Curriculum reform in Hong Kong secondary schools: the implications of innovation in ELT

Abstract

PURPOSE: The New Senior Secondary Curriculum (NSS) stands as Hong Kong's first post-colonial education reform. It aims at deepening students' competencies, enhancing their confidence in using English and widening their understanding of various cultures. It also seeks to promote positive values and attitudes towards interpreting different texts for pleasure, study and work. In addition to the usual emphasis on knowledge building in English, the NSS seeks to encourage students to respond and give expression to experience. Curriculum planners suggest this can be achieved in part by exposing students to literary and imaginative texts including poems, songs, short stories, drama, social issues and aspects of popular culture. This stress on promulgating values and attitudes in learners represents a new departure in Hong Kong education, but numerous obstacles stand in the way of this reform. METHOD: This paper draws on a cultural perspective and examines innovation within the specific culture and sub-cultures of the Hong Kong educational context. In NSS, teachers are encouraged to develop higher-order thinking skills in their students through the use of more open-ended questions, and students are encouraged to make personal responses to texts and tasks. However, this approach runs contrary to the stereotype of teachers in Confucian-heritage cultures which portrays the teacher as a 'fountain of knowledge' standing before a receptive class. Another obstacle is language learning anxiety which is often charged with inhibiting students' participation in ELT. To shed light on the impact of these curriculum changes, I draw on multiple case studies including data from classroom observations, interviews with students, teachers and stakeholders, and students' reflective journals. FINDINGS: Findings suggest that tensions have arisen in the implementation of NSS. For example, while teachers report using more authentic materials in their teaching, the evidence from classroom observation often points to surface implementation only. Tensions also exist in the ways teachers have interpreted assessment reforms relating to the new curriculum. However, findings suggest that students are happy to engage with literary texts and creative tasks, which contradicts the stereotype of the Asian learner, perhaps. CONCLUSIONS: I conclude from the case studies that students and teachers are responding positively to the NSS and that is significant because in the past, students' lack of motivation to engage with English has been a challenge for teachers. Nevertheless, tensions remain and demonstrate that cultural and community values can impede and reinterpret curriculum innovation.