Foreword

Evelyn Man

This issue focuses on English language education which is a major concern for local policy-makers, teachers, parents and students. Professor Jim Cummins' article gathers insights from Canada and the United States to see what relevance that has for the local MOI (medium of instruction) issue. This discussion is especially important as the government embarks on a review of its MOI policy. In terms of what EMI (English as the medium of instruction) schools can do to help Secondary One students cope with learning in English, Evelyn Man, David Coniam and Icy Lee examine the conditions and practices conducive to EMI teaching and learning. David Coniam offers some suggestions on how EMI content subject teachers can be given multi-media support to teach in the English-medium schools. Evelyn Man and Jenny Lim show what possibilities there are for the application of information technology in the current English language curriculum, and Sunny Lau discusses how critical thinking skills can be cultivated through a reading program with young ESL (English as a second language) learners. Paul Sze focuses on the important issue of what constitutes subject knowledge for second language teaching, a critical area for consideration in the current examination of English language education in Hong Kong. The two articles on English language development in China, by Wang Qiang and Qi Qi, inform us of the changes now taking place in the rapidly developing English language scene in China, and how curriculum, standards and textbooks can be better integrated to bring about more desirable English language outcomes. We hope our readers will find some new perspectives to English language teaching policy and practice from the articles.

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