Deskilled, deterred and departing thanks to HK's artless teaching

I read with interest the interview with Professor Cheng Kai-ming in last week's Education Post.

His revelation that students can do well in 'seen' dictations yet fail in 'unseen' dictations is hardly a surprise to any qualified, experienced teacher.

The fact is few students have been taught any 'word attack' skills. They have no knowledge of phonics, syllabification, word families or Latin and Greek roots. They must memorise every letter of every word. Most Native English-speaking Teachers (NETs) worked that out within weeks of coming to Hong Kong four years ago.

Teaching is an art. A post-graduate teaching diploma or degree is not just piece of paper; it is the same as an LLB for a lawyer, enabling the practitioner to transfer knowledge into practice. Not all teachers in Hong Kong have teaching qualifications. So, I question Professor Cheng's assertion that 'teachers in Hong Kong are qualified'. If so, why has benchmarking been introduced?

When he says 'the next real challenge for teachers will be curriculum change', I think he underestimates the size of that challenge and overestimates the progress made in many secondary schools. To my knowledge, the introduction of task-based learning has simply meant that many schools have changed textbooks.

All NETs are fully qualified, many are innovative. But few are used effectively with the 'nomadic' approach of the Hong Kong Government to education. The deployment of the NETs, for instance, is totally in the hands of autocratic principals and English panel chairs.