Michael Halliday

It is a huge honour and an immense privilege to contribute to this special issue on Michael Halliday’s hitherto unpublished work, “Exploring the ‘language’ part of language education”, not least because the paper was conceptualised in response to what he had observed over a period of three years (1997–2000) as External Examiner for the B.Ed. (Language Education) programme from 1997–2000 at my university – the University of Hong Kong. In this short piece, I will provide the context for Halliday’s paper, which may help readers to better understand the motivation that inspired it and his frequent reference to the Hong Kong situation. I will also draw on the comments he made in his examiner’s reports that are in a way precursors to the expositions in this paper. ^, I will end with my personal reflection on the significance of the paper not only for teacher education but also for education.