Examines, through a matched-guise technique, the conflict in attitudes and behavior toward the use of a mixture of Cantonese and English (MIX) among English-Cantonese bilingual students in Hong Kong. Results indicate hostility toward MIX but produce evidence that it is a useful, culturally neutral choice and that it may have covert status in the…

A study examined levels of learning strategy use in 149 Hong Kong university students of English-as-a-Second-Language, and the relationship to language proficiency, using the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). The appropriateness of using SILL and proficiency measure in tandem to establish a clear relationship between strategy use…

Investigates use of a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) dictionary and how well words looked up are remembered. The dictionary information has been incorporated into a CALL program that was comprised of a text, highlighted low-frequency words, and provided access to different lexical information about these words. Subjects were…

A November 1990 recommendation by the Hong Kong government's education department to adopt a language-streaming policy is discussed. The policy would have children tested and assigned to English-medium or Chinese-medium instruction in the sixth year of elementary school. Implications of this development are examined from the point of view of…

A study investigated the nature of college students' English-as-a-second-language self-concept using a hierarchical, multidimensional model of self-concept. Subjects were 306 students in a Hong Kong higher education institution responding to a self-concept questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) replicated previous findings that a global…

A study of reading problems among Hong Kong university students of English as a Second Language has two parts. The first examines a teacher's comparison of a source text with a student's written response. The student subject was a highly-motivated, proficient learner. Discussion of her reading problems focuses on the incidence of misinterpretation…

A study investigated three issues: (1) differences between two types of rhetorical organization of expository text (problem-solution pattern and collection-of-descriptions pattern) in the reading recall of second-language readers; (2) differences between the two types on reading recall of readers at two levels; and (3) relationship between the…

A study investigated the content and predictive validity of Hong Kong's new Use of English Examination (UEE), introduced by the Hong Kong Examinations Authority in 1989. The study set out to discover whether the examination was reliable for determining students' language needs on entering higher education, and whether institutions' existing…

Implications of changes in the Hong Kong secondary school curriculum are examined, focusing on the syllabus leading to a new school-leaving examination in English literature. The new curriculum, based on developments in composition theory and practice and departing from the traditional, narrowly-focused syllabus, emphasizes the process of writing…

A study investigated the effectiveness of structured viewing of television news on listening comprehension in English as a Second Language (ESL), as compared with the effectiveness of standard listening comprehension materials. Subjects were 66 students aged 18-22 in diverse disciplines, 34 in the experimental group and 32 in a control group.…

A study compared the perceptions of two experts from different cultural backgrounds concerning salience of a variety of errors typical of the English written by Hong Kong secondary and college students. A book on English error types written by a Hong-Kong born, fluent Chinese-English bilingual linguist was analyzed for its emphases, and a list of…

Papers on linguistics and language teaching in this volume are the following: "Language in Education: Hard Choices for Hong Kong" (Jo Lewkowicz); "EL2--Medium Education in a Largely Monolingual Society: The Case of Hong Kong" (Nigel Bruce); "A Programme for Semantics" (Laurence Goldstein); "Semantics and Its…

A discussion of Chinese- and English-medium instruction in Hong Kong schools, particularly at the levels of secondary and higher education, focuses on recent recommendations for improved instruction and articulation. The discussion is presented in two parts. The first presents the response of the University of Hong Kong's Language Centre to the…

Papers on linguistics and language teaching in this volume are the following: "'Good' and 'Poor' Writing and Writers: Studying Individual Performance as a Part of Test Validation" (Desmond Allison, Evelyn Cheung); "To Test or Not To Test: That Is the Question" (Keith Tong, Rose Chan, Jo Lewkowicz); "Testing Listening…

This document consists of five years (1988-1992, 10 issues) of the Singapore-based journal "Guidelines." Issues contain articles on a variety of topics in second language teaching. Topics include classroom language teaching strategies, techniques for teaching specific language skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) or knowledge…