I refer to the letter by Alex Tam ('Hollow phrases do not help debate on medium of instruction', March 23). I must thank him for pointing out that my paraphrasing ('Bilingual education is a realistic goal for Hong Kong's schools', March 9) of P.K. Lee's ideas ('Is English necessary to enter professions?', February 24) might have misinterpreted the original intended message with which I said I agreed.
What I actually wanted to say was that the medium of instruction (MOI) policy will continue to be an issue in schools as long as professions in Hong Kong (unlike those on the mainland) need a high level of English proficiency. Ten years on, it appears that not only has the MOI policy proved to be unwelcome but it has also damaged Hong Kong education in one way or another. I am glad the government wants to fine tune this policy. As a science educator, my concerns are on how linguistic resources can be harnessed to engender interest, motivation and understanding of science. I have recently read articles 'mixed-code' teaching in the Hong Kong classroom. Code-mixing of Cantonese and English is very common in everyday conversation in Hong Kong and is the persistent mode of communication in Hong Kong classrooms. The government is strongly against this kind of teaching, saying it can have a negative effect on students' language competence, but as the articles I read pointed out, there is little research evidence to support this argument. Mixed-code teaching can serve some useful communicative purposes in Hong Kong's classrooms.
A science teacher can provide a rich semantic context in Cantonese to embed the key concepts in English so as to enable students to understand the practice of scientific inquiry. In a similar vein, Robin Cheung Man-biu's article ('A flexible approach needed for policy on teaching language', March 8) suggested: 'This [mixed code] long-held enemy of language teaching may be enlisted as an ally.'
Code-mixing may have some pedagogical potential in improving students' understanding of science. The Education Bureau should investigate that possibility, instead of just banning the use of code-mixing.
C.Y. Tsui, Tuen Mun