Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 1998

Strengthening the Linguistic Ability of Secondary School Students A student's linguistic foundation shouldbe laid in his primary and secondary school years. Remedial action to right past wrongs in university is often too late to beeffective. In order to compensate for the inadequacies in language education underthe current education system, academic units of the University try to deal with the problem from its root. Day in, day out, teachers, employers, the m e d i a , a n d p a r e n ts c o m p l a i n a b o ut the p l u m m e t i n g l a n g u a ge s t a n d a r d of o u r secondary school students. Rather than joining the ranks of the critics, it is p e r h a ps mo re constructive to come to grips w i t h the problem. The Un i v e r s i t y 's De p a r t me nt of C u r r i c u l um and Instruction, Faculty of Education, and the H o n g K o ng Institute of Educational Research have l a u n c h ed three j o i nt school language schemes to increase students' proficiency i n Chinese. Joint School Young Writer Training Scheme The average secondary school student writes about 12 compositions a year, a number wh i ch does little to boost his w r i t i ng powers, let alone satiate his passion for w r i t i ng if there's any. Yet i n c r e a s i ng t h e n u m b e r of c o m p o s i t i on assignments w o u ld add to the teacher's already hefty ma r k i ng responsibilities. This scheme is targeted at precisely this 'catch-22' situation. Joint School Chinese Education Programme