The Hong Kong Education City and Oxford University Press (OUP) this week launched a campaign to help improve spoken English by learning the International Phonetic Alphabetics (IPA) in a new approach tailored for Cantonese speakers.
Until July, the two organisations will offer workshops for students and teachers, territory-wide primary school English speaking competitions, publication of literature and VCD giveaways.
The campaign is based on research of Cantonese phonology by Esther Lai Yuk-wah, the campaign's phonology consultant who has been teaching comparative phonetics at University of Hong Kong for more than 20 years.
According to her studies, more than 40 per cent of the English phonetic sounds are different from the Cantonese ones, and Cantonese speakers are particularly prone to accent-laden spoken English.
'There has been a lack of awareness of the difference between Cantonese and English phonetic systems among both local and native English teachers,' said Dr Lai at the opening of the campaign. 'Hong Kong teachers have been unconscious of their Cantonese accent in spoken English because they lack training in phonetics under the current education system, while NET teachers are not familiar with the Cantonese system enough to pinpoint the obstacles.'
