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I mainly want to respond to Eliza Lee's opinion but technical problem prevents me from posting a response after hers.
I would like to focus my discussion on social sciences and humanities, as language is crucial in these disciplines.
I have no big narrative to offer. Without having to embroil into any ideological or historical arguments, the first and foremost argument against using English in the core courses is the education outcome.
As HK's higher education is no longer an elitist one, it cannot be denied that many students of social sciences and humanities understand teachings in Cantonese much better than in English, and they will participate through discussion and thinking more actively in Cantonese than English.
If we still believe that one of the functions, if not the most important function, of universities remains educating the youths in a community, and educating them how to think and argue rather than simply mastering a language or several languages (there is no lack of language schools outside universities, and we can subsidize students to learn languages in foreign countries for say 1 semester if languages are really important), we should teach them in the language that they can use to think and speak most freely and creatively, which is Cantonese for most locals, no matter how we define "mother-tongue" technically, historically or ideologically.
Here I disagree with Eric: I think it is more important to teach core courses in this "best language". If students do not understand and do not themselves think about the ideas in those core courses (which are important, basic and fundamental and that's why they are "core"), how can they employ these ideas critically in elective courses?
Even if we have to accept that the most important function of universities is to produce new knowledge instead of cultivating citizens who can think independently (which I disagree), the people doing this kind of knowledge production are mainly the teachers and the research students, not the undergraduates. Currently instead of ideally, undergraduates only learn the basic/classical ideas in a discipline, rather than those cutting-edge things that are claimed to be English-dependent. What is the point of “exchanging with people from other countries” if many students cannot contribute their best thinking and ideas due to the inevitable loss of using not the most fluent language they can use? Will it add a new problem of spoon-fed and one-way exchange to the existing problem of spoon-fed and one-way education in universities? Moreover, what is the point of this forced exchange in the class, when many students are struggling to understand what their international classmates are talking about?
Eliza may be right to argue that “the use of English has allowed both the teachers and students of CUHK to have direct linkage with the centers of knowledge production that predominantly reside in the English-speaking world”, but how many undergraduates are intended to and actually become research students, not to say scholars, to participate in this international knowledge production, which claimed to be best prepared by English undergraduate education? Why should we sacrifice the chance of the majority to benefit from “best language” university education and become independent thinking citizens (not to mention the creativity and intellectual curiosity nipped in the bud by the language hurdle)?
If we believe that language ability is not necessarily proportional to a person’s other abilities, why should we punish those with poorer language ability but could excel in an academic discipline if being taught in their best language? Are those having no chance of (or simply no interest in) participating in the game of “international knowledge production” deserved to be abandoned by their teachers? Why don’t we leave the compulsory English teaching and learning to postgraduate studies?
I disagree with Eliza’s idea that if Cantonese is good for effective learning, it would require that the teaching staff of our entire university be Cantonese-speaking people only (even if we do not have to resort to the obvious reason that effective learning of students is not the sole purpose of university), not to say the extreme ideas that “It would require that the university stop running all international exchange programs, especially not to send our students to foreign universities because there is no way they can learn “effectively” in a non-Cantonese environment. It would even mean that we stop inviting distinguished international visitors to come in and give public lectures because, after all, how effectively can students learn from their English (or Puotunghua) presentations anyway?”
University has many missions and the use of one language does not fit all. Using English may help enhance the international profile of the universities and their teachers and may help attract famous international scholars to contribute to the international knowledge production, it doesn’t help the learning of many if not most undergraduate students. We should not go to the extreme of requiring teaching exclusively in Cantonese, but neither should we go to the extreme of requiring teaching core courses exclusively in English. We have to strike a balance. For example, core courses should be offered by Cantonese-speaking teachers as far as possible so that students can grasp the basic ideas of a discipline.
I agree with Eliza that effective learning is multidimensional, but language is one of the most (if not the most) important and fundamental dimensions we cannot belittle.
I am just worrying that our university are blinded by their needs of international money and our university teachers by their own needs of international exchange, without seeing their “non-crème” students’ needs of learning the international locally. Although for many university professors, they are researchers the first and teachers the second, they should understand that society expects them to be as much teachers as researchers at least, and their average students (whose head counts form an important part of their pay) expect them to be their teachers the first.
P.S. I am not prepared to give any excuse for using English, as this is not the point of this discussion.
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