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Liz Heron

Interpersonal connections in spotlight
The relationships of native-English-speaking teachers to their local  colleagues and managers are to come under the spotlight in a review of the secondary NET scheme.
The Education Bureau has launched an  evaluation of the scheme - now in its 10th year - in a bid to identify innovative ideas and successful practices, and  improve the standard of English teaching.
The survey's findings will be  used to provide training for teachers - and possibly school managers - and improve the bureau's  support to schools in  the scheme.
Bureau chiefs were due to clinch a deal this week with an independent educational research team to conduct the one-year survey  after inviting tenders earlier this term. It is expected to begin early next year.
Project manager Ralph Barnes said: 'One of the areas that the study will focus on is the conditions for successful engagement of the NET within the English panel and the wider school community. We hear about the ones that don't work and usually it's on the interpersonal level.
'But we are looking at the interchange of ideas between the NET and local English teachers to enhance English teaching and learning practices. We are looking at the relationship of secondary NETs to panel chairs and English panel members and  also looking at the impact of the NET on student motivation and at deployment patterns.'
He said the study would look at  attitudes and practices of panel chairs and principals regarding the deployment and duties of NETs  and the impact  these had on the scheme.
Mr Barnes said there had been a tendency among some schools to use the NET only to teach speaking skills or simply as a mainstream English teacher. But  bureau guidelines stressed that NETs should perform a range of roles, including preparing teaching resources, professional development for local teachers and leading enrichment activities, such as speech and drama.
'We may also have other patterns that we don't know about - other ways that the NET is being used and we would like to find out,' Mr Barnes said. 'The schools may have employed another NET using their own resources to have remedial classes or run a speech festival, for example.
'We hope to refine and sharpen our practices for supporting and servicing schools within the secondary NET scheme. And the findings will be directly used to enhance the operation of the NET scheme through some kind of teacher training or development programmes.'
This could involve workshops for teachers within regional clusters of schools, while secondaries with outstanding English panels could become 'beacon schools' that would help  others  to improve their skills.
Dave Stead, chairman of the Native English-speaking Teachers' Association (Nesta), said: 'We welcome the review. Things have improved since 1998 but there is still a long way to go to develop a successful pedagogy for teaching English in a Hong Kong setting.
'Good practice tends to happen in individual schools but not enough is made of it. And some deployment practices are questionable - the bureau issues guidelines but these are not always followed.'
Perry Bayer, a NET at True Light Middle School of Hong Kong, said: 'These are important areas to look at, but it is important to ask the right questions. I have been in the scheme for 10 years and there are ongoing observations from a significant minority of NETs who are stuck in situations that are less than satisfactory.'
Complaints from NETs were 'quite frequently' heard at Nesta meetings and in online forums of 'unilateral decisions' by school managers or of different roles given  when they joined a school to  the ones to which they had agreed.
'They should look at how decisions on the deployment of NETs are made and how much give and take there is between the NET and the panel chair, the principal and other school managers,' he said.
Ruth Lee Shek Yuk-yu, vice-chair of the Hong Kong Association of Heads of Secondary Schools, said: 'We don't have a formal standpoint on the NET scheme but I agree it's about time to do a review.
'I think they should focus on the successful cases and how the relationship between the NET and local teachers has been sustained for so long in some cases.'
The bureau held a conference earlier this month to mark the 10th anniversary of the enhanced secondary NET scheme, at which long-service certificates were awarded to some of the 69 NETs who have worked in Hong Kong since it began.



NETs' relations to local teachers focus of review