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SCMP Reporter

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Now look away and try to spell this word.

No way?

Well, when Mary Poppins - the perfect nanny from Walt Disney's classic 1964 film - taught her two charges this made-up word, she broke it down to small bits and in true musical fashion sang it out: super-cali-fragi-listic-expi-ali-docious.

Say (or sing) it a few times and you'll get it too.

It's quite simple really, as Eleanor Morris would no doubt tell you. The former English teacher - and mother of actress-cum-singer Karen Mok Man-wai - uses a similar method to teach her students how to spell.

Auntie Morris, as she is affectionately known, is currently hosting a new Cable TV programme that promises to make learning English fun and interesting.

Easy English with Auntie Morris - on Cable Television's Children Channel (channel 11) from 5.55pm to 6pm Monday to Friday until September 26 - will teach young viewers basic phonics, simple English idioms and vocabulary.

'Phonics is so important in English. Unfortunately many Hong Kong schools ignore it. I used to learn it at school and I took it for granted that everyone learned it as well. But then I came to realise that many people around me didn't know about it,'

Morris said.

Acknowledging its importance, she then thought of a creative way to teach phonics and named the method 'Chicken Chop'.

It is similar to the way chicken is served in Hong Kong - chopped into pieces and then put back together on a plate.

'Once students know how to chop an English word into different syllables and then put them back together, they don't have to memorise the words the hard way,' she said.

'It's like the word 'umbrella'. If you break it into three syllables - um-bre-lla - all you need to remember is that it has two 'l's. Isn't that much easier?'

Mrs Morris understands that making a task easier is not enough to grab the learner's attention, it has to be interesting too.

So she created 'Greenie BB', a hand puppet that will be her partner on the programme: 'I will be talking to this puppet and trying to make the programme fun.'

Fluent in the language with a pronounced English accent, Morris has never studied abroad. She is a perfect example of how anyone can excel in the language if they put their mind to it.

'The English standard of Hong Kong students is no doubt declining. Mother-tongue education is a total failure. I don't understand what the Hong Kong government is doing,'  Morris laments. A successful mother-of-two, she said parents could help create a nice environment for their children to learn English.

'If one wants to learn better English, there are still many ways of doing so, such as listening to English songs and reading English books of your interest,' she said.

When Morris was a student, she learned English from a radio programme on which the host read Hans Christian Anderson's stories

in English.

'I listened to it and imitated the pronunciation, the intonation and everything. I learned how English was spoken from there,' she recalls.

'It's never too late to learn. If students fear English, they have to find the root of the problem. There is nothing to fear.

'You need to create an environment where you can speak and listen to the language. Once you are willing to speak, you will soon find your confidence.'



Chicken chop English