XN000022-1995-01-02 — Page 6

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An Education Department spokesman said at the request of a major employers' association, a talk has been arranged at the end of January to introduce the subject and answer queries from members.

The department explained in its correspondence with employers' associations that the Government's policy was to encourage secondary schools to adopt Chinese as the teaching medium; to allow schools to choose an appropriate medium of instruction; and to urge schools to adopt a single teaching medium, either Chinese or English, rather than using a mixed code in teaching.

Opportunity is also given to those students who have the ability to learn through the English medium should they so wish.

Among the material sent to employers' associations, a study of the academic achievements of more than 4,500 Secondary 3 students showed that in the heavily language-loaded subjects of Science, History and Geography, students taught in Chinese performed better than their counterparts taught in a mixed code of Chinese and English.

The mean scores of tests at Secondary 3 level for students taught in Chinese were: Science (40.52); History (24.89); and Geography (49.13). These compare with mean scores of 27.73, 17.03 and 41.87 respectively for students in schools using mixed-code as the medium of instruction.

The study found that in a school language environment that is more Chinese than English, students generally were more academically motivated, and were more likely to commit themselves to learning and to try to understand their school tasks rather than just to meet their teachers' requirements.

Their counterparts in the English medium schools who were not competent in English tended to learn by rote memorising, focusing only on selected details. They were more anxious in their studies.

The results clearly suggested that students of low English competence should not be placed in a language environment that is predominantly English.

Otherwise, they are likely to have poor motivation and to apply superficial learning strategies like rote memorisation to deal with the secondary school curriculum, especially in studying language-loaded subjects.