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Last week, I was invited to a live TV programme to discuss "The deterioration of Hong Kong students' language proficiency". There were two other guests, Professor Shek-Kam Tse from The University of Hong Kong and an undergraduate Year 1 student, Sin-Ting Chan, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "What are the reasons for the lack of language proficiency among students?" "How should we cope with the problem?"... These were some of the critical questions in our discussion.

Of late, utilitarianism and materialism are not merely personal or political orientations. They have become the very nature of our society. Those who really care for our next generation and speak for the rights of teachers can hardly find a platform to voice their opinions. Therefore, I was most grateful to learn that the program director and producer realized the significance of discussing educational issues on TV shows.

"The lack of language proficiency among Hong Kong students" was such an intricate phenomenon to explain in less than an hour of broadcast time. We had an inspiring discussion, however, and we all came to the conclusion that recent secondary school students' writing skills in both Chinese and English have been showing a remarkable deterioration - a fact that worries parents and language teachers.

Chan believes the major cause of the issue to be students' misdirected perceptions toward learning. Students nowadays have gradually become overly focused on exams. Achieving decent results in exams in order to qualify for universities has become their only motivation. Consequently, "learning" to students no longer equates to broadening knowledge, but endless, tedious exam preparation, which has rendered the learning process no longer interesting to students. It affects their learning experience negatively. Language itself can be exquisite, but attached to the stiffness of examinations, it becomes appalling. In recent time, the vast majority of secondary school graduates have chosen not to study "language" or "literature" at university. In their experiences, languages are boring and oppressive.

Experts always claim that when learning a language, the younger, the better. That is why parents nowadays arrange English and Putonghua classes for their kids as soon as they enter kindergartens, or even earlier. Parents believe that language classes will provide a language-rich environment which favors their kids' learning. However, childhood should be fun. Adding academic pressure to little kids at such an early stage of development may create language-resistance among them. Some parents are forcing too much information into their kids' brains, packing their children' schedules with excessive tutorial classes. Children learn because they are somehow forced to, but not learning out of curiosity and interest. Kids are deprived of the intrinsic motivation to acquire languages in this all-work-no-play lifestyle.

During the program, Professor Tse suggested that the importance of promoting good reading habits among primary students is being overlooked in many primary schools. In his view, "Reading the literatures or model essays required in the curriculum is not enough to maintain the students' language proficiency to a high standard," and it is essential to add a book list to the language curriculum. When students have to read all the recommended books on the list, language learning through reading will become more systematic and complete.

I believe Professor Tse's position is justifiable. The terseness of a language is determined by the depth and the quality of reading. When a student could finish reading "Dream of the Red Chamber" or the martial arts novels written by Louis Cha thoroughly, he or she should be able to learn the worldly wisdom, history and philosophy of thinking between the lines. However, in view of the heavy workload place on the teachers and academic pressure faced by students, the kind of "in-depth" reading mentioned by Professor Tse seems to be too time-consuming and cost-ineffective.

There is always a question in my head: Why do most of the senior government officials send their children overseas to study while they are promoting the benefits of the Hong Kong educational system to the public? Does that imply our educational system has problems, or the officials are just not wise enough to make the best choice for their children?

The author is vice-chairman of Education Convergence.

(HK Edition 11/21/2012 page3)