Genres of symbolic violence: Beauty contest discourse practices in Hong Kong

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Curriculum: Foreign language learning

This article presents an overview of various issues related to curriculum in foreign language learning, and in particular focuses on learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Foreign language learning is taken to mean the learning of a language other than the learner’s first language (L1), and this language is not ordinarily used in the learner’s everyday life. Thus, foreign language learning contexts are very different from second language learning contexts, for in second language learning contexts, the language being learned is often used in the learner’s larger social context (even though it might not be always used in the learner’s immediate home or community). This distinction should not be seen as categorical, as some contexts lie in between the prototypical foreign language learning contexts and the prototypical second language learning contexts. However, as is discussed in this review, the importance of understanding the sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic situatedness of second and foreign language learning in diverse contexts of the world has, until recently, been underrepresented in the literature.postprin

English language proficiency assessment for English language teachers in Hong Kong: Development and dilemmas

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Development of Streams Classification System for Nutrient Criteria in Illinois

USEPApublished or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Hong Kong children's rights to a culturally compatible English education

In this paper I discuss why the right of access to the socioeconomically dominant symbolic resource, English, is a fundamental language right of Hong Kong children. I also discuss why current English curricular design and practices do not provide such access and how they can be changed in order to provide Hong Kong children with access to an English education that is compatible with their native culture (Jordan, 1985). In a culturally compatible curriculum, emphasis is placed on affirming and capitalizing on what children bring to the classroom: their indigenous linguistic, discourse, and cultural resources. It aims at building on and expanding the child's existing resources to bridge the gap between her/his native resources and the socioeconomically important language of the society. I also propose some directions for future research and curricular development that researchers, teachers, and teacher-educators can take in the context of Hong Kong in order to develop a culturally compatible English curriculum that will deny neither the Cantonese child's rightful linguistic and cultural identities and resources nor her/his right to have access to English.postprin

Englishization with an attitude: Cantonese-English lyrics in Hong Kong

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Deconstructing "mixed code"

In this chapter I propose that the often taken-for-granted, commonsensical notion of “mixed code” as a presumably existing, stably recurring, monolithic, debased language variety is in fact a rhetorical construct. By examining a diverse range of complex language use phenomena that can all be named “mixed code”, I argue that the notion of “mixed code” as asserted in the public and official discourses plays an important role in naturalizing and normalizing a certain language ideology, which, in turn, is appealed to as a rationale for a socially inequitable language education policy. The chapter concludes with the proposal that language and education issues in Hong Kong can be seen in a clearer light only when the official and popular media notion of “mixed code” is problematized and deconstructed, and the diverse range of social interactive actions mediated by multiple language resources seen and understood in their situated contexts, and not through the hidden language ideological lens of the reifying rhetorical construct of “mixed code”.postprin

Critical practice in English language education in Hong Kong: Challenges and possibilities

In this paper the notion of critical practice in English language education (ELE) is explored through examples from the critical work of educators and researchers in Hong Kong. The paper then concludes with a discussion of both the challenges and possibilities of engaging in critical practice in ELE in Hong Kong and possibly in other East Asian contexts, where similar cultures of teaching and learning predominate.postprin

From learning English in a colony to working as a female TESOL professional of color: A personal odyssey

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Explorations of the (non-) self-determining subject in South Korean TV dramas

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