Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong KongJoseph BoyleDepartment of English, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
This article considers the role of native-speaker English language teachers in Hong
Kong. Part 1 examines the concept of native-speaker and offers five criteria which
determine whether a person can be classed as native-speaker or not. Changing attitudes to the place of native-speakers in English language teaching, and the relative merits of native-speaker and non-native-speaker teachers of English are next discussed. The situation of English language teachers in Hong Kong is outlined, with attention to the attitudes of local non-native-speaker teachers of English. The second part of the article then focuses on the use of native-speaker English teachers in Hong Kong, with particular reference to a project known as the Expatriates English Teachers Scheme (EETS).
This is critically examined and the reactions from the local teaching profession are
given. The attitude of the Hong Kong Education Department is also reviewed, from the
evidence of a series of Reports by the Government’s Education Commission over the
past decade. The article maintains that the EETS has been largely ineffective, and that the most recent attempt to revive and expand the scheme is unlikely to succeed. In trying to solve Hong Kong’s English language problems, it is suggested that more
attention should be given to new ideas on the definition and role of native-speakers
and to their ancillary relationship with local teachers.
IntroductionFor several years there has been a growing impression in Hong that the standard of English is on the decline. Schoolteachers, university teachers and employers in the business sector all agree that their students or employees have a much poorer command of English than in earlier years. Tourist visitors to Hong Kong also express surprise at the generally low standard of English in a population which they had expected to be better at English.
The Education Department has always refuted the charge that the standard of
English has fallen. Their claim is that while there may be fewer excellent speakers
than before, there is now a far higher percentage of Hong Kong people who know
some English. They add that the perception of poorer English among employees
is influenced by the fact that the demand for good English in Hong Kong’s service
industries has increased much faster than the supply of good English speakers.
In a recent Report of the Government’s Education Commission (Education
Commission Draft Report No. 6, 1995) the whole question of language in education is reviewed. While maintaining the position that English standards
have not in fact declined, the Report admits that ‘there is no room for complacency regarding the level of English’ and that ‘much more needs to be done to address the shortage of S6 and S7 students with the requisite English requirements to enter tertiary education institutions and of school leavers and graduates with adequate English proficiency for vocational purposes’ (ECR6 Draft: 12). To achieve this, the Report makes several recommendations, one of 163
0950-0782/97/03 0163-19 $10.00/0 ©1997 J. Boyle LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 11, No. 3, 1997 which is that there should be a marked increase in the number of native-speakers of English employed in Hong Kong schools.
The following article examines this proposal from two perspectives. First, we
discuss worldwide changes in perception of the role of native-speakers in the
teaching of English as a second or foreign language. With English now
established as an international language, and with the recognition of different
varieties of English, the term ‘native-speaker’ has to be defined more broadly.
When employing English language teachers, more attention is now being given to expertise, rather than simply to country of origin. While it is still agreed that the native-speaker has something special to offer, s/he is no longer automatically
considered to be a better teacher than the non-native-speaker.
Secondly, in the light of these changing ideas on what constitutes a
native-speaker and on the relative merits of native-speaker and non-nativespeaker
teachers, the article reviews the use of native-speaker English language teachers in Hong Kong over the past decade, focusing in particular on EETS. This involved the importation of a large number of native-speaker teachers of English
into the Hong Kong school system, with the aim of raising the falling standards of English. The Expatriate English Teachers Scheme, and a subsequent further scheme to import native-speaker English teachers are discussed critically and the article ends with a consideration of the position of both native-speakers and local non-native-speaker teachers of English in Hong Kong.
Part 1 — Changing Ideas on Native-Speaker Teachers of EnglishWho are native-speakers of English?In the early days of teaching English as a foreign language, the presence of a
native-speaker was considered a great boon. Here was not just Chomsky’s
idealised native-speaker, but one in the flesh, with all the answers on grammatical
correctness, nuances of idiom and appropriateness of expression. The concept
‘native-speaker’ had not yet been subjected to careful definition, since the
common-sense understanding of the term seemed enough, that is, ‘people who have a special control over the language, insider knowledge about “their” language. They are the models we appeal to for the “truth” about the language, they know what the language is (“Yes, you can say that”) and what the language isn’t (“No, that’s not English”)’ (Davies, 1991: 1).Coulmas (1981) takes the native-speaker as the common reference point in hisedited series of articles on different fields of linguistics. In this he follows Katz & Fodor (1962: 218) who hold that the basis of any theory of a particular language ‘must be the explication of the abilities and skills involved in the linguistic performance of a fluent native-speaker’. Coulmas quotes Robins (1971: 364): ‘The informant is not a teacher, nor a linguist; he is simply a native-speaker of the language’. Coulmas discusses the possible range of native-speaker informants, from the ideal to the real, and within the real, from the naive to the linguistically sophisticated, but notes that ‘notwithstanding these fundamental differences, the speaker whom the linguist is concerned about is invariably claimed to be a native speaker’ (Coulmas, 1981: 5). Davies (1991) gives a thorough and thoughtful survey of the whole question 164 Language and Education of the native-speaker in English language teaching and applied linguistics. He quotes Ferguson (1983: vii) who believes ‘the whole mystique of native-speaker and mother tongue should preferably be quietly dropped from the linguist’s set of professional myths about language’. Davies’ own position is rather different,and he argues that the notion of native-speaker is much more than just a professional myth and has substance. On the one hand he accepts that ‘non-native speakers can become native speaker like in the target language in terms of proficiency, communicative competence and linguistic competence’ (Davies, 1991: 165). On the other hand he provides support for the position of Janicki (1985) and Coppieters (1987), with data from a study of his own which suggests ‘a significant difference between native-speakers and non-native-speakers’ (Davies, 1991: 166). There does seem, therefore, to be something special about the native-speaker.
The idea of native-speaker has always been a useful yard-stick in English language teaching. ‘But who are these native-speakers?’, asked Professor Widdowson in his plenary address to the TESOL Convention, and teasingly (given his largely American audience) suggested: ‘One answer might be: the English. And why not? A modest proposal surely. England is where the language originated and this is where the English (for the most part) live’ (Widdowson,1994: 377).Widdowson then went on to reject the idea that native-speakers are exclusively those who speak RP British English, or Standard American English for that matter. Just as there are varieties of English — Canadian and Caribbean, Irish and Indian, New Zealand and Nigerian — so there are varieties of native-speakers of English, a cause which applied linguists like Smith (1981), Strevens (1982) and notably Kachru (1986) have championed for many years. Their central contention is that once English is accepted as a global language which does not belong to any particular country, the concept of native-speaker has to become much broader.
Varieties and standard EnglishThe acceptance of the idea of several legitimate varieties of English, however, leads to a problem. Are any or all of these varieties to be considered ‘standard
English’? What is standard English? Quirk (1985) would argue for British English,
spoken with an RP (Received Pronunciation)/BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
accent, a position gently probed by some (Crystal, 1985) and vigorously
rejected by others (Tripathi, 1992). However, the debate is not entirely one-sided,
with Christophersen (1987) defending British RP/BBC English, and Sinclair
supporting British English as at least ‘a coherent, universally acceptable type of
English which could be used throughout the world’ (Sinclair, 1988: 6).
This notion of international intelligibility is important in any discussion of
native-speakers, varieties and standard English. If a national variety of English
is unintelligible outside of that country, it is of limited value. But if a national
variety is intelligible internationally, there is no reason not to accept it as a
standard variety of international English. And people who speak it as a first
language can perhaps legitimately be called ‘native-speakers of English’. The distinction between native-speakers and non native-speakers, then, has
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 165 undoubtedly become more blurred. Indeed, in a talk celebrating the Silver Jubilee of IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language), John Swales (1993: 284) went so far as to say: ‘we have to concede that it no longer makes any sense to differentiate between the native speaker and the non-native speaker’.
What constitutes a native-speaker?It has increasingly become accepted that factors other than place of birth and
first language enter into what constitutes a native-speaker. Clearly mother tongue is important: ‘No language is like the native language that one learned at one’s mother’s knee’, says Bloomfield (1927/1970: 150) and ‘No language completely replaces the mother tongue’ says Halliday (1978: 199). But neither Bloomfield nor Halliday would say that this is the whole story.To help us define what we mean by native-speakers, let us take three cases.For the first, let us take a girl, born in Poland, who learns Polish as her first language. At the age of four she emigrates to America to live with cousins who speak only English. The child grows up in this American family, goes to a purely English-speaking school and has no dealings with any Polish speakers. By the age of fifteen, is this child a ‘native-speaker of Polish’? Surely not, since by this stage she knows no Polish at all for practical purposes. Is she a ‘native-speaker of English’? Surely, yes, since whatever deficiency she had in English because of her slow start, very quickly disappeared as she grew up and mixed with her English-speaking peers. So the first language criterion is not sufficient in defining a native-speaker.
Let us consider a second case: someone who learns English as first language in America and develops full native-speaker proficiency in it. At the age of fifteen,
let us say, he goes to China and spends fifty years there, practically never using
English, gradually forgetting the language. At the age of sixty five, is this person
a native-speaker of English? If asked this question, he might say (in Chinese? halting English?) something like: ‘Well, it was my first native language, and I spoke it till I was fifteen. But I use Chinese all the time now and have forgotten most of my English’. This would hardly be an acceptable description of a native-speaker.
For our third case, let us take a real example, that of Professor Christophersen,
mentioned earlier as a supporter of the RP/BBC position on standard English.
He was born and received his education up to University level in Denmark. For graduate studies he went to Cambridge, England. He then worked for a time at
the BBC, and has since taught English in Universities around the world, in Africa
and the Middle East, as well as in Britain and America. He was the first Professor
of English at University College, Ibadan, Nigeria, and later became an Emeritus
Professor at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Would he be considered
a ‘native-speaker of English’? Professor Christophersen himself might well say No, on the grounds that his mother tongue and the language he used for the early part of his life was Danish. On the other hand, the dominant language of use for
much of his adult life has been English and his proficiency in English, both spoken and written, is superior to most native-speakers. Is it not arguable that these two
latter criteria make him a native-speaker? 166 Language and Education
‘Native-speakerness’, then, has something to do with the language you first
learn; something to do with how much you use the language; and something to do with your level of proficiency in the language. Tay (1982: 67) includes these three elements in the definition of a native speaker: ‘one who learns English in
childhood and continues to use it as his dominant language and has reached a
certain level of fluency’. Rampton (1990), in analysing what constitutes a native-speaker, suggests that the term should be dropped and suggests instead the terms ‘language expertise’ and ‘language loyalty’. When considering the communicative aspects of language, Rampton prefers to call accomplished users of a language ‘expert’ rather than ‘native’ speakers. His term ‘language loyalty’ covers two aspects, inheritance and affiliation. He questions the assumption that inheriting a language, by birth or by inclusion into a social group, automatically gives a privileged level of proficiency in all domains of the language. Rampton believes his terms ‘tell us to
inspect each native speaker’s credentials closely, and they insist that we do not assume that nationality and ethnicity are the same as language ability and language allegiance’ (Rampton, 1990: 100).
Despite the different terminology, Tay’s and Rampton’s analyses agree on the
importance of: 1) inheritance/birth or at least an early start; and 2) a certain level of expertise, proficiency, fluency. Tay’s third element, continual use as dominant language, is less clearly included in Rampton’s analysis, while Rampton gives
more emphasis to another aspect which he variously describes as loyalty,
allegiance, affiliation — terms surrounding the notion of attitude, of how a person
feels about the language.
Allied to Rampton’s idea of affiliation is another important element which
Davies (1991) would wish to include, namely self-confidence in the language,
which displays itself in a certain comfortable identification with other native
speakers. As he points out: ‘A Singaporean, a Nigerian, or an Indian might see
him/herself as a native speaker of English but feel a lack of confidence in his/her
native-speakerness’ (Davies, 1991: 7).
Combining the ideas of Tay, Rampton and Davies, therefore, we can select five
elements which seem to be essential to being a native-speaker:
(1) inheritance/birth/early start;
(2) expertise/proficiency/fluency;
(3) continual use as dominant language;
(4) loyalty/allegiance/affiliation;
(5) confidence/comfortable identification.
It must be realised, of course, that the five criteria given above are merely
guidelines and that each of them is relative. There are degrees within each
category. How early must the early start be? What level of proficiency? How
continual must be the use and how dominant the language? How strong the
allegiance? What degree of confidence? Many cases could easily be imagined where it would be difficult to say on which side of the line the person fell. However, the guidelines do at least make it easier for us to say who are not native-speakers, even if we are still not sure in some cases who are native-speakers.
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 167 Native-speaker and non-native speaker teachers of English Having considered changing ideas on who should be called native-speakers and on what constitutes a native-speaker, let us turn now to the question of the relative merits of native-speaker and non-native-speaker teachers of English. In terms of English language ability, the advantages of being a native-speaker as an English language teacher correlate with the five criteria listed above.
(1) English learned from birth or very early on is fixed for life and tends only to
fade if neglected over many years.
(2) The intricacies of the grammar of the language are learned instinctively and can be employed with speed and certainty. Given a reasonably stimulating language environment, the level of proficiency, including vocabulary and idiom, can be expected to be very high.
(3) Native-speakers of English tend to mix with other native-speakers and
therefore continue to use English as their dominant language, even in situations when another language is the dominant language of the broader speech community.
(4) Apart from unusual circumstances, there is a strong sense of attachment to
the mother tongue.
(5) Given normal educational opportunity and psychological balance, there is
a high degree of confidence in ability to use the language, though this will
vary from person to person.
For the non-native-speaker teacher of English there would be corresponding
disadvantages in terms of English language ability in relation to the five criteria.
(1) A language learned later in life can be easily forgotten, unless it is constantly
practised.
(2) English has a difficult grammar, a huge vocabulary and a wealth of
idiomatic usage, creating an enormous, ongoing challenge for the non native-speaker.
(3) It is difficult to keep English as the dominant language of use for someone
who lives in a speech community where the dominant language is not English, and especially so when the dominant language is in fact that person’s own native-language.
(4) It is difficult, especially in situations where English dominates in terms of
power, for the non-native-speaker to feel a sense of loyalty to the language and the culture it brings with it.
(5) It is difficult for the non-native-speaker to feel confident in his or her English language ability and identify comfortably with native-speakers, particularly
when the native-speakers are constantly critical of the standard of English
in the country.
The question of confidence is particularly critical since lack of confidence can
affects a teacher’s effectiveness radically. Many excellent non-native-speaker
English teachers feel a lack of confidence when compared with native-speakers on the grounds of peculiarities of accent, intricacies of grammar, or knowledge of vocabulary. But such diffidence is often misplaced. The native-speaker with a strong Cockney, Glasgow, Australian, or Deep-South American accent can pose 168 Language and Education more problems as a teacher of English than many a Singaporean, Nigerian, Indian or Hong Kong Chinese teacher. In grammar, the native-speaker may
know what is correct, but may be unable to explain the grammatical rules. In vocabulary, some non-native-speakers may be far superior to some nativespeakers
in the vocabulary of specialist registers, for example, Computer English or the English of Accounting. This is not to deny, of course, that in general the native-speaker is at a distinct advantage over the non-nativespeaker in terms of language ability.
However, apart from the advantages or disadvantages in terms of English language ability which are inherent in being a native-speaker or non-nativespeaker,
there are other factors to be considered when comparing native and non-native-speaker teachers of English. Linguistic and cultural affinity with the students often favour the non-native-speaker. Unlike many native-speakers of English, the non native-speaker teacher is often bi-lingual or multilingual. If local, s/he probably knows the students’ native language and culture, and can more easily appreciate their problems of language transfer and cultural alienation. With this linguistic and cultural advantage, s/he may be able to get closer to the students than the expatriate native-speaker teacher, though this is not always the case. Above all, the non-native-speaker teacher of English has the advantage of appreciating more clearly the students’ problems in learning English, since s/he has been through the same difficulties.
Another two important factors to be considered in the discussion are professional training and pedagogical ability. The non-native-speaker, trained in ESL/EFL (English as Second Language/English as Foreign Language) and a good pedagogue, is very probably a better teacher of English than a nativespeaker who is alternatively trained and a poor pedagogue. On the other hand, a native-speaker teacher who is alternatively trained but is a good pedagogue, may well be able to compensate for the lack of ESL/EFL training by nativespeaker language ability and may in fact be a better teacher than a non-native-speaker who is trained in ESL/EFL but is a poor pedagogue. Given equal training, pedagogical ability will sway the balance, and given equal pedagogical ability (though this is very hard to measure) specialist training should sway the balance.
As always, in complex issues where several different and interconnected
variables are involved, whose relative weights are hard to judge, it is difficult to
go beyond broad generalisations. Suffice it to say that there are some excellent
and some very poor native-speaker teachers of English and equally there are
some excellent and some very poor non-native-speaker teachers of English. It is
impossible to say simply that one is better than the other.
Nevertheless, it has to be said that at the end of the day there is a still a natural
tendency among lay people (i.e. non-experts in language and linguistic matters) and among people like Heads of Language Schools, for example, to prefer native-speaker teachers. This is especially true for higher-level learning of the language, and applies not only to English language learning, but to the learning of other foreign languages.
But as English becomes more global, and as more people in different parts of
the world are accepted as native-speakers, attitudes, as we have seen, are
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 169 changing. In an interview quoted in Phillipson (1992: 193–4) Peter Strevens, one of the great figures in English language teaching, with wide international experience, says: ‘At the outset it was the native-speaker who was taken for granted as the automatic best teacher, and all other teachers looked up to the native-speaker. Now that’s no longer the case’.
Hong Kong and the teaching of English
In Hong Kong, what Strevens says is largely correct. The native-speaker presence in English language teaching used to be much stronger than it now is, and native speakers in the past were indeed assumed to be better teachers than local Chinese teachers of English. But this is no longer true.
Most Chinese teachers of English in Hong Kong would never consider themselves as native-speakers. Judged on the five criteria given above, they would be classed as non-native-speaker on all counts.
(1) Their early learning of English consists of classes in a kindergarten school,
with perhaps a little support at home from a Philippine maid. Otherwise the vast majority of Hong Kong children learn only Cantonese for the first years of their lives.
(2) The proficiency level of most English teachers in Hong Kong schools is poor:
many of them were trained to teach subjects other than English.
(3) Most of them practically never use English outside the classroom and even in the English class many of them use Cantonese a great deal of the time.
(4) Most of them do not like teaching English and feel no sense of loyalty or allegiance to the English language.
(5) Not surprisingly, their confidence in their English is weak and many of them
feel a sense of inferiority when faced with native-speakers.
Hong Kong of course has a colonial past. Phillipson (1992) argues that one aspect of linguistic imperialism is a sense of inferiority in many non-nativespeaker teachers of English when they compare themselves with native-speaker teachers. Phillipson’s thesis is that the English language has been deliberately used as a tool in the cultural domination by the First World (Centre) countries of the developing countries (Periphery), and that the Centre has made huge profits through the multi-million dollar business of English language teaching.
Phillipson devotes several pages to attacking the notion that the ideal teacher
of English is a native-speaker: ‘It is highly likely that the native-speaker fallacy
has served the interests of the Centre’ and ‘has diverted attention away from the
solution of urgent pedagogical questions, and prevented the flourishing of local
pedagogical initiative which could build on local strengths and linguistic
realities’ (Phillipson, 1992: 199). He argues the case for non-native-speaker
teachers, saying that in many instances they are far better teachers than native-speakers.
Pennycook (1994), writing in the South East Asian context, also describes the
part played by native-speaker teachers of English in the cultural domination of
other countries and in the consolidation of the enormously profitable textbook
market. Along with the apparently innocuous teaching of the English language
170 Language and Education goes ‘a constant advocacy for a particular way of life, a particular understanding of the world’ (Pennycook, 1994: 178).
To what extent the linguistic imperialism and cultural domination that
Phillipson and Pennycook describe is true of Hong Kong in general and of local
non-native-speaker English language teachers in particular is hard to say. Hong
Kong people are very pragmatic. They have used to their advantage British rule,
law and order, and have made Hong Kong a flourishing business and financial
centre. They are very practical about the learning of English. If it is necessary for
their prosperity, they will get on with it to the best of their ability.
As for local teachers of English, it may be that they have been subjected to a
subtle colonialism, both linguistic and cultural, of which they are unaware. But
while they accept their deficiencies and admit to a certain sense of inferiority
when compared to native-speakers, purely in terms of language ability, local
teachers would not agree that they are victims of linguistic and cultural
domination because of this. They are also aware of their strengths as teachers.
They know their pupils’ difficulties, their language and culture, and are often
close to them on a personal level. They are particularly strong on English
grammar, since in their own learning of English this was emphasised. They know their accent is internationally quite intelligible: Cantonese is a phonetically rich language containing almost the full repertoire of the sounds of the English language. While they agree that the standard of English in schools is falling, they
are no longer willing solely to take the blame for this, nor to support as a solution
the importation of large numbers of expatriate native-speaker teachers of English.
It is in this context that we must now turn to the second part of the paper and
review the role that native-speakers have played in English language teaching in
the final few years of Britain’s last colony, considering in some detail the EETS.
Part 2: Native-Speakers and English Language Teaching in Hong KongRecent historyIn 1982 a group of international educational experts visited Hong Kong at the
invitation of the Government to review Hong Kong’s educational system. Their
Report was informed, perceptive, hard-hitting and explicit.
While it rightly concentrated on the much bigger question of the medium of
instruction in schools, the Report did have something to say on the use of
native-speakers of English in the educational system. Pointing out the low
standard of English among many of the local Chinese teachers of English, the
Report suggested that the policy of localisation of staff was partly to blame: ‘the
effects of the policy on localisation of teaching staff have begun to be visible and
the “localisation of staffing” policy ought to be amended’ (Llewellyn, 1982: 3,1,9).
The Llewellyn committee recommended that Chinese pupils in their early
years of learning English should be exposed to native-speakers of English. These
need not necessarily be high-powered professionals: in fact, in order to keep costs
at a reasonable level, Llewellyn gave explicit examples of the kind of person who
might be used — the non-working spouses of British expatriates or other suitable
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 171 English speakers, engaged as ancillary staff on a contract basis or simply as part-time helpers. These should be given a short form of training before beginning in the schools. Their role would be as assistants to the regular teachers and as models of native-speaker English for the pupils. All of these recommendations of the Llewellyn Commission were eminently sensible and workable.
First Education Commission Report (ECR1)Unfortunately, instead of beginning immediately, and modestly, along the
lines recommended by Llewellyn, a Government-appointed body, the Education
Commission, in its first Report (ECR1, 1984) launched into grander things: ‘We
further recommend that the standard of English teachers and the quality of
English teaching in schools should be improved by the recruitment of expatriate
lecturers of English for the Colleges of Education and the Institute of Language
in Education’ (ECR1, 1984: 3, 13). The Institute of Language in Education, a
Government-funded institution, headed by an expatriate, had been established
to upgrade the language standards of local teachers.
Under the existing regulations, secondary schools in Hong Kong could hire
up to three qualified expatriate language teachers. ECR1 noted that most schools
were not doing this, the reason being that schools were reluctant to get involved
in finding housing for the expatriates. However, ECR1 called this problem ‘not
insuperable’ and ‘well worth overcoming’ given the benefits to be gained from
having native-speaker English teachers in schools. Accordingly, the Report
strongly recommended that more encouragement should be given to schools to
employ locally available native English speakers.
All this sounded very encouraging and much more substantial than the
modest proposals of the Llewellyn Report.
Second Education Commission Report (ECR2)However, between ECR1 in 1984 and the second Education Commission Report
(ECR2) in 1986, not much was actually achieved. Commenting on progress in the
hiring of expatriate lecturers for the Colleges of Education, ECR2 said simply: ‘We
note that a phased recruitment exercise is in progress and a number of new recruits
are expected to be in post by September 1986’ (ECR2, 1986: 3, 3, 2). On the subject of
native-speakers for schools, the Report was even more cryptic: ‘We understand that
the Government is developing proposals to recruit qualified English teachers whose
mother tongue is English’ (ECR2, 1986: 3, 3, 3).
This slowness in implementing the recommendations of ECR1 was surprising,
especially since the Government had hinted at giving help to schools with the
housing problem. The truth was, however, that as well as bringing native-speaker
expertise, expatriate teachers brought problems to schools. Headmasters were
wary of recruiting expatriates, because they foresaw practical difficulties in the
classroom and staffroom.
The Expatriates English Teaching Scheme (EETS)These problems emerged more clearly when the Government embarked upon
a new initiative aimed at a more extensive use of native-speakers in English
language teaching. This was known as the EETS.
172 Language and Education
The plan was to provide each Government and aided secondary school with
two or three expatriate teachers of English. Part of the idea of the scheme was to
encourage schools to switch from English-medium of instruction to Chinese-medium
of instruction. Schools which made this switch would get two extra
expatriate teachers of English. The British Council was asked to recruit for the
EETS and give pre-service training and in-service back-up to these teachers. They
were hired on a two-year contract, with air fare and housing allowance included.
Problems with the EETS
The first problem with the scheme was its cost. It was estimated that an average
expatriate teacher‘s salary would be about HK$123,000 annually, not including
housing benefits (another $4,000 per month), nor medical benefits, nor return air
fare. As there were over 300 Government and aided secondary schools, the
scheme could, if a sizeable number of schools responded positively, cost in the
region of HK$50 million or more.
From the expatriate teachers’ point of view, there were certain financial aspects
of the scheme which were unsatisfactory. The housing allowance of $4,000 per
month, though adequate for a single person, was not nearly enough for a married
person with children. Also, the exchange rate between the pound and the Hong
Kong dollar was very favourable when the teachers were recruited. The exchange
rate changed substantially, however, against the pound, during the period of the
pilot scheme, thus eroding the salaries of the Hong Kong expatriate teachers. No
exchange rate clause had been built in to the contract.
Another practical problem was that schools were not required to give their
decision on switching to Chinese-medium till the end of October. This meant it
was impossible to know how many expatriates had to be hired for the start of the
school year in September. In the event, some schools filled in with temporary
teachers, till the expatriates teachers arrived later. Naturally, this did not help the teachers or students, nor allow the expatriate scheme to get off to a good start.
Several of the other problems encountered by the EETS are summarised in
Johnson & Tang (1993): the powerlessness of the expatriate teachers, as ordinary
teachers, to effect change in the schools, in contrast to the role they had expected
as innovators and leaders; the problem of language at staff meetings, with the
Chinese teachers, naturally enough, reluctant to change from Cantonese to
English for the sake of one or two expatriates who could not speak Cantonese;
the fact that the expatriate teachers were given mainly oral English classes and
therefore had less marking to do; their lack of involvement in extra-curricular
activities, again on language or cultural grounds. The list could be lengthened.
The reaction of local English teachersEven before the scheme started, the local Chinese teachers of English objected
to it. Experienced local teachers saw the scheme as a slur on themselves, as if the
expatriates were being brought in to show them how to teach English. ‘The
recruitment of expat teachers should not be embarked on lightly, because I
believe that is not the answer’, said a secondary school teacher, K.Y. Lee (1986),
adding that if the expatriate teachers were given extra fringe benefits, then ‘with
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 173 teachers doing the same job but enjoying different remuneration, problems are
bound to arise’.
Another problem for the local teachers was the sheer difference of approach
of expatriate and local teachers, both in the staffroom and in the classroom. The
expatriates were considered to be too outspoken and critical of school regulations
and traditional ways of doing things. In the classroom their more communicative
approach to teaching was considered by the Chinese students as mere noisy fun
and games, and unhelpful for the serious business of passing the public exams.
The cost of the scheme was also felt to be disproportionate by local teachers,
many of whom could not get funds for simple classroom teaching aids. Instead
of spending such huge amounts of money on the EETS, Law (1987) suggested
several less costly, and more urgent things: improve school libraries with graded
materials for extensive reading; provide more audiovisual materials; provide
schools with more tape and video recorders; improve the facilities of the English
teachers centre; provide in-service courses for local teachers.
It was not only local Chinese who foresaw difficulties in the scheme. Expatriate
teachers too, who had worked in Hong Kong for some years, queried whether
the scheme would make any significant impression on the standard of English
in local schools. They also warned about possible conflict with local teachers: ‘The
only evident impact that may occur is if the UK-recruited teachers were to be
employed in a supervisory role. However, this action could well present
problems within the established hierarchy in schools and usurp the role of senior
and experienced local teachers’ (Parsonage, 1987).
No-one was averse to using native-speakers in principle. In a study by Law
(1990) 120 local school teachers were surveyed on their attitude to having
expatriate teachers in their schools. In general, the responses were very positive,
with 76% strongly agreeing or agreeing with the statement: ‘I think it is good to
have expat teachers in senior forms’.
However, everyone with real classroom experience in Hong Kong advised that
expatriates could best be used in modest programmes, which were clearly
supplementary to the existent school programmes: ‘The Government can employ
native speakers’, suggested Law (1987), ‘to talk with local teachers and make
provision to allow teachers one afternoon/morning off each week for one year
to join immersion programmes for active involvement and for exposure to
natural use of the language’. Like the proposals of the Llewellyn Report, these
suggestions from local teachers were sensible and cost-effective.
The native-speaker mythThe root of the problem was that the Education Department had not really
tuned in to the local teachers’ resentment at the implication of the EETS that an
expatriate native-speaker teacher of English was better than a local teacher. At
this stage, in other parts of the world, as we have seen in the first part of this
article, the notion of native-speaker was being re-examined and the automatic
superiority of native-speaker teachers of English was being rejected. The balance
was in fact being righted and was tending more towards local teachers, who knew
the language and culture of the pupils, and who had also a good standard of
174 Language and Education English. By contrast, many of the expatriates in the Hong Kong scheme knew little or nothing of the language or culture of their pupils.
Cheng (1988), an ex-headmaster and a faculty member of the School of
Education in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, spoke out in support of the
local teachers: ‘I believe that a properly trained Chinese teacher with a good
command of English can teach the subject just as competently as a nativespeaker’.
He went on to acknowledge, however, that Hong Kong did not have
enough qualified teachers of English with a good command of the language.
English language teaching in Hong Kong schools is not a popular option:
classes are large; the workload is heavy; there are few promoted posts. If the EETS
had been presented in a more modest light and the native-speakers had been
introduced as helpers, working alongside locals, learning from their experience
and from their knowledge of the culture and language of the Chinese students,
the scheme would have been more successful. Instead, they were brought in as
native-speaker specialists, expecting special treatment and special status.
Evaluation of the pilot EETS
For the above reasons the pilot EETS was not a great success. In the first place,
there was a poor response from schools, with only 41 schools signing on to
participate in the scheme when it started in September 1987. Moreover, by
January 1989, 22 of the 75 teachers recruited had quit the scheme. Less than half
of the schools at this point said they wished to continue with the EETS when it
ended its pilot run.
The finger of blame was pointed at the British Council, but this was not entirely
fair. Though no doubt some of the problems might have been more clearly
foreseen, the preparation and back-up given to teachers in the pilot scheme was
good.
An interim report was commissioned after one year, with an external
consultant from the University of Edinburgh. This report pointed out the basic
flaw, that many of the expatriate teachers had been given the wrong idea of their
role and had seen themselves as the spearhead of curriculum change. As the
report observed, there was a ‘certain arrogance about this view’. In general, the
interim report was fair and, while noting some mistakes, was by no means totally
condemnatory of the scheme.
The Government unwisely chose to keep this interim report under tight wraps,
thus arousing the suspicion of the PTU (Professional Teachers Union), who
demanded to have it released. This was a reasonable request, since the EETS
affected local teachers’ working conditions. In addition, the Professional Teachers
Union had detailed their misgivings about the scheme at its planning stage.
Nevertheless, the Education Department refused to release the Report.
A copy, however, reached the press and inevitably the more critical parts were
highlighted. In general, the EETS received very bad press coverage. For this, the
Education Department only had itself to blame, since it was so reluctant to give
out information. At the end of the pilot scheme, a second report was commissioned,
but again not released. This was even more extraordinary, since whereas
the first, interim report had been, in the words of one British Council officer,
‘neutral to slightly positive’, this second report was ‘very clearly positive’.
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 175In some schools the expatriates did excellent work and were much appreciated,
especially where they team-taught with local teachers. A local educational
commentator wrote of the ‘stimulating effect of the expatriates’ presence and
their more relaxed teaching methods. Students seemed to like the system of
dialogues and role-plays used by the Westerners to provoke a more active use of
English’ (Mellish, 1989). Another classroom observer of the scheme said he
witnessed ‘some superb teachers’.
Those who had previous experience of working abroad, especially in Asia,
were the most successful. When their contract in the pilot scheme was completed,
some of these stayed on in Hong Kong, in secondary schools, in Colleges of Education, and in University positions.
The modified schemeShould the scheme be continued or not? This was the question faced by the
Education Department. The standard of English in Hong Kong was not
improving and influential voices were being raised in the business and academic
communities to do something about it. The new Professor of English in the
University of Hong Kong entitled his inaugural lecture on the subject of English
in Hong Kong, ‘The Worst English in the World?’ (Harris, 1989).
Accordingly, the Hong Kong Government decided that the EETS should
continue for two years, but with certain modifications. Instead of recruitment
being done centrally by the British Council, this would be done by the schools
themselves in the case of aided schools, and by the Education Department in the
case of Government schools. This was an important change since it made the
teachers immediately answerable to the Headmaster and to the Hong Kong
Education Department, instead of to the British Council, as in the pilot scheme.
In addition, the in-service support given to the expatriate teachers, was taken
over by the Government’s Institute of Language in Education.
The modified scheme was an improvement on the original scheme in many ways. Most importantly, the teachers were given a more realistic idea of their role, no longer as ‘agents of change’, but as native-speaker helpers in a complex,
difficult sociolinguistic situation.
There was also less press coverage of the scheme and the teachers were
allowed to get on with the job. ‘The pressure on expatriate teachers exerted by
frequent and ill-researched press reports about the difficulties they faced and the
presumed failure of the scheme, and by their knowledge that the scheme was
being closely monitored and evaluated, was often extremely uncomfortable for
them’ (Report of Working Group, 1989: 52).
Fourth Education Commission Report (ECR4)With things going better for the EETS, by the time the Education Commission
brought out its Fourth Report in 1990 it had been decided that a permanent
scheme should be set up in September 1991. When the time came for schools to
decide whether to join this permanent scheme, there was a reasonably favourable
response, with almost 100 government and aided schools (about a third of the
total) opting to have expatriate teachers.
The question of expatriate teachers, however, occupied only a small part of
176 Language and Education ECR4 which dealt at length and in detail with the much larger question of the medium of instruction in schools. This had been a long-standing and vexed question in Hong Kong’s educational history (Boyle, 1995). Educationalists had for years been advocating that there should be more Chinese-medium schools, on the grounds that many Hong Kong pupils did not have a sufficient level of English to benefit from English-medium schools. Business leaders on the other hand were fearful that a large swing to Chinese-medium education would
produce graduates whose standard of English was too poor to conduct
international business effectively. This was a serious question, with competition
from places like Singapore, with its excellent standard of English.
The policy on medium of instruction in schools advocated by ECR4 was to
concentrate on a top 30% who could study in the medium of English, and to
encourage the other 70% to study in the medium of Chinese. However, whatever
the Education Department might say about the value of Chinese-medium of
instruction, Hong Kong parents still wanted English-medium schools for their
children.
Changes in the 1990sIn the early 1990s this larger problem of the medium of instruction diverted
attention from the question of expatriate English teachers. However, the new
EETS, after its initial fairly positive start, began to look more doubtful, as the old problems re-emerged. There were also some changes in Hong Kong which did
not help the scheme.
A new nationalism was arising, as the takeover of Hong Kong by China in
1997 neared, and the privileged position of expatriates on overseas terms became
less acceptable. The situation of local English language teachers in schools was
getting worse, not better. More young children from Mainland China were
entering Hong Kong and putting pressure on the school system. Also, the new
emphasis in schools on the learning of Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese), in
preparation for the takeover, did not help English language learning.
Hence it was not surprising that in 1995, out of 360 eligible government and
aided schools, only 33 signed on to have expatriate teachers. The reasons were
familiar: on the Head’s side, administrative problems with having expatriates on
the staff; and on the local teachers’ side, resentment at the implied belief in the
superiority of native-speaker teachers: ‘Are the schools saying local teachers are
not good enough, so they need to recruit a native-speaker?’ (Lee, 1995).
Sixth Education Commission Report (ECR6)
With a history of such limited success for the EETS, it came therefore as a
surprise when in late 1995 the Education Commission issued a Draft Report
(ECR6 Draft, 1995) which blandly stated: ‘The Commission notes that the
Expatriate English Language Teachers Scheme (the Scheme) has been useful in
improving the learning of English in secondary schools’ (ECR6 Draft, 1995: ix).
The Draft Report then recommended that within four years all secondary schools
(now about 400 of them) should have two or more native-speaker English language teachers, who would be hired on local, not overseas terms. If there were an overwhelming demand from schools for expatriate teachers, said the Report,
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 177 then priority would be given to schools which had opted for Chinese medium, or which had previously participated in the EETS.
All this was quite unrealistic. First, it would entail the recruitment of about
200 native-speaker teachers a year, and on much less favourable terms than
before. Also, to envisage an overwhelming demand from schools for expatriate
teachers was flying in the face of past experience: there never had been an
overwhelming demand for expatriate teachers.
Comments were invited on this Draft Report from educators and the general
public. In early 1996 an Education Report (ECR6) was published, incorporating
a summary of responses to the Draft Report. On the subject of hiring expatriates,
a note of realism was sounded: ‘While some educators recognised the merits of
the recommendation, many local teachers and school heads had reservations
about the cost-effectiveness of expatriate teachers’ (ECR6, 1996: 5). A more
explicit dose of realism was soon to follow with the first local Chinese Financial
Secretary’s budget in March 1996 which cut by half the Education Commission’s
proposed funding for native-speakers. It appeared the financial writing was on
the wall, and probably wisely, for the renewed and expanded EETS.
ConclusionThis article in its first part examined the concept of native-speaker, noting the
central position of the native-speaker in linguistic studies and in language
teaching theory and practice. It was seen how the spread of the English language
around the world and the acceptance of legitimate varieties of English have
occasioned a broader interpretation of the notion of native-speaker. The article
attempted to define criteria by which a native-speaker could be judged as such,
and with these criteria in mind, the relative merits of native-speaker and
non-native-speaker teachers of English were discussed.
Within this context, the situation of local teachers of English in Hong Kong
schools was next considered. Most have a relatively low level of proficiency, little
occasion to use English, little affinity with the language, and a sense of diffidence
in their ability as English teachers. They readily acknowledge the superiority of
native-speaker teachers of English, purely in terms of language ability, but when
other factors are taken into consideration, local teachers would not accept the
automatic superiority of native-speaker teachers of English. They also objected
from the start to the idea of a large-scale importation of native-speaker teachers
into Hong Kong schools.
Part 2 of the article reviewed the recent history of native-speaker teachers of
English in Hong Kong, with special reference to the EETS, a scheme designed to
help solve Hong Kong’s problem of declining standards of English. The scheme
was by and large a failure and the recent suggestion from Hong Kong’s Education
Department to implement another similar scheme seems also to have little hope of success.
Too much blame, however, must not be put on the Hong Kong Education
Department which is caught in a difficult position. The business community
claims the standard of English is declining and that something must be done
about it, if Hong Kong is to maintain its place as an international business centre.
The attempt to improve English standards through the school system has not
178 Language and Education been successful in recent years, especially because of problems with recruiting good local teachers of English.
Considerable effort and money have been expended, through the establishment
of the Institute of Language in Education and in other ways, to improve
the quality of local non-native-speaker teachers of English. But the new
communicative syllabus in English has proved difficult for local teachers to cope
with and many feel inadequate in their jobs. Teaching the English classes in
schools has become one of the most unpopular options for Hong Kong teachers.
Hong Kong’s thriving economy, with a range of job options for good speakers of
English, also helps to draw the best away from teaching.
In this climate the idea of using expatriate teachers and the introduction of the
EETS might seem at first sight to have been very reasonable. However, in
reviewing the chequered history of the EETS, this article has suggested that one
of the reasons for the relative failure of the scheme was that by the time it came
to be implemented, attitudes worldwide were changing on what constitutes
native-speakers of English and on their role in English language teaching.
Whereas other places were concentrating on level of expertise rather than country
of origin, Hong Kong was following a British-is-Best policy and through the
British Council hiring all the teachers for the EETS from UK. To suggest a sinister
imperialistic interpretation for this is probably unwarranted. It was simply that
the Council’s network made it much easier for them to hire British teachers. This
was also in line with the standard Hong Kong practice of hiring from UK for the
Police Force and even for those sections of the business community which wanted
British accents rather than American or Australian.
It is interesting, however, that in Hong Kong, at the time of the EETS, it was
only in schools that there was this concentration on British recruits. The English
Departments and English Language Centres in the tertiary institutions were
increasingly being staffed internationally, and this tendency has increased. For
example, in the two oldest Universities, the University of Hong Kong and the
Chinese University, the English Language Centre/Unit is headed by an
Australian and an American respectively, and teachers in the Centre and Unit
come from Hong Kong, Mainland China, America, Britain, Canada, India, Sri
Lanka and the Philippines. It can only be hoped that if the new scheme to hire
expatriate teachers for Hong Kong schools goes ahead as planned, the net will be
cast wider than the British Isles.
Even if it is, the prospects for the success of the second round of hiring
expatriate teachers on a large scale (EETS Mark 2) seem slim. The problems which
surrounded the first EETS have if anything grown more acute. With the return
of Hong Kong to China, there is liable to be more resentment of foreign, especially
British dominance in any sphere, including the field of English language
teaching. The problem of discipline in schools is by all accounts increasing.
Expatriates who do not speak the local language are more liable to be given a
difficult time by unruly pupils who will increasingly look on non-local teachers,
especially British ones, as very definitely foreigners.
Another problem with EETS Mark 2 is its proposed scale. A lesson which
should have been learned from the first EETS was the wisdom of beginning small,
as the Llewellyn Report had suggested, and of listening more to the voices of local
Native-speaker Teachers of English in Hong Kong 179 teachers. Instead of doing this, the Education Department went ahead with an over-ambitious scheme which was enormously costly and had little effect on English language standards in Hong Kong. It would have been much better if the large sums of money spent on the EETS had been spent on providing more support and better conditions for Hong Kong’s local teachers of English.
With the experience of the first EETS, and with the ending of colonialism, there
is a growing unwillingness on the part of local teachers to accept the notion that
expatriate native-speaker teachers of English are any better than local teachers.
Native-speakers will increasingly have to prove their worth, and this will
probably mean a greater effort than in the past to appreciate the language and
culture of their pupils. There will probably still be a place for expatriate
native-speaker teachers, but they will have to be good, and conditions will not
be as easy as they were under the colonial regime. With the increase in
opportunities for University education, there will be a larger number of local
Hong Kong teachers, better qualified and more confident. There will also be an
enormous number of good teachers of English from Mainland China eager to
find jobs in Hong Kong.
If Hong Kong is to stay prosperous, it must not lose its English. There is general
agreement among academics and businessmen that the new Chinese government
will be more keen than ever that Hong Kong should have a high standard of
English. If Hong Kong has any future, it is as an entrepôt between China and the
outside world, and for this role good international English is essential. But just
as Hong Kong’s political future depends on its producing high-quality local
administrators, so its linguistic future depends on its producing high-quality
local teachers of English. Experienced and culturally sensitive, expatriate
native-speaker teachers may still have a place in Hong Kong’s educational effort
to improve its English. But their role must be as ancillaries and consultants,
offering expertise in a needed skill, rather than as a special class, insisting on the privileges of their linguistic birthright.
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