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SCMP Reporter

Although primary student Luk Wing-tat is at the beginning of his Putonghua studies, he can say zao chen, which means good morning, zai jian, meaning goodbye and Lu Yongda.

  The latter may mean nothing to others, however it is important to Wing-tat - it is his name.

  Learning to speak his name in Putonghua has been one of the nine-year-old's greatest achievements this summer.

  'I didn't know how to pronounce my name in Putonghua until I joined this summer course,' said Wing-tat, who last week finished his 20-hour introductory course sponsored by the Education Department.

  'It is totally different from Cantonese pronunciation. Not one word of my name sounds similar.

  'Isn't it interesting? Now I know if someone is talking about me, even in Putonghua.'   Saying their names in Putonghua is not easy for many Chinese in Hong Kong. Most have never learned the official Chinese language.

 At present only 515 of 800 primary and 214 of 400 secondary schools offer Putonghua as an optional subject.

  A shortage of trained teachers is one of the reasons for the lukewarm response to the subject. About 1,200 primary and 2,000 secondary school teachers are trained to teach Putonghua.

  In a bid to boost Putonghua learning, the Education Department has for the first time this summer allocated schools extra resources to hold introductory courses for students who have not studied the language before.

  Provided with teaching kits and money - $5,400 per class - schools can recruit teachers and arrange classes to teach their students basic Putonghua listening and oral skills.

  A total of 246 classes from 83 primary schools and 157 classes from 47 secondary schools have been subsidised, representing about 20 per cent of the eligible schools in Hong Kong.

  Law Kit-ha, who teaches Wing-tat and about 30 other pupils in Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School in Tsing Yi, recalled how her students did not understand her Putonghua instructions in the first lesson.

  'I tried to do the roll call in class. But the students did not respond,' Ms Law said.

 'At first I thought: 'How come so many students are absent for their first lesson?'   'Then I found out they were all present but that they had failed to understand their names in Putonghua.

  'Later some of them responded, but, wrongly. I called the name of one student, but another answered because he thought I was calling him.

  'They just could not differentiate.'   So the first thing Ms Law taught her students was how to say their names properly.

  With the handover less than a year away, adults also have been flocking to tutorial schools to learn Putonghua to make sure they can at least say their names and basic phrases such as xie xie (thank you) and ni hao ma (how are you) correctly.

  The summer scheme is one of several plans to enable the younger generation to learn the language at an earlier age.

  The Education Commission - an advisory body to the Government - last year recommended that more training in English, Chinese and Putonghua be conducted in schools.

  Governor Chris Patten has set up a language fund to sponsor projects promoting language proficiency.

  The Education Department is also drafting a curriculum on Putonghua and planning to introduce the subject to all schools by 1998.

   It is hoped that the subject will be included in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination in 2000.

  The Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School is one of the beneficiaries of the summer scheme.

  Ms Law, however, said it was difficult to teach students Putonghua in only 20 hours.

  Putonghua is usually taught using the pinyin system. This uses the Roman alphabet to teach pronunciation. But the summer school uses a different approach.

   'First of all the lessons must not be boring. We have to make them different from formal lessons,' Ms Law said.

   'We hope students studying in the summer, after school time, can increase their interest in learning. Secondly, to make sure students study in a less formal way, we do not teach students pinyin - the Chinese phonetic alphabet. We teach them to memorise basic words.'  Thus bo, po, mo, fo, the first sounds taught in Putonghua using pinyin, are not taught in the summer classes.

  Josephine Chan Suet-kiu, a teacher with Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School in Aberdeen, another participating school, said students' interest in learning Putonghua was definitely on the rise.

  'Many of them may have listened to Putonghua pop songs. But this is the first time they learn Putonghua. However many of them, I am afraid, cannot pick up the language.

  'They aim to speak Putonghua but it turns out to be Cantonese - or distorted Cantonese.

  'Some of them still believe Putonghua is similar to Cantonese and manage to speak the former by twisting the latter.'   Both Putonghua and Cantonese share the same Chinese characters, but vary greatly in pronunciation and use of vocabulary.

   Some words require rolling the tongue, which is difficult for Hong Kong people used to speaking Cantonese.

  The Education Department has admitted much more has to be done to boost the language.

  Kwong Sin-mee, the department's senior inspector, said more than $29 million had been earmarked to sponsor similar summer classes over three years.

  She said the 20-hour class covers topics such as daily living, how to talk about colours, time and family members and simple phrases in Putonghua.

  Students in senior classes learn similar topics but are expected to use more difficult vocabulary.

  'The main purpose of this course is to give students a basic idea of Putonghua,' Ms Kwong said.

  'We hope the class will teach students how to pronounce some basic Putonghua words and daily conversation by memorisation. Teaching aids such as cassette tapes with songs and dialogue in Putonghua have been prepared to make the subject more interesting to learn.'   Bilingual Hong Kong students, already under pressure studying Chinese and English, will face a heavier workload. After 1997, they must not be only fluent in Chinese and English, but Putonghua.

  But for primary student Tam Po-yan, picking up the language has a practical purpose.

  'Now I can understand my idols' Putonghua pop songs. I know what Andy Lau Tak-wah and Leon Lai Ming are singing about.

  'In the past I had to follow the characters while listening to their songs otherwise I did not know what they were singing.

  'But now I can follow, and I can sing along with them,' said Po-yan. Besides attending summer courses in Putonghua, children will be able to gain a better understanding of the language next year by watching television.

  Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), recently granted $510,000 from the Government's Language Fund to promote Putonghua, will next year film 13 five-minute episodes about daily life in Putonghua.

  Children aged 12 or below will be the target audience.

  RTHK is also planning on setting up a Putonghua channel early next year to provide educational, entertainment and current affairs programmes.



Paving the way for Putonghua