AT SCHOOL BROADCASTING CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE HONG KONG EDUCATION SYSTEM.
School broadcasting is a means of bringing to a large number of schools resources which they cannot command individually. It does not increase the number of children under instruction, or reduce the number of teachers, or re- lieve the teachers of any work. It affects not the quantity of education, but the quality. It can bring into classrooms in almost every school expert know- ledge, new ideas and methods, first class performances of drama and music.
Language,
2. For the teaching of the English language, broadcasting can bring to every Vernacular and Anglo-Chinese School good English voices for imitation. Such broadcasts are prepared for specific classes with the vocabulary and speed of delivery carefully controlled. They make use, as a rule, of more than one voice, and also of all manner of games, songs, 'effects', and other radio devices which introduce variety and keep the children alert, always either listening carefully to a voice of good accent and intonation, or imitating it.
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Broadcasts can help similarly in the teaching of Kuo Yu.
They are also a useful aid in introducing new methods of language teaching to schools where methods are stereotyped and out of date.
Hygiene.
5. In the teaching of Hygiene there is a danger that the class will acquire book knowledge which remains only book knowledge. Broadcasts either by the rare person who has a magical 'microphone manner', or by stories or dramatisations, can effectively quicken a real interest in the subject, and develop an attitude which leads to some form of action.
6. They can also present material which is more up to date and suited to local conditions than is contained in school text books, and present it more fully and in more illustrative detail.
Civics.
7. Civics is a subject in which the teacher is not helped very.much by text books. The radio can help him with dramatisations and discussions of incidents and problems in the life of a community, and with imaginary visits to civic institutions. They can be a stimulus and guide in the teaching of a subject which is otherwise apt to be either neglected or tainted with propaganda.
Literature.
8.
In few schools can children hear great literature really well read, or see great plays really well performed, with the result that by the time they leave school they have frequently never developed any feeling for the greatest achievements of the human race in the realm of language. Much of the rest of school education is a means to an end, but in literature (and music) the 'end' itself of education ought to be experienced to some extent before the adolescent is thrown out into the world.
9. School broadcasting can give the opportunity of aesthetic experience by first class renderings of selected plays and poems. At the lower stages of the school, broadcasting can bring stories and plays which exercise the imagina- tion, and are a step towards the literature studied at the end of school life,
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Music.
10.
Broadcasting can help in music much as it 'does in literature, but the gramophone is a more convenient means of providing first class performances of music. The special contributions of broadcasting are rather in the appreciation of music and in the teaching of songs. In Hong Kong, the two music specialists recently appointed to the Education Department can very greatly increase their effectiveness with the help of broadcasting.