This paper considers Hong Kong’s benchmark language assessments for English teachers. It asks whose standard of English the government, business community, examinations authority, and the teaching profession itself expect teachers to measure up to. As well as examining documentation from these various sources, the paper analyses discussions on TeleNex, a computer network set up for English teachers in Hong Kong. Although the question was seldom explicitly mooted in documents and teachers’ messages, the implicit standards were found to be largely exonormative. Most documents implied a native speaker norm, and teachers were found to regard British dictionaries and grammars as the main authorities on correctness and acceptability. Only the benchmark developers were found to be seeking an “educated Hong Kong model”, but even their criteria rule out an “average” Hong Kong model for teachers.
2013. Contextual variation and Hong Kong English. World Englishes 32:1 ► pp. 54 ff.
Chan, Jim Y. H.
2014. Exposure to accents and pronunciation modelling: A case study of a secondary school in Hong Kong. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 24:3 ► pp. 390 ff.
Chan, Jim Y. H.
2016. A Multi‐perspective Investigation of Attitudes Towards English Accents in Hong Kong: Implications for Pronunciation Teaching. TESOL Quarterly 50:2 ► pp. 285 ff.
Coniam, David & Peter Falvey
2018. Introduction and Background to High-Stakes Assessment. In High-Stakes Testing, ► pp. 3 ff.
Harfitt, Gary James
2020. Learning to Teach English in Hong Kong: Transformation and Tensions Over Two Decades of English Language Teacher Education Policy. In English Language Teaching and Teacher Education in East Asia, ► pp. 57 ff.
Kan, Vincent & Bob Adamson
2016. A Matrix Approach to Language Policy Analysis: The Case of Hong Kong. In Sociological and Philosophical Perspectives on Education in the Asia-Pacific Region [Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, 29], ► pp. 111 ff.
Kibler, Amanda, Guadalupe Valdés & Aída Walqui
2014. What Does Standards‐based Educational Reform Mean for English Language Learner Populations in Primary and Secondary Schools?. TESOL Quarterly 48:3 ► pp. 433 ff.
Kirkpatrick, Andy
2007. Setting attainable and appropriate English language targets in multilingual settings: a case for Hong Kong. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17:3 ► pp. 376 ff.
Liu, Xingyu
2022. Review and Reflection of Language Education Policy in Hong Kong. International Journal of Education and Humanities 5:3 ► pp. 91 ff.
2023. A Move Analysis of Dissertation Introductions Written by Native English Speakers and Indonesian PhD Students across Disciplines. rEFLections 30:2 ► pp. 468 ff.
Tsui, Amy B. M.
2007. Linguistic Paradoxes and Cultural Domination. International Multilingual Research Journal 1:2 ► pp. 135 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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