Decling language skills

By Florence Luk

The language problems of tertiary students are not only in English and Mandarin, but also in their mother tongue, written Chinese and Cantonese. Miss Chan Hau Ling, a personnel officer of UDL Holdings Ltd., is responsible for the recruitment of new staff. Miss Chan personally does not think that language skills of today's tertiary students are particularly poor. "Employees graduated from the Chinese University, the University of Hong Kong and the City University have good command of both writing and speaking," said she.

Most campuses have special learning centres for learning improvement.

However, some graduates have encounter communication problems with the company's English-speaking ex-patriates.

"Perhaps the courses in some institutes are too practically-based, and less focus is put on improving students' language power," said she.

However, Miss Chan said that the employees' command of English is already far better than their Mandarin.

"Most can only understand a little bit of Mandarin and can't speak it at all," she said.

However, she believed that more people will be able to speak Mandarin in the future.

"Nowadays, many tertiary students take Mandarin courses, whereas in the past, students preferred studying Japanese," said Miss Chan.

As a Taiwan-born Chinese, Professor Lee Chin-chuan uses Mandarin as the main medium of instruction in his lectures.

"The decline of language standard is a world-wide trend, but it's particularly serious in Hong Kong," said Prof. Lee, who teaches in the Department of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"In the past (the late 1970s), many lecturers employed by our department and New Asia College spoke Mandarin. Students at that time seldom had difficulties in understanding the language," he said.

However, the situation has deteriorated since then.

Said he: "Although I try to slow down my pace in speaking Mandarin, many students still do not understand. Therefore, I always write down what I mention on the board, or sometimes simply speak in English."

Yet, this is not the end of the problem.

"Some students told me that their English is not good enough to understand lectures conducted in English," said Prof. Lee.

However, to Dr. Richard Ho Man Hui, lecturer in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University, the most obvious language problem for students is neither English nor Mandarin, but the pronunciation of their mother tongue - Cantonese.

"Students have poor command of cadence and tempo in their speech. Their pronunciation of the initial and final sounds of many words is blurred," said Dr. Ho, who once taught Cantonese pronunciation through a television program.

Dr. Ho also critized the students' of written Chinese.

"The legitimate written Chinese should be the plain language (Mandarin). But student's written Chinese is a blend of plain language, dialect (Cantonese), and ancient Chinese."

Moreover, he said that students should learn Mardarin. "It is normal that most Hong Kong people, who are Cantonese, cannot speak Mandarin. But we ought to have good command of it, for it is our national language."

Talking about the reasons behind the decline of students' language power, both Prof. Lee Chin-chuan and Mr. Wong Chun Fai regarded the declining quality of secondary education as one of the reason. "It may also be the result of the change of tertiary education system from four to three years," added Prof. Lee.

Prof. Lee pointed out another factor - the change of reading habits of tertiary students.

Said he: "They prefer reading magazines like the Next Magazine, which feature tabloid journalism, to the more serious, analytical ones.

"The language in these magazines is mixed with colloquial Cantonese. Heavy exposure to these magazines would worsen the students' command of written Chinese."

His opinion was echoed by Dr. Ho, who also blamed the mass media for destroying people's command of the language.

"With the increase of people's living standards, more people can afford a television set. Students prefer watching television to reading.

"Less reading decreases their exposure to legitimate written Chinese. High exposure to television culture makes their written Chinese more colloquial than it should be."

For the poor Cantonese pronunciation of tertiary students, Dr. Ho regarded the fast pace of living in Hong Kong as a reason.

"This can also be explained by today's curriculum in English language education. It focuses less on training English pronunciation through spelling which was adopted by the teachers in our generation.

"For this reason, people do not pronounce English well. It indirectly affects student's attitudes towards Cantonese pronunciation. Students are less obliged to speak accurate and clear Cantonese," said Dr. Ho.

Dr. Ho holds the view that oral training should start at the very beginning of students' education to solve the problem.

"Pupils should be taught correct Cantonese pronunciation with the aid of phonetic symbols beginning with primary schools or even kindergarten. This would also work well for Mandarin as well as English."