AFTER the release of this year's Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) results, the Director of Education, Mr Lam Woon-kwong, in response to criticism that the English standard of Hong Kong students was falling, said that there was no indication of such a decline. He is perfectly correct, especially when one looks at the passing percentage of the English Language examination results. The difference in the passing percentage between this and last year's results has no bearing on this issue at all. The mechanism of the grading system among HKCEE subjects has it that the passing percentages of the subjects, and to a similar extent, the percentages of all grades, would be more or less the same as those in the previous year. This is to cater for any fluctuations that might occur in case questions in a particular year turn out to be particularly difficult, or easy. And it is also believed that there would not be any significant different in the abilities or performance among students in any two consecutive years. Students' performance is presumed to be stable. Another feature of the grading system is that a certain grade of a subject does not actually reflect what or how much a student has learned, but only how well he is in comparison to other students in that subject. Mr Lam might not be quite right though, if a closer look is paid to the contents of the examination papers and the ways marks are awarded. It is invariably, almost in all subjects, that questions, which are in parts, only require very short answers. In many cases, a short phrase or even a single word will suffice. How well a student uses the language in presenting an answer is not counted in awarding a mark. And in markers' meetings, it has always been emphasised that mistakes in language, for example, grammar or spelling mistakes, or improper choice of words, should not be penalised for a 'correct answer'. Although four marks are now set aside in most subjects to cater for how well an answer is presented, it usually is counted in only one question or section of the subject papers and amounts to about two per cent of the total mark. It would be naive to think that teachers and students would pay much attention to this two per cent and the backwash effect is obvious, that is, teachers and students only concentrate their efforts in scoring the other 98 per cent of the marks. Indeed, I would be surprised to see any scripts that have been awarded a grade E (that is, a passing grade) and have at least one well-written sentence. It would be ignorant, and arrogant, to maintain that the English standard among students is not falling. The importance of language skills necessary for Form Five students to further their studies or for work has never been put into proper perspective. Having said that, Mr Lam should not be held responsible. On the contrary, his department is introducing the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC) which emphasises, among other things, that students be taught the communicative skills necessary to explain concepts and knowledge that they learn at school. The introduction is limited to Primary One in the coming year and only in the subjects of Chinese, English and mathematics. Many schools are opposed to its introduction and I think they are misled by the 'complexity' of what it appears to be. TOC is what we should be doing if we want our students to have independent minds and have the ability to relate to others what is in their heads. The objection I have to its introduction is that it is not wide enough. Students should not be learning Chinese, English and mathematics in the way which encourages inquiry, problem solving, communication, etc and the rest of the subjects in ways which are very different. What would students think of the mis-match and how teachers of other subjects explain to them why they were teaching the subjects differently (we have to bear in mind that TOC is a better approach)? It is high time that teachers, and I should stress that it is not just language teachers, were more aware of the important role that they could and must play in nurturing students' language competence. Education is team work and the language standard among students cannot be dealt with by language teachers only. ALFRED CHAN Research Fellow Hongkong Bank Language Development Fund
