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ELSEVIER Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

English as a medium of instruction

in post- 1997 Hong Kong"
What students, teachers, and parents think
P e t e r T u n g a, R a y m o n d L a m b, W a i K i n g T s a n g a

" Department of English, City University of Hong Kong,

Kowloon, Hong Kong
~'Department of Education. University of Hong Kong, 7/5 K.K. Leung Building,
Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a large-scale survey of the attitudes of students, teach-
ers, and parents towards the use of English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong sec-
ondary 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 Chi-
nese 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 occu-
pation of the territory in 1841, and a review of previous findings on the attitudes of students,
teachers, and parents on this issue.

O. Introduction

This paper examines the role of English in the education system of Hong Kong,
in particular, its use as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong schools. It is argued
that English has always played a pragmatic role in Hong K o n g education and that
this role will not diminish after 1997. However, the use o f English as an instructional
medium is likely to b e c o m e more contentious as new perspectives develop as a
result of changing political circumstances and a better understanding of the cognitive
and affective effects of studying through a second/foreign language. This paper
reports on the results o f a recent large-scale survey of first-year secondary school

¢~ This study was supported by a Strategic Research Grant (No. 7000389) of the City University of
Hong Kong and by a Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (No. 9040134) of the University Grants
Committee of the Hong Kong Government. The authors would like to acknowledge the cooperation and
assistance of the principals, teachers, and students of the schools involved in the project.

0378-2166/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

PII S0378-2166(97)00034-9
442 P. Tung et al. / Journal ~['Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441~159

students in Hong Kong, as well as their parents and teachers, regarding their views
on the medium of instruction in schools. These results will be used as a basis for dis-
cussion of the prospects of English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong after
1997.

1. A review of the role of English in education in Hong Kong

When the Morrison Education Society moved its school with a handful of pupils
from Macau to Hong Kong in 1842, a year after the British had taken over the terri-
tory, English had not been formally taught in any local institution. Education had
been confined to studying the Chinese classics in a few village schools. (For a
review of education in Hong Kong before the Second World War, see Sweeting,
1990.) English language teaching in the early days of British-administered Hong
Kong was carried out in small missionary schools with the aim of converting Chi-
nese students to the Christian faith. Students were taught Christian doctrines as well
as the history and cultural affairs of the homelands of the missionaries in a foreign
language. To attract and retain students, the missionaries often provided free food
and lodging besides instruction. The principal method of teaching and learning was
recitation and memorization. As far as producing speakers of the English language
was concerned, the missionaries were not very successful. When the Hong Kong
government could not find enough local residents who could act as interpreters and
clerks in the early 1860's, it decided to assume greater control of education. A 'Cen-
tral School', pulling together the resources of several smaller government schools,
was established, and a graduate of Aberdeen University, who was specifically
charged with the task of strengthening English language education in the govern-
ment schools, was recruited from England as principal.
English language education also gained momentum in Hong Kong from the
1860's because of the developments in China. China had been under intense pressure
from foreign powers to open up its ports for trade, which convinced some Chinese
politicians and businessmen of the need to learn foreign languages, English foremost
among them, in order to interact with the foreigners more effectively in negotiations
and business dealings. The first official school in China for learning foreign lan-
guages was opened in 1862 in Peking, as a part of the 'Foreign Affairs Office',
which was itself established only a year before. Subsequently, schools were estab-
lished in various parts of China in which students study not only military science and
technology, but also at least one foreign language, which is often used as a medium
of instruction. Students were also sent abroad to study. In the first two decades of the
twentieth century, the study of English was so popular that it was taught in many
secondary schools and teacher colleges in China for up to a quarter of the curriculum
(Fu, 1986). Foreign language education thus became an important component in
Chinese education. Hong Kong. being under British administration, attracted many
students from China who desired to improve their English for overseas study or
career advancement and this helped boost the demand for English language educa-
tion in Hong Kong in the latter part of the nineteenth century (Fok, 1990).
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Prugmatics 28 (1997) 441~I59 443

However, between the First and Second World Wars, English language education
declined in popularity in Hong Kong, mainly due to a surge of nationalistic senti-
ments among Chinese intellectuals on the Chinese mainland, which manifested itself
most noticeably in the anti-imperialistic May Fourth Movement of 1919. During this
period, because many Hong Kong students still looked to China for opportunities in
higher education, the,, were greatly affected by attitudes towards foreign language
learning on the mainland.
After the Second World War, a series of events including the outbreak of civil
war, the establishment of the Chinese communist government in 1949, and the
international blockade of China as a consequence of the Korean War (1950-53),
made it impossible for Hong Kong students to further their studies inside China.
Students had to turn to local or overseas institutions for higher education and there
was a sharp turn-around in the demand for English language education in Hong
Kong. By the mid-1950's, students enrolled in Anglo-Chinese (English-medium)
secondary schools in Hong Kong had outnumbered those in Chinese middle
schools. Thereafter, the rapid growth of international trade in Hong Kong further
stepped up the demand for English language education, until, in the 1980's, over
ninety per cent of the secondary school students were educated in English-medium
schools. Recently, it has been proposed to restrict access to English-medium sec-
ondary education only to those primary students with above average ability in the
English language (see Tung, 1992, for further discussion of this controversial
streaming policy).
From this general overview of English language education in Hong Kong, it can
be seen that English plays a pragmatic role in the education system. From the days
of the early nineteenth-century missionaries and the Central School of the Hong
Kong government, English has been learnt by students in Hong Kong for predomi-
nantly economic and career reasons. There have been many explicit statements to
this effect in the annals of Hong Kong education. For example, the headmaster of the
Central School noted in 1865 that "English being convertible into dollars ... the boys
leave as soon as they can perform the duties of compilers and copying clerks" (Hong
Kong Government Gazette, 1866:138, cited in Fok, 1990:11). This attitude towards
the study of the English language has persisted until today, not only in the minds of
the general public, but also at the highest levels of government concerned with edu-
cational policy. In 1995, an education commission whose main task is "to define
overall educational objectives, formulate education policy, and recommend priorities
for implementation" in Hong Kong concluded that the most pressing needs regard-
ing English language education are "for sixth form students to have the requisite
English skills to enter tertiary education institutions" and "for school leavers and
graduates to have a good command of English to enter the business, professional and
service sectors" (Education Commission, 1995: xxii and 14). As there is no sign that
the economic importance of English will diminish in Hong Kong after 1997 in view
of its extensive connections with the English-speaking world, English will in all
probability continue to constitute a vital part of the education of future generations
of students here.
444 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441~159

2. Attitudes towards English as a m e d i u m of instruction

Historically, although the public considered it extremely important for students to

learn English in Hong Kong, students, teachers, and parents were less unanimous in
their support of English as an instructional language. Students, being the most acces-
sible, were the first subjects investigated formally. In late 1972, Cheng et al.
(1973/1979) asked 170 Cantonese-speaking first-year university students, half of
whom had just completed secondary education in the English medium, what they
thought about the use of English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong schools.
64% of these students thought that English was not a suitable medium of instruction
in Hong Kong while 73% thought that using English as a medium of instruction
imposed a heavy burden on them.~ Yet, 54% of the students would still choose Eng-
lish over Chinese as a medium of instruction even if Hong Kong had not been a
colony.
Subsequent studies have generally reinforced these findings. In a survey of 2,500
Grade 7 students from representative urban English-medium schools in Hong Kong,
Tam (1980) obtained statistically significant results indicating that students would
have liked their teachers to use more Chinese in their teaching, and more clarifica-
tions in Chinese to be included in their textbooks and study materials. They would
also have liked to interact with their teachers more in Chinese in class. These stu-
dents revealed that they felt more confident in using Chinese rather than English in
their studies. However, the students were clearly not in favour of a complete switch
to Chinese as the sole medium of instruction.
In an experimental study involving two groups of students (700 and 600 respec-
tively) from a representative sample of schools in Hong Kong, in which one group
of students received instruction in the oral mode and the other in the written mode,
Johnson et al. (1985) discovered that less than 3% of the students in either group pre-
ferred English-only instruction. In the oral mode, the students were about equally
split in their preference for Cantonese-only instruction or mixed-code (i.e., Chinese
mixed with English) instruction. In the written mode, over 70% of the students pre-
ferred to study with the full Chinese text in front of them, although 11% would like
English glosses to be added to the Chinese text, and 32% would like to have avail-
able the complete English text as well.
There have been few studies of teachers' attitudes towards the medium of instruc-
tion in schools. Teachers of non-language subjects were surveyed in 1986 regarding
their views on teaching through the medium of English and Chinese (Tung, 1990).
242 secondary school teachers across different disciplines were consistent in
expressing the feeling that they could carry out various teaching tasks that involve
reading and writing more easily in English than in Chinese. These teachers also
agreed that more Chinese should be used with junior students (Grades 7 to 9) than
with senior students (Grades 10 and 11).

Fu (1975: 165) obtained the same response pattern when she asked a group of 561 secondaryschool
students if they thought English-medium instruction made content subjects more difficult for them to
understand.
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441~159 445

Similarly, studies of parents' attitudes are difficult to find. So (1984) successfully

surveyed about 400 parents of primary school students in Grade 5 from a variety of
family backgrounds and found that 58% of them favoured English-medium educa-
tion in the secondary schools with 17% and 25% of them respectively opposing or
having no opinion on this practice. If, in addition, it was specified that English-
medium education would be introduced gradually in the secondary schools, a higher
percentage of the parents (70%) then were in favour of it. In a subsequent 1986 sur-
vey of about two hundred working class parents, reported in So (1992), the great
majority of these parents (91%) would prefer a gradual introduction of English-
medium education in secondary schools.
It is striking from the above surveys how a person's role affects his or her views.
The students had to pass examinations in various subjects and to learn English well.
For the purpose of passing examinations, students preferred to be taught in Chinese
so that they could understand the subject matter better. However, because they had
to learn English to prepare themselves for further studies and the world of work, they
were reluctant to give up English-medium education completely. For students, the
compromise seemed to be studying English and Chinese texts at the same time.
Teachers, because of their training in English and their difficulties with written Chi-
nese (Tung, 1990), would consider English to be a more manageable instructional
medium. Parents, on the other hand, would like to see their children eventually
studying through the English language and achieving the goal of learning English.
Lin (1997, this issue) has pointed out that these attitudes are formed under the
'labour-market-driven' ideology dominant in the public discourses on language
learning in Hong Kong.

3. The present study

Although most educators who have studied the Hong Kong language situation
agree that local children should be educated mainly through their mother tongue
(i.e., spoken Cantonese and written 'Modem Standard Chinese'), very few English-
medium secondary schools have taken any actions on this. This is because the gov-
ernment has so far left the choice of the medium of instruction to individual schools.
The school authorities are unwilling to take the initiative to change the medium of
instruction on their own, because they fear that the quality of their student intake
might deteriorate drastically should parents decide to send their children to other
schools that continue to teach in English. This would mean all the efforts that the
schools had invested in raising their standards to attract better students would go to
waste. In this unfavourable and unfortunate climate, a church group decided, in the
spring of 1994, to break the impasse. It ordered its twenty-four member schools to
adopt Chinese as a medium of instruction for at least half of their curriculum in the
junior grades (Grades 7 to 9), beginning with the student intake of the 1994/95
school year. Because a number of these schools had been achieving fairly
respectable results using English as the medium of instruction, the schools were
allowed to institute changes in the medium of instruction at their own pace within a
446 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

period of three years. The present study is part of a larger project evaluating the cog-
nitive and affective effects on students of this decision of the group of schools to
change their instructional medium. Its main objective is to discover the attitudes of
the major stakeholders associated with these schools towards the medium of the
instruction as a point of reference for other schools contemplating similar changes in
their instructional medium.
There are other reasons to carry out a large-scale study of the attitudes of Hong
Kong students, teachers, and parents towards English and Chinese as instructional
languages in schools at this time. First, because the political status of Hong Kong
will change from a British dependent territory to a Special Administrative Region
within the People's Republic of China on July 1, 1997, some of the functions of
English as an official medium of communication within government and local busi-
nesses are likely to be taken over by Putonghua, the Chinese national language, or
even by Cantonese, the indigenous language. This may encourage people in Hong
Kong to reconsider the role of English in Hong Kong, and by implication, the role of
English in the schools. Second, since universal education was implemented in Hong
Kong in 1978, the expansion of secondary school places has been exclusively in the
English-medium sector. This has produced a number of problems, chief among these
being the fact that a sizeable proportion of Hong Kong students are not deriving as
much benefit from education as they should be because of the difficulties they have
with English. Educators have long recognized this problem and called for changes in
the school system. As the scale of the adverse cognitive and affective effects on stu-
dents instructed in English becomes better known, people in Hong Kong may
develop new attitudes towards the use of English as a medium of instruction.
In terms of research, relatively few studies have been carried out on the attitudes
of students, teachers, and parents towards the instructional languages used in
schools, especially with a view to comparing their attitudes. Most of the results
obtained so far have come from incidental surveys conducted as parts of projects
with other objectives. One difficulty in relation to investigations of the attitudes
towards using Chinese as an instructional medium has been a lack of schools that
taught in Chinese. Previous studies, such as Tam's (1986), have investigated teach-
ers' and students' views based on hypothetical situations where their schools decided
to change from using English to using Chinese as the medium of instruction. There
are, therefore, good reasons to carry out a new study on the attitudes of students,
teachers, and parents towards the medium of instruction in Hong Kong schools.

4. Design of the study

4.1. Sample

The sample of this study consisted of all the first-year students, their teachers, and
parents of the twenty-four secondary schools. Altogether, more than 5,000 students
participated in the study and over 4,600 parents returned questionnaires soliciting
their views on the use of English and Chinese as instructional languages in schools.
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441459 447

In addition, more than 700 teachers from these schools returned questionnaires on
their views of the medium of instruction.

4.2. Instrumentation

Three questionnaires in Chinese were designed, one each for students, parents,
and teachers. To facilitate comparison of their attitudes, some items appear on more
than one questionnaire with only minor modifications to make the statements read
better for the intended audience. To encourage parents to respond to the survey,
only fifteen items were included in their questionnaire. The questionnaire for the
teachers contained thirty questions, whereas that for the students had 36 items. All
the items required respondents to rate a given statement according to a specified
Likert-type scale. Except for two items unrelated to the discussion here, all the
items have been translated by the authors and included in this paper. The three
questionnaires were distributed through the schools at the end of the 1994/95 school
year, ten months after the schools had instituted some changes in their medium of
instruction.

4.3. Methods of analysis

The methods of analysis are chosen in response to two major questions of this
study. The first concerns the respondents' views on particular issues, which can best
be described with summary measures such as the means and standard deviations of
their responses to the items. The second relates to the underlying factors determin-
ing respondents' overt responses to individual items. For this purpose, factor analy-
sis has been used. To decide on the number of factors to examine, the conventional
criterion of only admitting factors with eigenvalues greater than one has been used.
A separate factor analysis for the data obtained from students, their parents, and
their teachers has been carried out. In each case, oblique solutions have been
arrived at.

5. Results of the study

The major results of this study are presented in Tables 1 to 5. Tables 1, 3, and 5
contain the means and standard deviations of the questionnaire items, and their load-
ings on the different factors. The notes below these tables give details about the
number of respondents for each questionnaire, the scoring of the items, and the cut-
off values of the factor loadings for the items to be included within the respective
factors. Tables 2 and 4 give the intercorrelations of the factors obtained for students
and teachers respectively. The intercorrelation of the two factors in Table 5 is given
in a note below that table.
Table 1 indicates that the student responses can be analyzed into four correlated
factors. Students agree that Chinese is a more efficient and effective language for
learning (Factor I). The two items of Factor 1 that students identify most with are
448 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

Table 1
An analysis of student attitudes towards the instructional medium into four factors

Item no. Statement Mean Factor

(St. Dev.) loading

Factor I: Chinese is a more efficient and effective language for learning

1103 1 can obtain higher marks answering examination questions in Chinese. 3.73 0.77
(1.29)
1124 I obtain better results in subjects that I study in Chinese than the ones I 3.34 0.70
study in English. (1.30)
1106 I feel that I can save a lot of time studying all subjects in Chinese rather 3.32 0.70
than in English. (~.30)
1104 I feel that I can write better in Chinese than in English. 3.70 O.68
(1.30)
1102 I am more motivated when I use Chinese (and not English) to study non- 3.36 0.67
language subjects (e.g., Mathematics, Science, Geography, and History). (1.39)
1128 I can spend less time on my studies if I study all subjects in Chinese 3.16 0.63
rather than English. (1.30)
1101 I think the greatest difficulty in using English to study is learning a 3.58 0.62
great many new words. ( i .40)
1115 Problems of learning are created if Chinese is the instructional language 3.48 0.58
in the primary school while English is the instructional language in the ( 1.30)
secondary school.
1125 My teachers think that I can achieve better results if I study all subjects 2.97 0.53
in Chinese rather than in English. (1.21)
1135 If the teacher teaches in Chinese, the classroom atmosphere would be 3.28 0.52
more conducive to learning. (1.21)
1118 1 support adopting mother-tongue education at the school where 1 study. 2.77 0.49
(1.34)
1121 I believe Chinese should be the medium of instruction for Forms I-3 2.71 0.43
(Grades 7-9). (1.34)
1119 If I study every subject in Chinese, my family members can give me 3.07 0.41
more help. (1.32)
1129 1 think that the majority of the secondary schools in Hong Kong should 2.91 0.40
adopt mother-tongue education in one or two years. (1.31)

Factor 11: English is a language fi)r careers

1226 I think learning English well is more important than learning Chinese 3.42 0.70
well. (1.22)
1234 I think using Chinese to study all subjects will affect my chances for 3.21 0.63
further studies after graduation from the secondary school. (1.24)
1211 1 feel English has a higher status than Chinese in Hong Kong at present. 3.75 0.60
(1.20)
1231 I think the great majority of the secondary schools in Hong Kong should 3.14 0.59
still use English as a medium of instruction within the next five to ten (1.26)
years.
1205 I feel that studying all subjects in Chinese will lower the standard of my 3.38 0.58
English. (1.32)
1232 1 feel that studying all subjects in English will help raise the standard of 3.70 0.58
my English. (1.21)
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441~159 449

Table 1 (continued)

Item no. Statement Mean Factor

(St. Dev.) loading

1212 I believe my parents would like me to study all subjects in English. 3.75 0.54
(1.23)
1217 1 think that all the secondary school students in Hong Kong should study 2.72 0.53
all subjects in English. (1.24)
1222 I think English should be the medium of instruction for Form 4 (Grade 3.43 0.47
10) and above. (1.33)

Factor 111: All students should be allowed to study through English

1307 I feel that it is more difficult to learn special terminology in Chinese 2.70 0.48
than in English. ( 1.31)
1330 I think the great majority of the secondary schools in Hong Kong should 2.65 0.47
gradually adopt Chinese as the medium of instruction within the next (1.28)
five to ten years.
1316 i feel that high-achieving students should study in English, while low- 2.85 0.46
achieving students should study in Chinese. (1.33)

Factor IV: Chinese can be used to help students to learn in English

1436 [ feel that my abilities in Chinese and English are mutually reinforcing. 3.40 0.63
(1.23)
1409 Teachers should use Chinese as the main medium of instruction at the 3.74 0.51
beginning of term, gradually increasing the use of English as a medium (1.26)
of instruction, so that students can get used to studying in English step
by step.
1423 I feel that teachers using both English and Chinese within the same lesson 3.69 0.48
can facilitate students' learning of the contents of each subject. (1.25)
1410 I feel that the teacher's method of teaching is more important than the 3.62 0.47
medium s/he uses for instruction. ( 1.20)
1414 I feel that learning Chinese well will help me to learn English well. 3.10 0.43
(1.22)
1433 I feel that studying all subjects in Chinese will help raise the standard 3.50 0.43
of my Chinese. (1.22)
1413 We communicate in Chinese in our everyday life, so we should study in 3.38 0.40
Chinese. (1.23)

Notes:
1. The number of students responding to each item ranges from 4974 to 5130.
2. See Note 2 of the paper for an explanation of how the Item No. can be interpreted.
3. Each statement was rated by the students according to the following scale:
1 this statement never or only rarely describes accurately my thinking and behaviour
2 this statement sometimes describes accurately my thinking and behaviour
3 this statement describes accurately my thinking and behaviour about half the time
4 this statement frequently describes accurately my thinking and behaviour
5 this statement always or almost always describes accurately my thinking and behaviour
4. Only items with factor Ioadings greater than 0.40 are shown in the table. The statements are ordered
within each factor according to the magnitude of their loadings.
450 P. Tung et al. / Journal of'Pragmatics 28 (1997) 4 4 1 ~ 5 9

Table 2
lntercorrelations among student attitude factors

Factor I Factor II Factor I11

Factor I1 -0.18
Factor 111 0.14 -0.08
Factor IV 0.31 0.11 0.06

Item 11032 "I can obtain higher marks answering examination questions in Chinese"
(mean = 3.73, where 5 = statement describes student's thinking most accurately),
and Item 1104 "I feel that I can write better in Chinese than in English" (mean =
3.70). Students, however, agree that English is important for their careers (Factor II).
The three items that students assent to most are Item 1211 "I feel English has a
higher status than Chinese in Hong Kong at present", Item 1212 "I believe my par-
ents would like me to study all [school] subjects in English", and Item 1232 "I feel
that studying all subjects in English will help raise the standard of my English". Fac-
tor III indicates that the students feel that everyone should be given the opportunity
to study in English. For example, they tend not to accept the idea that the great
majority of the secondary schools in Hong Kong should gradually adopt Chinese as
the medium of instruction within the next five to ten years (Item 1330, mean = 2.65).
Nevertheless, students feel that Chinese can be used to help them to study in English
(Factor IV). The two items that are most representative of their thinking on this fac-
tor are Item 1409 "Teachers should use Chinese as the main medium of instruction
at the beginning of term, gradually increasing the use of English as a medium of
instruction, so that students can get used to studying in English step-by-step", and
Item 1423 "I feel that teachers using both English and Chinese within the same les-
son can facilitate students' learning of the contents of each subject". As shown in
Table 2, Factors I and IV correlate the highest, suggesting that students view Chi-
nese as a means to the goal of studying through the medium of English.
Teachers' attitudes towards the medium of instruction can be analyzed into eight
correlated factors (Table 3). Teachers agree that using Chinese as a medium of
instruction enhances student learning (Factor I), in that they can cover study materi-
als in greater depth (Item 3117, mean = 1.97, where 1 = strongly agree) and at a
more rapid pace (Item 3118, mean = 2.05), increase students' interest (Item 3120,
mean = 2.13), and in general create a better learning environment (Item 3119, mean
= 2.20). However, teachers see teaching in Chinese as presenting some problems
(Factor II), such as the lack of resources for teaching (Item 3211) and the need to
find Chinese equivalents of technical terms in English (Item 3204). It is clear the
teachers favour strong government support for mother-tongue education (Factor III),

2 For ease of reference, the first digit of the Item no. refers to the table number; the second digit refers
to the factor the item loads on; the last two digits refer to the number of the item in the questionnaire.
Thus Item no. 1103 refers to Table I, Factor I, Item 03 in the questionnaire.
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441--459 451

Table 3
An analysis of teacher attitudes towards the instructional medium into eight factors

Item no. Statement Mean Factor

(St. Dev.) loading

Factor 1: Chinese as an instructional medium enhances student learning

3120 Lecturing in Chinese can bolster students' interest in learning more than 2.13 0.84
lecturing in English. (0.94)
3118 Lecturing in Chinese allows the lesson to progress faster than lecturing 2.05 0.8 I
in English. (0.97)
3119 Lecturing in Chinese produces a better classroom atmosphere than 2.20 0.80
lecturing in English. (0.99)
3117 Lecturing in Chinese allows a teacher to go deeper into the content of 1.97 0.77
the lesson than lecturing in English. (1.02)
3128 If Chinese is the medium of instruction, parents can help their children 2.35 0.43
more in their studies. (0.96)
3121 I support adopting mother-tongue education at the school where I teach. 2.52 0.36
(1.16)

Factor ll: Teaching in Chinese presents some problems.lot the teacher

3203 I feel it is easier to set examination questions using English than using 2.50 0.84
Chinese. (1.32)
3202 I feel I can write better in English than in Chinese. 3.25 0.80
( 1.26)
3204 The greatest problem in using Chinese as the medium of instruction is 2.40 0.47
the need to translate a lot of special terms. (1.19)
3205 A teacher's workload is heavier if s/he uses Chinese as the medium of 3.09 0.46
instruction than if s/he uses English as the medium of instruction. (I.15)
3201 It is easier to teach non-language subjects (e.g., Geography, 3.54 0.42
Mathematics) in English than in Chinese. (1.23)
3211 Resources for teaching, e.g., textbooks and reference books, are more 1.94 0.32
plentiful in English than in Chinese. (O.97)

Factor 1II: The government should actively support mother-tongue education

3325 The Education Department should provide schools that adopt mother- 1.72 0.84
tongue education with more resources for teaching. (0.83)
3324 The Education Department should provide secondary school teachers 2.1 I 0.77
with more courses to help them to teach in Chinese. (O.89)
3326 The Hong Kong Government should raise the status of the Chinese 1.69 0.66
language in society. (0.83)
3322 Learning Chinese well will benefit the learning of English. 2.49 0.31
(0.99)

Factor IV: Many obstacles unrelated to classroom teaching are in the way of adopting Chinese us an
instructional medium
3409 The adoption of Chinese as the medium of instruction will certainly lead 2.57 0.71
to poorer student intake. (1.20)
3411 Resources for teaching, e.g., textbooks and reference books, are more 1.94 0.57
plentiful in English than in Chinese. (0.97)
3410 Parents are the major obstacle in the promotion of mother-tongue 2.07 0.45
education. (1.02)
3422 Learning Chinese well will benefit the learning of English. 2.49 -0.37
(0.99)
452 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

Table 3 (Continued))

Item no. Statement Mean Factor

(St. Dev.) loading

Factor V: Chinese-medium instruction is.fi'asihle but senior students should be taught in English
3507 Students tend to neglect those subjects taught in Chinese. 3.56 0.75
(1.09)
3506 Teaching a class in Chinese encourages students to speak uninhibitedly, 3.94 0.62
thereby disrupting the order of the class. (1.09)
3529 English should be the medium of instruction for Form 4 (Grade 10) and 2.73 0.54
above. ( 1.09)
3516 Even studying every subject in Chinese will not help students with poor 3.31 0.37
academic performance. ( 1.31 )
3508 Using Chinese to study non-language subjects (e,g., Geography, 3.07 0.36
Mathematics, History) will affect students' English proficiency. (1.22)
3514 Students with good academic performance should study all subjects in 2.68 0.34
English. (1.17)

Factor VI: Students are better prepared for studyine in Chinese

3613 The English proficiency of the students I teach is not adequate for them 2.45 0.65
to study non-language subjects (e.g., Geography, Mathematics) in (I.16)
English.
3623 The Chinese proficiency of the students I teach is not adequate for them 3.57 0.60
to study non-language subjects (e.g., Geography, Mathematics) in (0.96)
Chinese.
3616 Even studying every subject in Chinese will not help students with poor 3.31 0.34
academic performance. (1.31)

Factor VII: The use ~'some Chinese by teachers is acceptable to the schools
3727 [ have a good understanding of the language policy of the school where 2.48 0.7 I
I teach. (1.01)
3712 It is inappropriate for teachers to teach the same lesson mixing English 3.18 0.56
and Chinese. (1.24)
3716 Even studying every subject in Chinese will not help students with poor 3.31 0.37
academic performance. (1.31)

Factor VIII: Teachelw support the use of a diffi,rent instructional language for different ability groups
3815 Students with average academic performance should study all subjects 2.75 0.75
in Chinese. (1.10)
3814 Students with good academic performance should study all subjects in 2.68 0.46
English. (1.17)
3810 Parents are the major obstacle in the promotion of mother-tongue 2.07 0.42
education. (1.02)
3830 Chinese should be the medium of instruction for Forms 1-3 (Grades 7-9). 2.72 0.33
(1.08)

Notes.
1. The number of teachers responding to each item ranges from 722 to 729.
2. See Note 2 of the paper for an explanation of how the Item no. can be interpreted.
3. Each statement was rated by the teachers on a 5-point scale, where 1 = strongly agree, and 5 =
strongly disagree.
4. Only statements with factor loadings that have an absolute value greater than 0.3 on one of the fac-
tors are shown in the table. The statements are ordered within each factor according to the magnitude
of their loadings.
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441~159 453

Table 4
lntercorrelations among teacher attitude factors

Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor

1 It III IV V VI VII

Factor
II -0.23
Factor
III 0.28 -0.14
Factor
IV -0.06 O.18 -0.07
Factor
V -O.20 0.28 -0.08 0.14
Factor
VI 0.03 -0.02 0.01 0.02 0.04
Factor
VII -0.04 -0.05 0.02 -0.03 0.03 0.03
Factor
VIII 0.13 -0.01 0.14 0.04 0.04 -0.02 0.03

including raising the status of the Chinese language in Hong Kong (Item 3326).
Related to Factor II, Factor IV indicates that teachers are aware of other difficulties
in the implementation of Chinese-medium education. These are mostly unrelated to
classroom teaching, for example, parents' opposition to mother-tongue education
(Item 3410). Teachers, nevertheless, are confident that using Chinese as an instruc-
tional medium is feasible and desirable, at least in the junior grades (Factor V), as
they disagree strongly with the statements that classroom discipline will be more dif-
ficult to maintain when teaching is in Chinese (Item 3506), and that students will
look down upon subjects taught in Chinese (Item 3507). At the same time, Item
3529, which expresses teachers' agreement that senior students should be taught in
English, also loads heavily on this factor. Items 3613 and 3623 of Factor VI show
clearly that teachers think that students are better prepared for studying in Chinese
rather than in English in the secondary school. The teachers feel that they are con-
versant with the school policy on the language of instruction (Item 3727, Factor
VII). Finally, they seem to support the controversial streaming policy (Factor VIII),
whereby students performing well academically are educated in English (Item 3814),
and students with 'average' academic performance are relegated to Chinese-medium
classes (Item 3815).
The highest intercorrelations among the teacher attitude factors are found
between Factors I and III, and between Factors II and V (Table 4). The first pair of
factors indicates teachers' support for mother-tongue education. The second pair
suggests as students in the junior grades will increasingly be taught in Chinese,
teachers are worried that some of their teaching tasks may become more difficult in
future.
454 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

Table 5
An analysis of parents' attitudes towards the instructional medium into two factors

Item no. Statement Mean Factor

(St. Dev.) loading

Factorl: Chinese-medium education is helpful up to a point

5112 I think studying every subject in Chinese can bolster students' interest 2.74 0.74
in learning. (1.29)
5104 I think my child will benefit more if s/he studies every subject in 3.04 0.70
Chinese than in English. (I.31)
5108 I think Chinese should be the medium of instruction for Forms 1 to 3 3.35 0.67
(Grades 7 to 9). (1.36)
5115 If my child studies every subject in Chinese (rather than in English), I 3.01 0.66
can give him/her more supervision. (1.34)
5111 I support adopting mother-tongue education at the school where my 3.02 0.66
child studies. (1.38)
5113 l think learning Chinese well will help the learning of English. 2.69 0.57
(1.31)
5106 I think arts subjects (e.g., History, Geography) should be taught in 2.27 0.56
Chinese. (1.30)
5101 After 1997, the Chinese language will have a more important status than 3.00 0.45
the English language in Hong Kong. (1.32)

Factor H: English-medium education is highly desirable

52O9 I think English should be the medium of instruction for Form 4 (Grade 2.10 0.68
10) and above. (1.28)
5214 I think the school where my child studies should step up its training to 1.98 0,64
enable students to study all subjects in English. (1.12)
5205 Compared to the graduates of English-medium secondary schools, it is 2.21 0.61
more difficult for graduates of Chinese-medium schools to further their (1.24)
studies or look for a job.
5207 I think science subjects (e.g., Mathematics, Biology) should be taught in 2.33 0.59
English. (1.30)
5203 When 1 choose a secondary school for my child, I will pick an English- 2.10 0.59
medium school first. (1.28)
5202 Studying all subjects in Chinese is not conducive to the learning of 2.54 0.51
English. (1.47)

Notes:
1. The number of parents responding to each item ranges from 4660 to 4680.
2. See Note 2 of the paper for an explanation of how the Item No. can be interpreted.
3. Each statement was rated by the parents on a 5-point scale, where 1 = strongly agree, and 5 = strongly
disagree.
4. Only statements with factor loadings greater than 0.45 on one of the factors are shown in the table.
The statements are ordered within each factor according to the magnitude of their loadings.
5. The correlation between Factors I and II is -0.30.
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441--459 455

Parents' attitudes towards the medium of instruction can be analyzed into two
factors 3 (Table 5). Parents think that Chinese-medium education is helpful up to a
point (Factor I), which should lead ultimately to the study of all school subjects in
English (Factor II). Thus, parents support the teaching of 'arts subjects' such as
History and Geography in Chinese (Item 5106, mean = 2.27, where 1 = strongly
agree), although they tend to disagree with the idea that Chinese should be used as
the medium of instruction in the junior grades of the secondary school (Item 5108,
mean = 3.35). On the other hand, they agree strongly with all the items loading
heavily on Factor II, which indicates their definite preference for English-medium
education for their children.

6. Discussion

To obtain an integrated picture of the different viewpoints, it is necessary to com-

pare the attitudes of students, teachers, and parents. To start with, parents seem to
hold a wider range of opinions, as indicated by the magnitude of the standard devia-
tions of their item responses, ranging from 1.12 to 1.47, with an average value of
about 1.31. Teachers seem to hold more similar views among themselves, as indi-
cated by the much smaller standard deviations of the item responses ranging from
0.83 to 1.32, with an average value of about 1.08. Students are midway between the
two groups; the standard deviations of their item responses range from 1.20 to 1.40,
with an average value of about 1.28. These results suggest that there is a relative
lack of consensus among parents and students as to how the medium of instruction
issue can be resolved, whereas teachers have arrived at a better consensus among
themselves.
Consensus within a group does not necessarily mean agreeing on a small number of
issues. In fact, the teachers have a much wider range of concerns compared to that of
students and their parents, as evidenced by the much greater number of factors deriv-
able from their responses. The parents, on the other hand, appear to be narrowly
focused in their concerns, all of which relate to their wish that their children should
receive the best education, which really means English-medium education. This is
supported by the limited number of factors that can be derived from their responses.
The students, again, are midway between their parents and teachers in terms of the
number of factors underlying their responses. The teachers, therefore, appear to hold
more sophisticated views and are more aware of the issues surrounding the medium of
instruction. This is perhaps not surprising as teachers are the ones most closely asso-
ciated with the work of education and they are consequently more aware of the prob-
lems and the possibilities in the medium of instruction debate. That the patterns of
responses of the students consistently fall between the parents' and the teachers' might
also be expected, as they are undoubtedly influenced by both parents and teachers.

A marginal third factor (eigenvalue = 1.04) was also obtained with only one item loading heavily on
it (Item 10, factor loading = 0.93). As this factor is not well defined by a number of variables, it is not
included in Table 5.
456 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

Examining the factor patterns of the students, teachers, and parents, it is clear that
all the groups agree on one point, that Chinese instruction can be helpful and pro-
mote student learning (Factor I in the three analyses), although students and parents
are not as enthusiastic about the idea as are the teachers. For example, with regard to
the beneficial effects of using Chinese as an instructional medium on the learning
climate in the classroom, teachers' mean ratings on Items 3120 and 3119 are 2.13
and 2.20 (1 = strongly agree) with standard deviations less than 1, while the mean
student ratings on comparable items, Items 1102 and 1135, are 3.36 and 3.28 respec-
tively (5 = statement describes student's thinking most accurately), and the parents'
mean rating on Item 5112 is only 2.74 (1 = strongly agree), the standard deviations
of the latter three items being all greater than 1.2.
Students and their parents agree on another point, that English-medium education
brings about a better standard of English, which is important for the purpose of
career advancement (Factor II in the analyses of both groups). Students identify
closely with the statement that studying all school subjects in English will help raise
their standard of English (Item 1232, mean = 3.70). Parents feel even more strongly
about this matter. The first five items with high factor loadings on Factor II all show
parents' unmistakeable preference for English-medium education (average mean
value = 2.14; Table 5). This sentiment is so strong that both students and parents
agree that studying all school subjects in Chinese would lower the English standards
of the students (Item 1205 and Item 5202). Teachers, however, are neutral on the
question of whether using Chinese as a medium of instruction will affect the stu-
dents' English proficiency adversely (Item 3508).
Putting together the discussion in the last two paragraphs, it is not difficult to
understand the origin of the idea that teaching in Chinese can serve the purpose of
assisting students to study in English. Students clearly support a gradual transition
from Chinese as a medium of instruction to English as the main instructional lan-
guage (Item 1409). It is equally clear that they are supportive of teachers using both
English and Chinese in the same class (Item 1423). Although teachers tend to sup-
port the use of Chinese in the junior grades and English in the senior grades (Item
3830, mean = 2.72; and Item 3529, mean = 2.71), they are somewhat uncertain
about using both Chinese and English in the same class (Item 3712, mean = 3.18). In
a way, parents may also be said to be sympathetic towards the students' position.
While they are mildly against using Chinese as the medium of instruction in junior
grades (Item 5108, mean = 3.35), they are strongly in favour of using English as a
medium of instruction in senior grades (Item 5209, mean = 2.10). However, judging
by the parents' responses to Item 10 in their questionnaire (not included in Table 5,
see note 4), they hold a view on language use in the classroom closer to that of the
teachers. They think that teachers should n o t teach in both English and Chinese in
the same class (mean = 3.62, standard deviation = 1.32).
What is of great interest in this connection is to find out if the students, teachers,
and parents agree intuitively with Cummins's Linguistic Interdependence Principle,
that aspects of language proficiency are common across languages, making it easier
for second language learners to acquire certain skills that they are already good at in
their first language, provided there is adequate exposure to the second language (see,
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459 457

for example, Cummins and Swain, 1986). Students do not seem to have definite feel-
ings for Cummins's principle: they do not see any significant relationship between
learning Chinese well and learning English well (Item 1414, mean = 3.10), although
they tend to agree that their Chinese and English abilities are mutually reinforcing
(Item 1436, mean = 3.40). Parents seem to have a slightly better feeling for the Lin-
guistic Interdependence Principle: they tend to agree that learning Chinese well will
help the learning of English (Item 5113, mean = 2.69). Teachers appear to come
closest to agreeing with Cummins's Principle: they generally recognize that master-
ing Chinese benefits the learning of English (Item 3322, mean = 2.49, standard devi-
ation = 0.99).
In the Hong Kong secondary school context, where students' first language is
Chinese and English is not needed for everyday purposes, one possible implication
of Cummins's Linguistic Interdependence Principle is that the great majority of the
students would benefit more academically and linguistically if they established a
solid foundation in Chinese first (see, for example, Tung, 1992, for further discus-
sion on this point). Because of a lack of substantial identification on the part of all
respondents with this principle, other priorities will determine their views on who
should use which instructional language and when. Thus, students tend to favour
allowing all students to study in English (Factor III, Table 1), considering the impor-
tance of English in Hong Kong. They marginally disagree with the proposal that
high-achieving students should study in English, while low-achieving students
should study in Chinese (Item 1316). Teachers, on the other hand, are tempered by
their teaching experience, and tend to support the strategy that students performing
well academically should study in English (Item 3814) and that students with aver-
age academic performance should study in Chinese (Item 3815).
Given the attitudes of the students, teachers, and parents as discussed above, it
may now be easier to understand their stand on the changes in the medium of
instruction that are beginning to take place in the schools. The biggest issue here is
of course whether Chinese should be used as a medium of instruction instead of Eng-
lish, especially in the junior grades. Students are not supportive of adopting mother-
tongue education in their schools (Item 1118), nor are they sympathetic towards
using Chinese as a medium of instruction in the lower grades (Item 1121). Although
parents, as a group, seem to be neutral with respect to whether the school where their
children study should adopt mother-tongue education (Item 5111), they tend not to
support using Chinese as a medium of instruction in junior grades (Item 5108).
Teachers are more favourable to the idea of adopting mother-tongue education (Item
3121) and they tend to support using Chinese as the instructional language in Grades
7-9 (Item 3830).
Parents and students were requested to provide an assessment of where the future
would lead them. Would the Chinese language have a higher status than the English
language in Hong Kong after 1997 ? Parents varied in their opinions, of course, but
the mean of their responses rested exactly on the mid-point of the scale, 3.0 (Item
5101). Item 20 on the student questionnaire, which did not load on any of the student
attitude factors, asked for the same assessment. Students were marginally more pos-
itive that after 1997, the Chinese language would be more important than the Eng-
458 P. Tung et al. /Journal <~fPragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459

lish language (Item 20, mean = 3.16, standard deviation -- 1.27). This is in contrast
to their much stronger belief that English has a higher status than Chinese at present
(Item 1211, mean = 3.75). It is also in contrast to what they would like to find in the
future. Students have a slight preference that most schools should remain English-
medium within the next five to ten years (Item 1231, mean = 3.14) and a somewhat
greater resistance to the idea that these schools should gradually adopt Chinese as a
medium of instruction within the same period (Item 1330, mean --- 2.65).
Taking a longer historical view, the rise and fall of English as a medium of
instruction have been dictated by the larger societal context of Hong Kong. Before
the British arrived in Hong Kong, English was unknown in the schools. After the
British established a government in Hong Kong, English became gradually more
important as a language for instruction. But between the First and Second World
Wars, the importance of English in Hong Kong ebbed because of the greater influ-
ence of China. The rapid surge of English as a medium of instruction in the latter
half of this century in Hong Kong has been the result of replacing China's influence
with that of the West. After the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, will the soci-
etal context change again to cause a reversal of the fortunes of English? All the indi-
cations are that English, being an important international language of business and
technology, will still be extremely attractive to the students in Hong Kong, although
some of its official functions will be taken over by Putonghua. If this is the case,
then, as Tam (1986) found, as long as English remains dominant in government,
businesses, and higher education, it will be preferred by teachers and students as a
medium of instruction. The views of the parents and students above reflect this hard-
headed determination.

7. Conclusion

This paper has taken an historical view of the development of the English lan-
guage as an instructional medium in Hong Kong. The larger societal context has
been seen to be most powerful in determining students' and parents' attitudes.
Teachers' attitudes are also influenced by the realities of the classroom, whether stu-
dents are achieving the educational goals of the schools. Members of the three
groups agree that using Chinese as the medium of instruction enhances student learn-
ing, but at the same time, they are not overwhelmingly supportive of mother-tongue
education. In fact, they see Chinese-medium education as a means to a far more
important end of mastering English for further studies and better employment
prospects. This goes beyond the 'ambivalence' attitude described by earlier investi-
gators such as Cheng et al. in characterizing students' "contradiction in attitude
(strong emotional attachment to Chinese) and actual preference (English-medium
education)" (1973/1979: 57). The parents and students have made a conscious
choice in opting for English-medium education in the hope that they will be the few
who will succeed in the face of the hurdle imposed by the unfamiliar English lan-
guage. The stakes involved are so high that they are willing to assume a level of
risks that sensible entrepreneurs in this business-minded Hong Kong would not take
 P. Tung et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997) 441-459 459

up. If there is an urgent task for the future government of Hong Kong in the area of
education, it is this 'adventurous spirit' of the parents and students, and its underly-
ing causes, that needs to be moderated.
The schools in this study are endeavouring to turn the tide by adopting Chinese as
a medium of instruction for at least some of the school subjects. They may not win
the hearts of parents and students at the beginning, but as evidence accumulates that
studying in Chinese, at least for some of the school subjects, can lead to better aca-
demic results and language proficiency, a more balanced view of English language
education and English as a medium of instruction may emerge.

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