The Pedagogical Maze: Retrospection on CLT in Hong Kong

Abstract

For years the English proficiency of general Hong Kongstudents is said to be continuously declining. There is a common belief that the execution of mother tongue education is a main factor for this phenomenon. However, rarely have people mentioned, discussed or thought of the relationship between the falling English proficiency and the prevalent teaching methodology. This paper questions the overuse of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in theHong Kongcontext. It pinpoints the key principles and features of CLT and examines the reality ofHong Kongstudents against these principles and features. It concludes through the comparison that although CLT is in vogue and meets the general desires of learning a new language, it has some limitations to a context like Hong Kong. Reality shows that CLT does not match the Hong Kong context in many aspects; overuse of it can only cause detrimental effects and fail the intended aim of using it to develop the learner’s communicative competence.

Share and Cite:

Lu, D. and Ng, J. (2013) The Pedagogical Maze: Retrospection on CLT in Hong Kong. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 3, 289-294. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2013.34036.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Anderson, J. (1993). Is a communicative approach practical for teaching English in China? Pros and cons. System, 21, 471-480.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251X(93)90058-O
[2] Andrews, S. (2003). Teacher language awareness and the professional knowledge base of the L2 teachers. Language Awareness, 12, 81-95.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658410308667068
[3] Bax, S. (2005). Correspondence. ELT Journal, 59, 90-91.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/cci022
[4] Bax, S. (2003). The end of CLT: A context approach to language teaching. ELT Journal, 57, 278-287. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/57.3.278
[5] Biggs, J. (1996). Western misconceptions of the Confucius-heritage learning culture. In D. Watkins, & J. B. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences (pp. 4567). Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong, Comparative Education Research Center.
[6] Breen, M., & Candlin, C. N. (1980). The essentials of a communicative curriculum in language teaching. Applied Linguistics, 1, 89-112.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/1.2.89
[7] Burnaby, B., & Sun, Y. (1989). Chinese teachers’ views of Western language teaching: Context informs paradigm. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 219-238. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3587334
[8] Education Commission. (1995). Enhancing language proficiency: A comprehensive strategy. Education Commission report No. 6. Hong Kong: Government Printer.
[9] Falvey, P., & Coniam, D. (2000). Establishing writing benchmarks for primary and secondary English language teachers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5, 128-156.
[10] Grabe, W., & Mahon, D. (1983). Teacher training in China: Problems and perspective. In On TESOL 1982, Pacific perspectives on language learning and teaching (pp. 47-60). Washington, DC: TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages).
[11] Gu, P. Y. (2003). Fine brush and freehand: The vocabulary-learning art of two successful Chinese EFL learners. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 73104. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3588466
[12] Hong Kong Curriculum Development Committee (1983). Syllabus for English (Forms I-V). Hong Kong: The Government Printer.
[13] Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. New York: Longman.
[14] Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
[15] Li, D. (1998). “It’s always more difficult than you plan and imagine”: Teachers’ perceived difficulties in introducing the communicative approach in South Korea. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 677-703.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3588000
[16] Littlewood, W. (1981). Communicative language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[17] Littlewood, W., & Liu, N.-F. (1996). Hong Kong students and their English. Hong Kong: Macmillan.
[18] Luk, J. C. M., & Lin, A. M. Y. (2007). Classroom interactions as cross-cultural encounters. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
[19] Mey, J. L. (1998). Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
[20] Morris, P. (1996). The Hong Kong school curriculum—Development, issues and policies (2nd ed.). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
[21] Nazari, A. (2007). EFL teachers’ perception of the concept of communicative competence. ELT Journal, 61, 202-210.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccm027
[22] Rao, Z. (2002). Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classroom. System, 30, 85-105.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0346-251X(01)00050-1
[23] Savignon, S. J. (1991). Communicative language teaching state of the art. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 261-275.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3587463
[24] Tsui, A., & Tollefson, J. (2007). Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
[25] Valdes, A. I., & Jhones, A. C. (1991). Introduction of communicative language teaching in tourism in Cuba. TESL Canada Journal, 8, 5763.

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.