HKIER

Abstract

This article reports on the first year of a two-year project intended to provide support to students in Hong Kong entering secondary school (i.e., the start of Grade 7), where the medium of instruction in all major content subjects is English. For the majority of students, this presents substantial adaptation problems, not the least of which is the fact that the medium of instruction has changed from Cantonese in primary school to English in secondary. An overview of the project’s general objectives is first presented, involving a “language-across-the-curriculum” approach and helping schools to create a “language-rich environment.” The article then moves to describing the various support measures that have been developed and provided to five selected secondary schools which are participating in the project. At the end of the first year of the project, these schools completed an attitudinal questionnaire, which is also discussed. One important finding here is that schools which were generally less than enthusiastic about the project at the outset have changed in their attitudes toward “language-across-the-curriculum.” The article concludes with a look ahead toward the second year of the project.

摘要

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