Teaching in English in Hong Kong
香港英语教学
The cat got your mother tongue?
你怎么不说母语了？
Jun 12th 2008 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition
The Brits make a linguistic comeback
英国人来了一次语言上的回归
IT WAS an admission of cultural defeat; but then Hong Kong is nothing if not pragmatic about such things. On June 6th its education minister, Michael Suen Ming-yeung, lifted restrictions that forced four-fifths of the territory’s more than 500 secondary schools to teach in the “mother tongue”, ie, Cantonese, the main language of its residents and of southern China. Schools may switch to English, the language of the former colonial oppressor, from next year.
这的确是对文化失败的一个承认；但香港对这类事情的态度极其现实。6月6日其教育部长孙明扬取消了让其领地上500多所中学中五分之四的学校进行”母语”教学的限制。”母语”即广东话，是其居民和中国南方的主要语言。从明年开始，学校可能转向英语，前殖民压迫者的语言。
This reverses a decade-old policy adopted after Hong Kong’s reversion to China in 1997, in an assertion of independence from both former and present sovereign powers. Emotion may have played a large role in the decision. But it made some sense. Students speak Cantonese at home, and so using it is the easiest way to impart information and promote discussion. It is also the first language of most teachers: a study done at the time concluded that schools labelled “English-medium” were actually teaching in Cantonese but using English-language textbooks (with predictably chaotic results).
这一决定改变了一项长达十年的政策–1997年香港回归中国后，为了在前任和现在的统治权下维护自己的独立而采取的政策。情感在这一决定中扮演了很大角色。但是它有一些道理。学生在家中说广东话，因此传递信息及进行讨论的时候使用它也是最容易的。它也是大多数教师的第一语言：当时的一项研究得出结论说标着”英语教学”的学校实际上在用广东话教学，但是使用英语课本（其后果之混乱可想而知）。
After much bureaucratic shuffling, 20% of schools were permitted to continue teaching in English. That may have made sense to teachers and administrators, but not to ambitious parents. They know that their offspring will need English to get ahead. Those who could flee the public system for costly private schools, or for the eight semi-private schools run on the British system, did so. The rest made extraordinary efforts to enter the minority of English-language schools. They have huge waiting lists; Cantonese ones gaping holes.
经过多次的官僚敷衍之后，20%的学校被允许继续使用英语教学。对教师和行政官员来说这可能有意义，但是雄心勃勃的父母们可不这样看。他们知道：他们的后代为了出人头地将需要英语。那些能够逃离公共体制进入昂贵的私立学校，或者以英国体制运行的8所半私立学校的，已经这么做了。其余的付出额外努力想进入少数英语语言学校。他们得到的却是长长的等待入学名单；而那些用广东话教学的学校的生源则越来越少。
That helps explain Mr Suen’s change of heart, for which no reason was given. So does a survey published last year, which concluded that students from the Cantonese schools did far worse than their peers in getting into universities-a result that would horrify Hong Kong’s achievement-obsessed parents. And whatever the educators think, employers from coffee bars to banks either require people to be bilingual or pay more to those who are. Private schools offering supplementary English tuition have mushroomed.
这解释了孙先生为什么改变了主意–对此他没有给出理由。去年公布的一个调查也能解释原因：它说来自用广东话教学的学校的学生在进入大学的时候比他们的同龄人差很多–这一结果将会使香望子成龙的父母们恐惧不已。不管教育者们怎么想，从咖啡馆到银行，其雇主们或者需要双语人才或者给这类人支付更高薪水。提供额外的英语教学的私立学校如雨后春笋般涌现。
Hong Kong’s slow-moving educational bureaucracy has devoted much thought to how English could be offered without harming other studies, and without sacrificing a generation of teachers with a vested interest in a system based on their first language. Mr Suen has skirted these difficult issues. A much-debated but still undisclosed formula will allow an increasing number of subjects to be taught in English. Every step is controversial. As China’s most global city, Hong Kong needs skills in both English and Mandarin, or putonghua, China’s common language. Pragmatists want Hong Kong to drop Cantonese entirely in favour of the two more broadly used languages. But that may demand a level of cultural indifference which even Hong Kong cannot muster.
行动缓慢的香港教育当局花了很多时间来考虑如何提供英语教育，能不损害其它学科，又无需牺牲一代教师在一个以其第一语言为基础的体制中拥有的既得利益。孙先生避开了这些难题。一个多次讨论但仍未公布的方案将允许更多学科使用英语教学。每一步都可能引起争议。作为中国最全球化的城市，香港既需要英语又需要普通话（中国的公用语言）技能。实用主义者们想让香港整个地放弃广东话而转向两种更广泛被使用的语言。但那可能需要相当水平的”文化冷漠 “（cultural indifference），就算香港也无法达到。
译者：7colorwolf http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=12112&page=1&extra=page%3D1#pid75595
放弃本土语言文化,是非常愚蠢的。因为你放弃的不仅是地方语言，还有很多很多。
更可笑的是，人的学习能力是很强的，为什么非要放弃了自己的母语，才能学会其它的语言呢？
我想没有哪个国家或民族有出现这种情况吧！
影响一个民族的最根本的是共同的心理素质，如果一个人认为自己属于哪一个民族的话，自然而然的就会关注属于这个民族的东西，决策人不能忽视这一点。现在的教育很多方面是受到杜威的实用主义教育的影响，关于实用主义的教育观，应该是批判的接受，不能全盘拿来。
设身处地想，我希望我的孩子受英文为第一教学语言普通话为第二教学语言的学校。正如我不能想像自己当年会进入一个非普通话的母语方言教学语言中学。
其实话说回来，我觉得内地是一个很矛盾的地方。嘴上说着母语的重要，可实际做法却恨不得全民说英语。不可否认英语现在的地位，但我实在受不了某些有话语权的人的虚伪。学习英语本身并没有错，但是全民教育中英语那至高无上的地位只会叫人觉得无奈。如果让我选择，我宁愿一开始就学英语，这种国情之下，一个中国人不会说英语比不会说国语受到的嘲讽要多的多。
忘记母语是可耻的，它将使你这个民族在世界上消亡。一个没有语言的民族，是可悲的
香港就是这么一个地方，回归那么多年仍然不忘殖民统治的时代，就算是现在大部分都用广东话教学，很多学生写文章都没办法全用中文来写，因为有些词想不起用中文怎么表达，更何况以后用英语教学？连自己的母语都不会
说是一件很值得骄傲的事情？英语说得再好，始终还是一个中国人啊．香港人就是这样，太现实主义了，只要有钱连自己的根在哪都可以不顾，以前土地被割让给英国，是中国的耻辱，现在是文化上的脱离，更是中国人的耻辱．真没想到已经离谱到这种地步了．连自己的母语都可以放弃，我想问一下那些人，什么东西能代表你的身份？就是你的母语啊！