Plus ca change, plus c'est la m�me chose: attitudes towards English language learning in Hong Kong?Frederick Stewart's evidence

Abstract

: The reported situation with reference to the motivation of Hong Kong people in learning the English language, at an early period of British Hong Kong, is considered, and comparisons made with today. It is suggested that the attitudes of the Hong Kong people towards learning English, between then and now, are very similar; and that these attitudes are thus deeply entrenched. It is also suggested that, although methodology and ideas about methodology may have changed, some native teachers of English show over time a consistently different understanding of the purposes of learning English—and indeed, of the purposes of education in general—than that held by their pupils and students, and by Hong Kong society as a whole. It is argued that the increasing emigration of Hong Kong people from Hong Kong, mainly to Anglophone countries, as 1997—the year of the return to Chinese sovereignty—approaches, makes it important for there to be an international understanding of the attitude of Hong Kong people towards learning the English language. The major sources are contemporary and nineteenth-century Government Reports and newspapers.