Moments Of Life

The academic said Cantonese is the language that Hong Kong's primary
and secondary students use most in their daily lives.

 But under the mother-tongue teaching policy, 
 they have not learned good Chinese for proper communications. 
 So they cannot express themselves well. 

 Naturally, they lack fluency in English,too. 

Many people say primary and secondary schools
should use English as the medium of instruction
because universities teach in English.
In response the lecturer pointed out that Japan and South Korea
both use mother-tongue teaching,
but this has not affected their international standing.

This means that Hong Kong schools should teach in Chinese to make sure students
have a good Chinese foundation and not use both languages.
English can be taught as a separate language subject.

 The English standard of university students is actually not that bad 
 - since the University Grants Committee launched its English exit test for 
 graduating students, they have become more proficient. 

 But another senior staff said although students could handle their English exit tests, 
 they performed badly at the workplace. 

 He said an engineering student got high marks, 
 but when he was writing a report or technical document, he had problems. 
 When he tried to write in Chinese, 
 he was not familiar with the terms and writing skills, 
 making his employer think he was incompetent. 

Both lecturers said that there are plans to double the credit requirements on
language-related studies under the new university four-year program.
One of them even said students will be required to study
career - oriented language courses every year.

 All freshmen should work really hard on their language studies 
 to make themselves more competitive in the workplace. 
 Otherwise, they will lag behind others in their language abilities.