English as a medium of instruction in post-1997 Hong Kong: What students, teachers, and parents think

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a large-scale survey of the attitudes of students, teachers, and parents towards the use of English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong secondary schools, where Chinese is the native language of the great majority of the students. The findings indicate that, while Hong Kong is to revert to Chinese rule in the middle of 1997, students and their parents consistently value English over Chinese as a teaching medium for pragmatic reasons, although they agree with the teachers that instruction in Chinese is educationally more effective. The findings of the study are interpreted in the light of an historical overview of the place of English in Hong Kong education since Britain's occupation of the territory in 1841, and a review of previous findings on the attitudes of students, teachers, and parents on this issue.