Learning English as a second language in Hong Kong : understanding the selves of senior secondary students in shadow education

Abstract

Private tutoring plays an important role in out-of-school language learning. It is widely called shadow education because it mimics mainstream schooling. Its growing popularity has increasingly significant impact on the development of the body it mimics. In Hong Kong, English is typically the subject in greatest demand for private tutoring because of its high international status and importance for further studies and careers. Yet research in shadow education focusing on English learning is scant.

With the growing emphasis on self as a dynamic motivational construct in language learning research, this study examines the second language (L2) selves of senior secondary students who received English private tutoring (EPT) in a large tutorial company in Hong Kong. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used as the methodological framework because the study focused on the phenomenon of EPT which the sampled students experienced and reflected on. A survey was conducted of 2,216 Secondary Six students who had enrolled in EPT courses in the selected company. Among them, 18 were recruited for a year-long study. These participants narrated and reflected on their learning experiences in EPT, each providing three pieces of reflective writing and responding to six interviews throughout the year. To understand their experiences from different perspectives, data were also collected through 12 classroom observations and 16 personal interviews with four tutors at different stages during the year, focus-group interviews with 64 students, and phone interviews with four teachers and 13 parents of the selected participants.

The findings indicated that senior secondary students in EPT generally acquired test-taking strategies which they considered useful for examination preparation. Tutors tended to reinforce this perception of need by using “authoritative” examination materials to induce anxiety. Theorised with the concepts of L2 selves and oppression, the data suggested that senior secondary students possessed insecure actual L2 self-representations, revealing a discrepancy with their future L2 self-representations. By promoting utilitarian conception of learning, EPT reinforced students’ ought-to L2 self-representations, which further suppressed their ideal L2 self-representations. EPT was conceptualised as a by-product of perceived oppression, but it also reinforced oppression by exploiting the education system for a business without commitment to educational aims. The EPT pathway to actualise students’ future L2 self-representations seems to be ideological because the students tended to perceive its effectiveness as whether it could fulfil their psychological needs during the learning process rather than its actual outcome of effectiveness to meet their targeted examination results. The students also recognised that EPT might not be conducive to enhancing communicative competence in English alongside its negative judgement of mainstream schooling.

This study contributes to research in shadow education and English language education by unveiling the role of EPT on secondary students’ L2 learning. It expands theoretical knowledge of self as a motivational construct by considering the contextual elements and their relationships with learners’ L2 selves. The study calls for education reform for which key stakeholders in education must critically reflect on the reality towards educational aims so as to cultivate students’ ideal L2 self-representations for full actualisation.