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Oral English help from native youths
The Deputy Director of Education, Miss Elaine Chung, today (Thursday) said she was impressed by an English programme which employed native youths from the United Kingdom and North America to help local secondary school students improve oral English.
Miss Chung visited the Hong Kong Chinese Women's Club College to see for herself the progress of the Chatteris English Programme which received funding from the Language Fund.
The Chatteris English Programme, which will expand over three years, aims at providing opportunities for secondary school students to learn and speak English outside the classroom by placing native English-speaking youths as English Language Teaching Assistants (ELTAs) in secondary schools.
The programme received $4.95 million from the Language Fund. The amount pays for over 50 per cent of the costs of the programme.
After her visit, Miss Chung said: "The programme is very innovative. It provides students with valuable chances to contact native speakers in small group tuition which is lacking in Hong Kong. Students have lots of fun in learning English because they learn in a relaxed environment.
"It is a pleasurable and effective way of encouraging students to actively take part in achieving higher standards of oral English. It not only complements, but also reinforces the regular school curriculum."
Miss Chung paid tribute to the Chatteris Educational Foundation for taking concrete steps to enhance English proficiency in Hong Kong.
In early 1995, eight ELTAS were employed. It is expected that the number of ELTAS will increase to 32 in September next year so that a minimum of 16 schools with a total of 16.000 students will benefit from the programme.
Five schools took part in the 1994-95 programme,
End/Thursday, June 1, 1995
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