s
Education including ELT stayed more or less the same in these hundred years until the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in December 1941. Schools were closed during the fighting. When they re-opened under Japanese occupation, Japanese was taught instead of English and ELT literally stopped for 3 years and 8 months.
When Britain resumed its Colonial rule in 1945, there was a bitter civil war in mainland China. Thousands of people moved to Hong Kong and the population shot up in a few years.
In 1954, the enrolment in day and night primary classes was 160,000. Eight and a half years later, the enrolment jumped to 560,000. Only 15% of the primary school leaving population could benefit from a full secondary school course. (Marsh & Sampson Report,1963)
The Teaching of English Abroad (French, 1948, 1969, pp5-6) gave a good overview of the kind of aims for teachers at this time. “It is clearly the teacher’s duty to do everything possible to give his pupils, even though the time may be short, a command of English which will be sufficient and lasting. The teacher cannot hope to make every pupil speak, read and write like an American or a British person; the aim must be limited in order that it may be reached. There are four clear aims which are within the limits of possibility; speaking, understanding what is spoken, reading and writing.
We try to give the pupil the ability to speak English within a limited vocabulary, and correctly within the most useful sentence-patterns. Speech is essential because language is a spoken thing. For every word that is written or read, millions of words are spoken; writing and printing are only speech reduced to black signs.
We try to give the pupil the ability to understand what is spoken. This is a wider task than the first, for it brings in a wider vocabulary – all those extra words which are known, but which are not remembered for immediate use. It also has an obvious practical value. A learner who says ‘Please speak more slowly’ has not been taught to listen.
We try to give the pupil the ability to read. This means a great increase in the number of words which are known when seen but which are not ready for immediate use in speech. Reading includes everything that is included in speech, and much more besides.
We try to give the pupil the ability to write; this is the hardest task of all, and for many learners the least important. To speech, listening, and reading, it adds spelling, handwriting, and punctuation.
For government or aided primary schools, Oxford English Course for Malaya and later Oxford English Course for Hong Kong was used. Secondary schools followed the British system and the same titles were used.
1960s
The Marsh & Sampson Report (1963) had a severe impact on the education scene in Hong Kong. It recommended the introduction of a 5-year primary education followed by 2 years of secondary education so that children can get schooling up to age 14, the minimum age for industrial employment. Because most parents were against this, the implementation was stopped after a couple of years. That created a lot of disturbance to both primary and secondary education. That was an example of education serving the entrepreneurs.
The report also pointed out that “during the past ten to fifteen years, secondary education in Hong Kong has begun to develop along the tripartite system which was envisaged in the 1944 Education Act in the United Kingdom” (p116). It also recommended that “a ceiling figure should be placed on the number of expatriates employed and these should be restricted to the administration, the inspectorate, the technical college, the training college, special schools for handicapped pupils, and secondary schools (for the teaching of English up to school certificate level and for the teaching of English and other subjects beyond school certificate level).”
In general, the Oral Approach was used in English medium schools and the Grammar-translation Method was used in Chinese medium schools. With only 15% of primary school leavers going to aided secondary schools, there was keen competition in the Secondary School Entrance Examination and even more competition to enter Anglo-Chinese Schools. So ELT was considered very important in primary schools.
To understand the methodology adapted at the time, it is a good idea to read The English Bulletin. It was published by the Education Department on a regular basis to assist teachers by sharing useful methods with them. It is also a window into the past telling us what the problems were and how the English Sub-Committee of the Syllabuses and Textbooks Committee helped teachers to confront them. The following list of questions extracted from The English Bulletin (1959 –61) can give a brief picture of the basically audio-lingual approach/ direct method.
If my class doesn’t like Poetry, how should I teach it?
Would you teach Figures of Speech (simile, personification, and so on) in Forms I and II?
How would you use a tape-recorder to teach English to Primary Four pupils?
How do you use a tape-recorder for helping pupils in dictation?
Could you give me a brief definition of ‘Oral Method’?
I cannot find any use for the General Reading Paper in the Hong Kong School Certificate. Isn’t it more like a general knowledge quiz?
How can I improve my Form III’s ‘reading aloud’?
I have learned that I should teach English through the literature of the ‘Masters of English’. Is this possible?
I can hardly believe that a School Certificate class can get much help from the 7th Year of the Oxford English Course for Hong Kong. Isn’t it too elementary?
In the 1930’s I had only the Nesfield Grammar to go by. Nowadays I am baffled by the following in a modern grammar book and in popular usage…
What work can one do in a school where there is only one tape recorder?
Can you justify the inclusion of a dictation test in examinations? I am not asking about its value as a teaching-device.
I deplore the fact that there will be no poetry in the 1963 Hong Kong School Certificate General Reading papers. Surely this is a retrograde step?
At this time, all four skills were tested in the Hong Kong School Certificate Examination (HKCEE) and that had a good backwash effect. The minimum requirement of the oral test of the consisted of a) the ability to use English with a measure of fluency and accuracy, b) the ability to read aloud in an English way from texts written within the selected vocabulary of some 2000-2500 words, c) the ability to hold a short conversation with another English speaker on everyday topics, d) the ability to say the sounds of English correctly. The English language paper of the HKCEE was seen as the most important one because all civil service posts required a Pass grade in English, even for street sweepers. As civil service posts were considered stable, well-paid and prestigious, students worked very hard on their English.
1970s
In the 1970s, education was much more systematic with aided primary education and fee-charging secondary education. Free primary education was introduced in September 1971. By 1978, there was free compulsory education for all between the ages of 6 and 15 (or secondary 3 whichever was earlier). All aided primary schools had Chinese as the medium of instruction and English as an academic subject in the curriculum. There were several different types of secondary schools, but the majority was Anglo-Chinese Secondary Schools where instruction was in the medium of English except for Chinese and Chinese History. At the end of Form 5, students took the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (a C Grade was considered equivalent to a Pass in the O-Levels). The other major type was Chinese Middle Schools where the same curriculum was offered except that the medium of instruction was Chinese and English was taught as a subject. There were also Secondary Technical Schools (some of which were English medium), Secondary Modern Schools (post-primary for children to learn up to 14 years old, the minimum statutory age for industrial employment), and Prevocational Schools. The last two types got phased out later. (Education Department, 1974)
In terms of English teaching, the Oral Approach was advocated. The report on a teachers’ seminar gives a good picture of the methodology advocated. This seminar was attended by teachers of English from 70 schools. The Education Officer responsible for ELT told teachers that with the oral approach, “speech precedes all other English skills, such as reading and writing: and in the Secondary school the emphasis of every English lesson much be on speech” (Tandy, 1971, p12). He stated that “written work should have been so well prepared orally beforehand that what they write will be correct…It follows that it is extremely dangerous to allow them to write incorrect English: for they are going to remember it.”(ibid, p13) He stressed that “the English lesson should be a social activity – there is a need to go beyond the textbook, often adapt it, and omit – not to be slavishly tied to it.”(p15). He challenged the participants by asking
“How many teachers set as homework a radio programme to be listened to, a newspaper item to be read, a TV programme to be watched, a film to be seen, an exhibition at the City Hall to be visited, and the following day discuss and encourage opinions in class?” (p17)
He said that such activities would be regarded as relating the second language to the world the child was living in and that it should be far more valuable than written exercises from a text-book. That was food for thought. However, even in the days of the communicative approach now, not many teachers set homework like the above mentioned. It is time teachers examine their classroom practice and give homework that relates to the real world.
While the Education Department encouraged teachers to organize more real life activities, the reality was quite different. A university teacher provided more information here. Reynolds (1974) researched on “English language teaching and textbooks in Hong Kong” and reported that examination syllabuses interfered with the development of a genuine methodology. In general, the “Eclectic Method” was used with strong influence from textbooks. Some common methods were “composition, grammar exercises, training in summarizing and comprehending, learning of idioms, conversation classes, debates, oral and silent reading, dictation, picture description, with multiple-choice questioning permeating almost everything” (ibid, pp25-26)
In the Provisional Syllabus for English (Forms 1-5) the teaching of the four skills was clearly described and illustrated. As not many teachers were well trained, these suggestions were welcomed. For instance, under Extensive Reading, a concise and yet comprehensive description was first given. Then it recommended some ways to handle the reading lesson.
“From time to time, and according to the nature of the material, the teacher may
himself read (well) a difficult or important section to the class without necessarily checking or questioning afterwards;
use a paragraph or two for comprehension work;
use a paragraph for practice in reading-aloud;
use a section for dramatization, or part-reading of dialogue by pupils with the teacher reading the connecting narrative;
use a section for oral (and afterwards written, if necessary and expedient) reproduction or summarizing, modifying or elaborating, according to the abilities and interests of the class;
drill and develop a useful sentence pattern, verb tense, item of vocabulary, et., orally and afterwards perhaps in writing. (ibid, p31)
These should be useful classroom practice, but teachers relied too much on textbooks and only a minority would use different activities regularly in class.
1980s
After the implementation of universal education in 1978, a big problem surfaced. Whereas in the past, English medium instruction (EMI) was reserved for the top students who had the ability and motivation to struggle through English textbooks, it was no longer the case with compulsory education up to Secondary 3. Many of the EMI schools actually used mixed code teaching, that is, keeping the use of English textbooks and English examinations, but switching to the mother tongue during lessons. That was the “lamentable situation” mentioned below.
A Visiting Panel (Llewellyn et al. 1982) pointed out that “education services in Hong Kong were, in earlier stages, directed towards well-to-do bilingual Chinese families who are both products of, and essential to, the orderly governance and economic prosperity of the territory. English language education therefore became synonymous with power and prestige. (idid, p27) But they stressed that “no matter what strategies are used to improve language teaching in Hong Kong, the present lamentable situation concerning the use of English as a medium of instruction will remain because these measures do not confront the basic issue of whether it is possible to use a second language successfully as the vehicle for providing universal (compulsory) education in what is de facto, although not de jure, still a monolingual society as far as the vast majority of the population is concerned. (ibid, p26)
1981 Primary English Syllabus
Hong Kong followed the Western world in the change in ELT methodology from Oral Approach to Communicative Approach. Hence there was a major syllabus revision for primary school English with the shift to meaningful use while still developing in learners some degree of mastery of the forms of the language. According to the draft syllabus in 1981, the 12 principles guiding the revision are as follows. The first four are in the order of importance.
The interest of the learner should be of central concern.
There should be real language use for purposeful communication.
Language content should be related to the general objectives of ELT, e.g. English as a medium of pleasure and entertainment at the early stage and English as an asset in working life at the later stages.
Wherever possible every lesson should incorporate some kind of activities putting language into use.
The learners must be engaged as much as possible in genuine acts of communication.
The language content will be determined by the activity or task.
The requirements of appropriateness and authenticity need not be in conflict with the sequencing of language items in accordance with long established formal criteria.
A balance should be struck between the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
The normal medium of communication and interaction in the classroom should be English.
The strict linguistic control of the structural approach should be avoided.
A substantial proportion of class time in each lesson should be devoted to listening and reading comprehension.
All the elements of the teaching content must be subject to regular recycling and extension. (pp24-31)
1983 Secondary English Syllabus
Similar to the 1975 Syllabus, the four skills were described, activities suggested and rationale explained. Even ways of assessing students were given with concrete examples. For teachers without training, if they cared to study the syllabus, they could become fairly competent language teachers.
Education Commission Report No. 1 (1984)
“On language teaching, there was general agreement that the emphasis on English in schools could not be reduced if Hong Kong were to retain its position as a leading international industrial, commercial and financial centre; that the language standard of students in both Chinese and English must be improved; and that the teaching of Chinese and English must be strengthened at all levels.” (p33)
“ We further recommend that secondary schools which use Chinese as the instructing medium should be given additional resources to strengthen the teaching of English to avert any consequential drop in the standard of English due to reduced exposure.” (p43)
Education Commission Report No. 2 (1986)
In 1986, the Education Commission Report No. 2 showed that “there appears to be a threshold for English language proficiency at and above which the use of English as the teaching medium is feasible” and that adopting “Chinese throughout as the medium of instruction at the junior secondary level would probably lead to a drop in the standard of English in secondary forms.” (pp29-30)
With two Education Commission Reports stressing the importance of English proficiency, there was no improvement because students’ motivation in learning English had dropped a bit with more jobs not requiring English as in the 1960s.
However, there was still a great demand for highly proficient English speakers in the business community. A group of businessmen formed the Hong Kong Language Campaign in 1988 to promote English learning. It later evolved into the Language Fund which sponsored language activities both in Chinese and English.
1990s
The change in ELT was most prominent in this decade especially with the publication of ECR4.
Education Commission Report No. 4 (1990)
ECR4 reported the findings of the Working Group on Language Proficiency and “noted that the use of English as a medium of instruction provided greater exposure to English than the teaching of English as a subject. It therefore emphasized the need for some English medium secondary education to be maintained and strengthened. It perceived this as the most important means of meeting the increasing demand for highly competent English users in Hong Kong. However, since research has shown that students can study effectively in English only when they have passed a certain threshold of language competence in both their mother tongue and in English, the Working Group proposed that English medium secondary education should be open only to those who had reached the threshold.” (p94)
In 1998, all secondary schools were required to switch to Chinese medium instruction (CMI) with the exception of 114 schools that were considered by the Education Department to be able to provide EMI. The issue was rather emotional and disturbing because many parents would like their children to receive an English medium secondary education, but the majority had been converted to CMI.
ECR4 also pointed out the “problem of inadequately trained language teachers and the shortage of manpower in the various training and support services” (ibid). Thus the expatriate English language teacher scheme had attracted 100 secondary schools to join its permanent year, three years after sparkling a controversy. (SCMP, 1990). A few years into its implementation, McNeill (1998, p14) stated that “their mere presence in a school cannot be relied upon to produce an improvement in the overall standard of English. Their deployment needs to be considered in the light of theoretical issues in second language learning and needs to reflect the characteristics that distinguish native speaker from non-native speaker teachers.”
Another crucial project which was set to influence the ELT scene in Hong Kong was the Framework for Target-Oriented Curriculum Renewal in Hong Kong (Clark, et al. 1994). It detailed the concepts, processes, systems and representations for the Target-Oriented Curriculum and formed the basis for the dimension targets in the English syllabus later.
The HongkongBank Language Development Fund Work Report (1993, pp4-5) pointed out that “changes in the pattern of employment away from manufacturing industries towards service industries which have a greater demand for a well-educated workforce capable of independent thinking and problem-solving”. It also urged for reforms in language education because there was a need to respond to the requirement for English in tertiary institutions and for better English in the workplace. As mentioned before, this Language Development Fund has evolved into the Language Fund, but the problem of not having an adequate supply of fluent English speakers continued and the government started to fund English Enhancement Programmes at the tertiary level through the University Grants Committee in 1991. A very interesting question was raised: whether it is more cost-effective to help younger learners to polish their English or older ones? One can argue that undergraduates have the motivation to learn as they are the selected elite group. On the other hand, it is observed that those who are weak in English have their errors fossilized already as pointed out by Tandy (1971).
1997 Syllabuses for Primary Schools – English Language
After a number of seminars and symposiums on learning targets, a new English syllabus was finally drawn up. This new syllabus has quite a few learning targets and objectives. Under the subject target, the objective is “to develop an ever-improving capability to use English to think and communicate; to acquire, develop and apply knowledge; to respond and give expression to experience; and within these contexts, to develop and apply an ever-increasing understanding of how language is organized, used and learned.” (ibid, p17)
This syllabus also makes it clear that “to develop communicative competence, learners should first acquire a basic knowledge of the essential lexical, grammatical and phonological features of the English language. That is, the mastery of its linguistic system is still a basic requirement for using the language to communicate one’s meaning effectively.” (ibid, p136) This is a direct reaction to the worries of some teachers who see the lowering of English proficiency and the increasing fossilization of “Chinese-English” among their students.
1999 Syllabuses for Secondary Schools – English Language (Secondary 1-5)(draft)
This is a continuation of the Primary school syllabus where the Dimension Targets for Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 are presented. Furthermore, the forms and functions including text-types, vocabulary, language items, skills and strategies are clearly spelled out. Even ways to conduct a reading task or writing task are given.
A look at the textbooks does not show any great changes even when they are published under the name of the new syllabus. When so many teachers are “slavishly tied to” textbooks as in the 1970s, it is not hopeful that students’ English can improve much.
Education Commission Report No. 6 (1996)
The issue of Benchmark qualifications for teachers was first raised in ECR6 as a long term solution for providing fully-trained language teachers. It was reported that the proposal was generally well received but some showed concern that there may be a shortage of language teachers if the standards were set too high. Indeed, up to May 2004, 40% of the 14,000 English language teachers had passed the Benchmark test and 20% had not taken the test. It was a bit worrying that only 37% of the teachers who took the Benchmark test in March 2004 passed the writing component, 37% passed the listening and 45% passed the spoken (Apple Daily, 2004).
2000s
Knowing that teachers still stick to the textbooks, the Education Department has produced exemplar materials to show them how to teach through the task-based approach. As illustrated by the Task-based Learning and an Exemplar Module for Key Stage 3 in support of CDC Syllabus for English Language (Secondary 1-5) 1999, the task-based approach places special emphasis on meaning communication and purposeful interaction. Hence activities are designed to provide the maximum opportunities for students to use English both oral and written. Such activities also give the context for teaching grammar and other language features.
Another resource package is The Learning and Teaching of Poetry (Secondary 1-3)(Education Department, 2002). As the CDC Syllabus for English Language (Secondary 1-5) 1999 specified, poetry is one of the Dimension Targets to develop learners’ capability to use English to respond and give expression to real and imaginative experience. As some teachers may not have the experience of using poems to facilitate English learning, the production of this package with poems and corresponding discussion questions and tasks should prove useful.
Schools are given quite a lot of guidance with the introduction of the new syllabus. In addition to the two mentioned above, there is also the Key Learning Area Curriculum Guide (Primary 1-Secondary 3) 2002. It stated that “in many local English Language classrooms, considerable emphasis has been placed on helping learners master the language forms (including vocabulary, text-types, grammar items and structures), communicative functions, and skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. …Teachers are encouraged to provide opportunities for practice of these elements in meaningful contexts, rather than in isolation.” (ibid, p5) However, classroom teachers may say that even in isolation, many students have not mastered these.
Apart from the Education Department, the Language Fund projects also produced useful resource books, for instance, Using Big books to Teach English: Units of work from the Primary English Reading Project (Mahon, 1999) or Fostering the Development of EFL Cooperative Learning Contexts (Sachs, 2003). The problem now is the lack of time on the part of the teachers. Non-English majors have to pass the Benchmark test to be allowed to continue teaching English. Others have to produce school-based materials. It is a pity that many learners do not get the full benefits of the new approach and English learning stays at a piece-meal textbook bound stage.
References
Apple Daily (2004). 63% teacher candidates fail Benchmark test. June 10, 2004.
Beck, C. (1990). Schools keen to join expat teacher plan. In South China Morning Post, Oct. 23 1990, p. 2.
Berry, V. and McNeill, A. (1998). Language improvement measures in search of a policy. In Berry, V. and McNeill (eds) Policy and Practice in Language Education. (pp1-21).
Bickley, G.(1991). Social pressures on language in education in 19th century Hong Kong and applications for understanding the social pressures on language in education in Hong Kong today. In Bickley, V. (ed) Where from here? Issues relating to the planning , managing and implementation of language teaching and training programmes in the 90’s (pp54-80). Hong Kong: Education Department.
Clark, J.L. et al. (1994). Improving the Quality of Learning: A Framework for Target-Oriented Curriculum Renewal in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: HongkongBank Language Development Fund / Institute of Language in Education.
Education Commission Report No. 1 (1984). Hong Kong: Education Commission.
Education Commission Report No. 2 (1986). Hong Kong: Education Commission.
Education Commission Report No. 4. (1990). Hong Kong: Education Commission.
Education Commission Report No. 6. (1996). Hong Kong: Education Commission.
Education Department Annual Summary. (1974). Hong Kong: Education Department.
English Language Education: Key Learning Area Curriculum Guide (Primary 1-Secondary 3) (2002). Hong Kong: The Curriculum Development Council.
French, F.G. (1948, 1969). The Teaching of English Abroad. London: Oxford University Press.
HongkongBank Language Development Fund Work Report (1993). Hong Kong: The Hongkong Bank Foundation.
Hong Kong Triennial Survey by the Director of Education of the years 1958-1961 Hong Kong: Government Printer.
Llewellyn, J. et al. (1982). A Perspective on Education in Hong Kong: Report by a Visiting Panel. Hong Kong: Government Printer.
Mahon, T. (1999). Using Big books to Teach English: Units of work from the Primary English Reading Project. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Education
Marsh, R.M. & Sampson, J.R. (1963) Report of Education Commission Hong Kong: Government Printer.
Provisional Syllabus for English (Forms 1-5) (1975). Hong Kong: Education Department.
Reynolds, P.D. (1974). English Language Teaching & Textbooks in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Department of Education Research Unit.
Sachs, G.T. (2003) (ed). Fostering the Development of EFL Cooperative Learning Contexts: Teachers’ CL Resource Book. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.
Syllabuses for Primary Schools: English (Primary 1-6) (draft) (1981). Hong Kong: The Curriculum Development Committee.
Syllabuses for Primary Schools: English Language (Primary 1-6) (1997). Hong Kong: The Curriculum Development Council.
Syllabuses for Secondary Schools: English (Forms 1-5) (1983). Hong Kong: The Curriculum Development Committee.
Syllabuses for Secondary Schools: English Language (Secondary 1-5) (1999). Hong Kong: The Curriculum Development Council.
Tandy, J.D.P. (1971). The Oral Approach. In Report & Recommendations of the Seminar for Teachers of English in Anglo-Chinese secondary schools, Grantham College of Education, Kowloon, Hong Kong, July 19-23 1971.
Task-based Learning and an Exemplar Module for Key Stage 3 in support of CDC Syllabus for English Language (Secondary 1-5) 1999. (2000). Hong Kong: English Section, Curriculum Development Institute.
The English Bulletin Vol. III (1959-1961). Hong Kong: Education Department.
The Learning and Teaching of Poetry: A Resource Package (Secondary 1-3)(2002). Hong Kong: English Section, Curriculum Development Institute.
History of English Language Teaching in Hong Kong:
Classroom Practice in 150 years
Eva F.K. Lai
Programme Director, English Section, Independent Learning Centre
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
