HKIER

Abstract

The last official English Language syllabus for primary schools in Hong Kong was published in 1981. This syllabus aimed to promote a more communicative approach to the teaching of English at the primary level, and did not concern itself with problems that arose as a result of the implementation of compulsory education in 1978. Since the early nineties, the quality of compulsory schooling in Hong Kong has caught the attention of the general public and the education sector, and there have been studies showing that some pupils begin to show serious problems in learning English from Primary Four. The current syllabus for Primary English was published in 1997, nineteen years after the introduction of compulsory schooling in Hong Kong. This paper reports an analysis of the current Primary English syllabus, with special reference to its relevance for compulsory schooling. This analysis is based on a framework specially developed for analyzing compulsory school curricula. The paper concludes with a discussion of two issues which are deemed crucial to the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language within a context of compulsory schooling.

Keywords: second language curriculum; English language teaching; compulsory education

摘要

N.A.