Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1980

know, so the potential employers cannot be aware of the quality of their academic training. I am not being critical of employers. I am simply saying that again this is a fact of life to which our graduates have to face up. Q. In identifying these needs, does it require collaborative efforts between the language faculty and the subject faculty? A. Yes. A most important part of our work is to find out what these needs are. Last year we had an experimental course, 'English for Science Students'. What does a scientist, as an undergraduate student in Science, need to know in English? W e immediately go to the various Science departments and say, Tell us what you expect of your students.' But more importantly, we do not just ask people, we look at the assignments and the examinations that they set to determine what the needs are for Science undergraduates, and try to design courses on the basis of these needs. I keep coming back to this idea of needs because we believe that this is the most effective way of getting at what English our students should be learning. They should be working within their discipline in Science or in Business Administration or in Arts rather than talking at cocktail party. That is why we have three different first-year English courses for 1980-1981: one for Science students, one for Business Administration students and one for Arts and Social Science students. The three different courses have been designed to meet the specific needs of undergraduate students at The Chinese University, so far as English is concerned. It is these courses that have taken the place of what was called the General English Programme. I suppose it is now the Specific English Programme. Q. Do you think that General English Courses may also have their merits? Do General English Courses serve to introduce to students some aspects of English culture apart from teaching the language? A. Well, let us get back to a very general problem of teaching. W e have a saying in our discipline: 'You cannot talk talk, you have got to talk something'. There is subject matter about which one talks. You cannot just teach the English language, yo u have got to teach the English language about something. For undergraduates, we teach them to use English about their discipline, about their Science discipline or about business administrative affairs. We use that as the subject matter for them to talk. You talk about English culture. I should not say it but it is not terribly appropriate for Hong Kong. This is Hong Kong, this is not Britain. Certainly our undergraduate students are living in Hong Kong, and it is Hong Kong culture, if anything, that should be talked about, and not English culture. Moreover, if you say English culture, do you mean British culture or American culture or Australian culture? All these are different. What we are concerned about is Hong Kong, and especially for our undergraduate students, it is Hong Kong academic studies that we are concerned about. Q. Do you think it is possible for our students to be truly bilingual in a university and a society where Chinese is the first language? A. This is a very central question we are concerned with, but we have got to first of all answer the questions, 'What do w e mean by bilingual?', 'What is a bilingual person?'. W e use the term ‘bilingual ， in many different ways. Our problem I think is that we just use this term 'bilingual' without really knowing exactly what it means. Does it mean equally proficient in two languages? Obviously not. One does not need to be equally proficient in both English and Chinese in Hon g Kong—to be 'bilingual'. H o w much English then do you need? We hope that the English Department can help the University to form an operational definition of what bilingualism is, and to define what its policy of bilingualism actually means by spelling out the kind and degree of proficiency that is needed in English for undergraduate students and for graduates of the University to take their place fully in the society. At present w e do not know, so I cannot answer your question. Q. But, generally how would you define bilingualism or a bilingual person? A. I cannot define a person wh o is bilingual until I know how he is required to use more than on e language. As I said, this question has to be answered in terms of the needs of different people in society. If they are perfectly adequate and perfectly able to communicate in more than one language in situations where they are required to, then I would say that they are bilingual. I am 2 3