Early exposure to English is slowing down Hong Kong students, a university professor has charged.
'I believe bilingual teaching is one of the factors hindering students from learning,' Professor Chen Hsuan-chih of the department of psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong said. He made the claim after an eye-tracking device from Canada revealed that university students educated locally read Chinese characters more slowly than their mainland counterparts.
'Hong Kong students spent longer on each character and they had to re-read characters before they could fully understand the text.' While claiming that Hong Kong students read more slowly, Prof Chen conceded that their comprehension was up to scratch.
But according to a visiting British scholar, early exposure to other languages stimulates a child's intellectual development.
'Judging by anecdotal evidence [in Europe], people have benefited from bilingual education, because they are more flexible in terms of grasping concepts,' Henry Pavlovich, director of the London-based Institute of Linguists, said.
'They can conceptualise more difficult subjects at an earlier age,' he explained.