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Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 11-13 September 2003
Individual Themed Session (12 September 2003):
Special Interest Group – Language and Literacy
CLASS AND PEDAGOGIES:
MANAGEMENT OF EXAMINED ENGLISH IN HONG KONG
Tat Heung CHOI
Department of Education Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University
The curriculum must be subject to critical scrutiny like everything else in our academic institutions. Its very naturalness, its apparent inevitability, makes it especially suspect.
(Scholes 1985:58)
Irrespective of the way in which it is constructed, the given … content of the curriculum defines the criteria against which all pupils are judged and as such constitutes that which is powerful.
(Daniels & Anghileri 1995:106)
This paper explores Bernstein’s (1973, 1975, 1990) insights into social class and pedagogies, and in particular the relevance of his work for understanding A-level students’ management of examined English in Hong Kong. The analyses demonstrate the usefulness of making connections between the candidates’ orientations to the Use of English (UE) paper (i.e. difficulties with UE sections and relevance of the media) and their subsequent outcomes (i.e. achievement within UE sections) in the transition to higher education.
The following questions provide an over-arching structure for this engagement:
l How well did the A-level candidates handle the genre of examination answers in general?
l How was this management related to the types of questions examined?
l Who did the questions favour in relation to social class?
Tat Heung CHOI is Assistant Professor at the Department of Education Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong; e-mail: .
MANAGEMENT OF EXAMINED ENGLISH
There has been no analysis of English examination papers, with respect to the differences in scores between groups of students with different social class backgrounds.[1] These differences related to the five examined sections of the UE paper: Listening, Writing, Reading and Language Systems, Oral (Individual Presentations and Group Discussion), and Practical Skills for Work and Study. This paper gives the results of such an analysis based on three study samples: the sample of four schools (A, B, C & D) different according to band, the sample drawn from a higher-status university (HKU) and a lower-status university (LU), and the sample drawn from two post-secondary institutes (TC & IE).[2]
The differences between the social class groups in crucial sections of the 1997 and 1998 UE papers are discussed with reference to their differential understanding of the specialised topics and semantics of the questions, and the procedures necessary for the correct answering of specific questions. Equally important is an examination of how particular genres in English positioned students. To these ends, the UE syllabus (which defines what counts as valid knowledge) and its modes of evaluation (defining what counts as a valid realisation of knowledge) are examined. The English scores within the examined sections and the relation of the scores to the social class of the candidates are analysed. The results then direct me to investigate the students’ difficulties with the content and grammar of the UE papers, as well as the relevance of the media represented in these papers in relation to their listening and reading habits.
UE syllabus
Table 1 summarises the domains of the syllabus, the aims and objectives, and the allocation of time and scores for the examined sections (HKEA, 1994). There are clear emphases on English as a system (grammar) and English in use (practical communication).[3] Further, the syllabus is strongly oriented to occupational skills of a particular kind. The tasks are all geared to bureaucratic and business employment in the managerial sectors. Thus there is a commitment to English as required in a specialised market for tertiary education and future employment, and an exclusion of English as a repertoire of literature[4] for literary appreciation and developing personal sensitivity. With respect to specialised skills, the four proficiency sections (I – IV) focus on a range of productive (coding) and receptive (decoding) skills; whereas Practical Skills for Work and Study (V) emphasises problem-solving skills. Notably, the difference on Practical Skills for Work and Study is particularly significant in terms of its weighting (28%) which was higher than that of each of other sections (18%). The differential weighting indicates that assessment of English proficiency is essentially for study and work purposes.
Section / Aims and Objectives / Skill / Time / Sub-score (%)I / Listening / To understand and interpret spoken English as it might be encountered in academic or vocational situations / Productive
and
Receptive / 1 hour / 18
II / Writing / To write clear, concise and grammatical English in an appropriate style / 1 ¼ hours / 18
III / Reading and
Language Systems / To demonstrate both global and detailed understanding of a variety of written texts / 1 ½ hours / 18
IV / Oral –
Individual Presentations
Group Discussion / To understand and use spoken English for practical communication / 8 minutes
12 minutes / 18
V / Practical Skills for
Work and Study / To integrate reading, writing and study skills in the pursuance of task-based/problem-solving activities / Work and Study / 1 ¾ hours / 28
Table 1: UE sections, aims and objectives, and allocation of time and scores (Source: HKEA, 1994, my emphases)
The testing of students’ performance against such an explicit structure of targets or requirements produces a highly visible ‘stratification of acquirers’ (Bernstein, 1990; Edwards, 1995). Differential achievement within the crucial sections is conceived as a principal means of generating social class reproduction, and as a function of the difficulties of some pedagogic groups in understanding how to answer the questions.
Achievement within UE sections
To examine the differential achievement within the crucial sections of the UE papers, I aggregated grades A, B and C; grades D and E; and grades F (fail) and U (unclassified). The scores within each examined section were then related to the social class of the candidates. This was to examine whether a particular cluster of scores within a section was shared by or differed between social classes, that is, the higher occupational groups (middle class, and lower service category) versus the lower manual group (working class).
A study of the English scores within each examined section indicated a strong relation between achievement in English and social class in general: that is, the higher the social class, the higher the English scores, irrespective of the examined sections and institutions. It is clear that the working-class candidates were generally weak in all sections, compared to the higher occupational groups, across the samples. This tendency was keeping in line with the hierarchical performance in English in relation to social class.
Within the four schools, the largest difference between the working class and the higher occupational groups was located within Practical Skills for Work and Study as well as Listening. Within the working class, 13/17 obtained grades D and E in Practical Skills for Work and Study; 10/17 in Listening. Conversely, within the middle class, 8/10 achieved grade C or higher in each of these sections. The difference on Practical Skills for Work and Study was particularly significant in terms of its weighting (28%) which was higher than that of each of other sections (18%).
It was rather unexpected to find that the working-class candidates performed relatively better in Oral (Individual Presentations and Group Discussion), where 6/17 achieved grade C or higher, compared to other sections. The middle-class candidates seemed to be weaker (though still better than the working class) in this section, where only 6/10 achieved grade C or higher, compared to other sections. It is important to mention that candidates are examined in groups of four in the discussion, which involved a problem to be solved or a task to be addressed. The participants are expected to seek understanding and clarification through questioning and discussion and to use appropriate interactive skills. Performance in the small-group discussion would to some extent depend on the level of competence of the four participants as a whole. This group factor might have affected the performance of middle-class candidates, as they pointed out in the interviews.
Within HKU, both the higher occupational groups (12/15) and the working class (6/9) excelled in Reading and Language Systems in terms of achieving grade C or higher. This result contrasted sharply with the case in LU, TC and IE, where only one achieved such high grades in the same section. In this respect, success in gaining admissions to higher-status universities through English could be related to performance in Reading and Language Systems, irrespective of social class. This finding fits with the annual subject report (HKEA, 1997b) which commented that Reading and Language Systems generally discriminated very well between strong and weak candidates in 1995 and 1996.
It is important to point out that the social class difference in achievement in English within the university and post-secondary institute samples was less marked, compared to the schools. This finding reflected the consequence of selection, at both Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) and Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE). We may take this finding to mean that the tertiary students shared similar levels on English in their respective academic destinations. Within the post-secondary institute sample, working-class students who applied to TC and IE were equally likely to be accepted by either institution, insofar as this was decided by their English scores. The majority of these working-class students failed in English; however, within the middle class, relatively more IE students failed across most of the sections than TC students. It is possible that the less able middle-class students were entering the teaching profession. This speculation is worrying in terms of the quality of future teachers, insofar as their management of English is concerned.
UE examination questions
On the basis of the function of social class in achievement in English and of the effect of selection, the crucial differences within UE sections were located in Listening, Reading and Language Systems, and Practical Skills for Work and Study. Learning the requirements of these crucial sections through their aims and objectives (recognition) is pertinent to the performance in the subject (realisation).
A close examination of the three crucial UE sections indicates two strands of emphases (Table 2). One emphasis is on grammar as a resource for meaning (Reading and Language Systems); the other is on administrative, organisational, market and communicative skills directed to bureaucratic and business employment in the private and public spheres or managerial sectors (Listening, and Practical Skills for Work and Study). These emphases signify the growth of a powerful service economy in a capitalist society.
Section / Aims and ObjectivesI / Listening / Test the ability of the candidates to understand, organise and interpret spoken English as used by educated and fluent speakers of English as an international language
III / Reading and Language Systems / Part A: Reading
Test the ability of candidates to achieve an in depth understanding of an expository text
· Identify central ideas, the purposes and assumptions of the writer
· Differentiate between what is more or less important and more or less relevant in terms of purposes
· Recognise the limiting effects of qualifications and exceptions
· Relate cause and effect and evidence to conclusions
· Make interpretation according to the context of the text
Part B: Language Systems
Test the extent to which the systems of the English language have been internalised by the candidates
· The lexicon
· The morphology
· The syntactic relationships within and among phrases and clauses
· The structural relationships among sentences within paragraphs and in discourse
V / Practical Skills for Work and Study / Test practical communication through simulated work and study situations
· Locate and processing information
· Identify and solving communication problems
· Carry out communication tasks
Table 2: Aims and objectives of three crucial UE sections (Source: HKEA, 1994)
The following examines the topics, semantics and the procedures necessary for the correct answering of the questions within three crucial UE sections. A sociological description of specific questions is given on the basis of these categories: sources, domains of questions, dominant actors, plots, and genres.
Listening
Table 3 illustrates the specialisation of the topics and content of Listening.
Categories of Description / Listening1997 / 1998
Sources / · Radio broadcast / · Nil
Domains of Questions / Part A: Charity Project Discussion
Complete details of the charity project
Note-headings
· Title of the talk
· Name of the charity
· Objectives of the talk
· Motivation of the trip
· Work of the charity
· Process of a country’s recovery
· Types of sponsorship
· Preparation steps
· Advantages and disadvantages of the date of commencement
· Countries visited in each stage of the journey
· Means of travelling
Part B: Question-and-answer Session
Write questions and responses about the charity project / Part A: Briefing on Voluntary Aid Programme
Complete details of the voluntary aid programme
Note-headings
· Aims of the talk
· Mission of the voluntary organisation
· Type of volunteers
· Reason for age restriction
· Project type
· Activities involved
· Problems faced
· Considerations and reasons for building clinics
· Local feedback
· Qualities of volunteers and reasons for volunteering
· Steps in selection procedure
· Details of training
Part B: Question-and-answer Session
Write questions and responses about the voluntary aid programme
Dominant Actors / · Members of a local youth club
· The press
· Sponsors
· Bikers
· School representatives
· Nursing college
· Sports company
· Adventure club / · School leavers
· Oxfam staff
· Volunteered worker
Plots / · International charity project / · Voluntary aid programme
Genres / · Discussion / · Briefing
Table 3: Specialisation of topics and content of Listening
Sources