Anyone who is concerned about the 'falling' standard of university students' English should read the book Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity, edited by Kingsley Bolton, to gain a fuller picture of the situation.
Among the works the editor refers to, I find this, written by Robert Lord in 1974, particularly interesting: 'For the majority of students entering the University of Hong Kong, English is not a viable means of communication at all. About a fifth of them cannot make themselves understood in English, and their comprehension of spoken English is poor in the extreme. Few students can write English which is not bizarre.' The editor adds: 'The debate on 'low' or 'falling' standards of English has thus run from at least the mid-1970s to the present'.
When I studied at university some 15 years ago, a teacher once told me that he had also been criticised by his teacher for his 'poor' English standard. He is now a full professor at a government-granted university. University students of the 1970s are now in their 50s. Many have become members of senior management or even bosses of companies, thus allowing them to make scathing remarks about the so-called 'falling' standards of today's university students.
However, after discovering how good the English of the elite of society really is, I have concluded that people in authority have a propensity to disparage people without authority and that people of every generation tend to believe, rightly or wrongly, that those of the next generation are inferior to them.
I urge those in a position to criticise to take note of how they were criticised years ago, for a complaint culture can hardly help others to grow and, also, 'let he who is without blame throw the first stone'.
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED