English Language Teaching in Macau:Sharing, Reflecting and Innovating
Ieong Sao Leng*
Summary
This paper begins by sharing a few stories happening in the actual TEFL classrooms in Macau. These anecdotes may cast fresh light on the problems confronting teachers and learners of English in Macau as well as in other parts of China, where English is taught as a foreign language, and give us food for thought on the approaches and methods that have been developed both in China and elsewhere. Reflections on what TEFL professionals, researchers and teachers have been doing over the past century have dawned on us that effective language learning exists in active communications and humane interactions that take place only in contexts combining creative science with imaginative arts, the technical with the spiritual and the emotional1 ; and therefore, they point compellingly to the necessity for humanistic approaches and methodology, pedagogical variety and diversity, and innovative teaching and learning.2 Looking ahead, the author focuses, in the present paper, on two of the most promising areas for innovation and success: first,'start reading early' as the key to the learner acquiring information literacy for life-long sustainable development, and secondly,exploiting English literature, especially poetry, as a valuable, inexhaustible resource to enhance, enrich and enliven ELT/ELL, and for cultivating personality and fostering humanity. Selected examples for both areas are used to illustrate how to achieve these objectives.
1.The Linguistic Scenario of Macau
Though a small dot hardly visible on the world map, with fewer than half a million people, Macau is endowed with a rich heritage of Chinese and Portuguese cultures, and is now a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China,where, Chinese, English and Portuguese—three of the world's most widely spoken languages—are used in intricate and dynamic ways. While the principal language spoken is Cantonese, the official languages are Chinese and Portuguese,which is clearly stipulated in the Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region.3 English is extensively used in tourism, finance, entertainment,commerce, trade, education and many other fields of the service industry, and for various purposes of interactions and exchanges. If you come to Macau and take a walk downtown, you will hear different nationalities and people from various parts of China speaking a multitude of languages and dialects. Perhaps nowhere else does one find such a concentration of languages and dialects in as tiny a city as Macau.4
On the language teaching front, all three languages, i.e., Chinese, English and Portuguese, are taught in Macau schools, the first two being compulsory subjects. While Cantonese is the medium of instruction in over 90% of the schools, with the remaining less than 10% using English as the teaching language,Putonghua (Mandarin) is also offered as a subject or teaching language in many schools. So here in Macau, students and teachers have to cope with three formidable languages and several dialects, the so-called san wen si yu (三文四語). Faced with such linguistic dimensions, teachers of English in Macau perhaps have more complicated problems. They have, for example, to fight, to compete, for students' precious time, with teachers of other subjects and languages, not to mention the ever-growing impact of the mass media and of the Internet. We have the same problem pointed out by Vice-Premier Li Lanqing,i.e., "We've spent a lot of time on learning English but not much achievement has been made". Indeed, children in Macau begin learning English since kindergarten days. And their English proficiency in general is not very satisfactory by the time when they leave school, though of course, we also have some exceptional achievers. There are many factors for this. One of them, a socio-political factor as pinpointed by Professor Ieong of University of Macau,is: "During the Portuguese rule, Macau failed to create an English environment." However, now that Macau has returned to the Motherland, "ignoring the importance of English today means losing tremendous business opportunities.Also without an English environment, Macau is unlikely to go international.Hence, we should put forward this issue for public discussion and encourage everyone to place emphasis on learning English. In fact, promoting English and appropriately developing Portuguese education are not contradicting each other.However, if we have to choose between English and Portuguese, we should go for English."5
With the liberalization of the gaming industry in Macau and three gambling concessionaires supported by international consortiums, the demand for good English proficiency of the Macau population is growing every day. Macau teachers are doing their best to improve their teaching by learning from ELT scholars and experts from all over the world, including, of course, those engaged in the project of the "4 in 1" English Teaching Approach.
Now let's study or enjoy some stories happening in the TEFL classroom of Macau.
2.Stories Casting Fresh Light on TEFL Problems
Story 1: "My English is very water-skin, and so is my Chinese!"
Note: " water-skin " is a literal translation of the Cantonese expression "水皮" , meaning " very poor or weak ".
This sentence jumps out of a student's composition. The marking teacher,having "corrected " a heap of scripts, all with more or less the same ideas and the same errors, and beginning to get tired and bored, somehow feels "refreshed ". She is not surprised, but impressed. This" Chinglish" but otherwise neat and graphic creation of a humble, self-conscious student sets the teacher thinking long and hard. Professional instinct will never let her encourage her students to write " polluted " or deviating, substandard English. And yet she cannot bring herself to " murder " this ingeniously invented sentence of a modest learner.Now the heart of the teacher takes over: she puts the expression" water-skin" in quotes, with the English explanation, and this nice little comment, "Good!Very interesting use of words ", beside it. And as far as marks are concerned,the writer is generously rewarded. Then what's the effect on the learner? Almost instant boost in confidence and interest in English composition!
In fact, many Macau students, especially those from English-medium schools, speak in a perfectly natural mixture of Cantonese, English and Chinglish.It is not uncommon to hear schoolboys say something like:
"...Kui, Ah John, 同埋 David, 都喺同一間 English school, Kui 哋真係friend 過打 band, 成日有大把 tipsy luo, 真係激死個 gwailo Ah sir!"
(He, John and David study in the same English school. They are such great friends and get on better than those playing in a band. They always get a lot of tips for tests and they share them out among themselves. And this makes the foreigner-teacher very angry.)
Owing to the impact of mass media, even an ordinary housewife can manage to succeed in imposing her choice of a dress on her six-year-old daughter by blurting out:
"... Look! 呢條裙仔幾 sexy!"
(Look here, darling, how sexy this mini-skirt is!)
Though, most probably, neither of them really know the exact meaning of the word " sexy".
Story 2: "What's your name?"
It was a summer workshop for a group of Chinese teachers of English. The lecturers were enthusiastic teacher trainers. Honestly, both were determined to make the workshop work, especially the trainees, feeling deeply grateful for the opportunity to improve. So all started seriously and conscientiously. The lecturers began by saying that the local teachers had not been teaching their students everyday English, the English that people actually use in real life.Examples abound, such as "This is a book". "Mary is younger than her mother.", etc. People normally don't say these things! So the first lesson was a sort of informal introduction - getting to know each other. The trainees spread into smaller groups, in twos or threes, and began to ask each other "What's your name? "An active young trainee, wishing to practise more, went on further by asking a lady trainee, "How old are you? "Alas! Here the young communicating speaker was stopped by the supervising lecturer, who patiently explained, "In real life we rarely ask a lady about her age." Then came the authentic reply, "In real life, I would speak Cantonese."
Story 3: "You teach your pupils grammar? Oh, no!"
Again it was time for summer workshops. The re-trainees were asked what they usually taught in class and how. One teacher honestly and truthfully informed the re-trainer, "I teach my pupils grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation,etc. For grammar, I teach them parts of speech, tenses, possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives, the nominative and the objective cases, the subjunctive mood, etc., etc. As for the conditionals, I ..." With a bang on the desk, the lecturer stopped him. Shaking her head sadly, she sincerely told the participants that even American children do not have to go through this traumatic experience in learning their own language. " How can the Chinese children cope with all the hard stuff in learning a foreign language? No grammar!" Fully appreciating the re-trainer's feelings, the " grammatical " teacher echoed, humorously, " Well, between you and I, I'd like to see grammar go to hell, too! " Almost instantaneously, the lecturer responded by correcting him, "Say 'between you and me '! "
Story 4: "Forget your Chinese! "
It was a special composition class for Form 6 students, conducted by a resourceful expatriate and assisted by a local teacher of Macau. After giving all the "necessary" help in vocabulary, sentence patterns and even topic sentence for each of the paragraphs, the foreign teacher told the students to begin their part of the work. Then, he said, he would walk around, answering whatever questions put to him. He further assured them that he enjoyed answering questions and all questions were welcome. At first, he looked obviously pleased to see those black young heads bending over their work with such concentration,believing that he had given them enough guidance. Later, however, he noticed that his Macau partner could hardly cope with so many" questioners ", leaving him appear a bit too idle. He bent over a student's work and realized what was going on. Except for the few guidelines he had written earlier on the blackboard,the paper was almost entirely covered with Chinese characters that were incomprehensible to him. The students had written many of their ideas in Chinese first and were asking the local teacher to translate their innumerable fancy ideas into English! In exasperation, he blurted out: "This is an English composition lesson. Forget your Chinese!"
Story 5: "The Marginal Man"
A student wrote in perfect English about one of his strangest thoughtprovoking dreams, revealing his confusion and struggle to tackle a multilingual situation. However, it reads like a fairy tale.
It seemed that I was among the Shaolin Temples and then I was up on the Wu Tai Shan. Suddenly I found myself in deep water. I struggled ashore and saw a Godlike figure standing in front of me. Very solemnly, he opened his mouth:
" I'm the King of the Dragon. Identify yourself! "
"Well, eh, eh, I'm a descendant of the Dragon. "
"But why do you speak English?"
Did I? Oh, my God! But what language did he speak? English? Mandarin?
Oh, it's Putonghua! Or was it Cantonese? Or Portuguese?
Then, acting like a judge, he gave me the verdict:
"You are the Marginal Man! "
With this, he disappeared, before I fully understood his message.
But I do remember that he spoke English!
3.Reflecting on Problems and ELT/ELL Approaches
Having read through these true self-evident stories, we can't help doing some professional soul-and-heart-searching. Indeed, each of the above stories brings us back to and sheds new light on the problems that we have been trying to grapple with and the ELL/ELT approaches and methods that we have been attempting to grasp and adopt in our TEFL classrooms. The tug of war regarding whether we should teach our Chinese learners formal grammar has been with us for as long as we remember. And 'Chinglish' is a fact of life inside and outside our TEFL classrooms. An analysis of typical errors made by students shows that the interference of their mother tongue persists. I am confident the Beijing Tourist Bureau will be successful in their campaign to wipe out Chinglish on road signs, public notices and signs describing scenic spots, such as the daring "Collecting Money Toilet", or the startling "Careful Road Slippery".6But I am not so sure of rooting out Chinglish in our students' work. Our students think in Chinese and then struggle through an agonizing process of translating their ideas from Chinese into English, thus churning out streams of Chinglish such as "The noise made me can't sleep" (using the Chinese topic-chain structure 噪音+我不能入睡 instead of the English Subject + Verb structure: It was so noisy that I couldn't sleep or I couldn't sleep due to the noise), the run-on sentence "There are more and more people study and speak English now" 如今愈來愈多的人學講英语 (instead of the English sentence controlled by the Subject + Vt + Object pattern: More and more people are learning to speak English now), the unnecessary repetition in " In my opinion, I think English is very useful", etc. Shall we continue to force our students to ' think in English' while turning a blind eye to their real problems and frustrations, or is it more advisable and positive for us to face and accept the reality and create ways which may help us to turn what seems a disadvantage into an advantage? For one thing, our students will never forget their Chinese; should they do, the real meaning of learning a foreign language will be lost. Whatever Herculean endeavours we teachers make, they will keep on translating, openly or covertly,consciously or unconsciously, because they have not yet achieved the required pragmatic competence to switch on and off automatically between the foreign language and the mother tongue.
Moreover, many opening up cities, as well as SARs like Hong Kong and Macau, receive communications from all parts of the English and non-English speaking countries and from a variety of English speakers. Professor Nobuyuki Honna of Aoyama Gakuin University and his Japanese colleagues have long upheld 'Asian Englishes' and run a wonderful journal with that title. Professor Kingsley Bolton of the University of Hong Kong also made an in-depth study of Hong Kong English and Chinese English as varieties of English.7 Earlier on at the 1st TEFL-China Conference held in Tonghua, Jilin, Professor Nicky Hockly,IATEFL, Spain, in her extremely interesting talk on 'World Englishes', also touched on native and non-native varieties of English.8 Here I must hurry to clarify that I have no quarrel with those insisting on standard or correct English.What is uppermost in my mind is to create a more pleasant, relaxing and encouraging environment for children to learn English and make good progress.
As regards ELT approaches and methodology, we teachers have all more or less 'swayed' by the 'swing of the pendulum' on an international scale, which seems to have undergone a radical change about every 20 or 30 years, and which may help us trace all the significant developments in our ELT profession over the past century. First, there was the old literature-based GrammarTranslation Method, which was again and again discredited but has never been totally discarded, and which has since been updated and supplemented by later approaches and techniques developed from them, then came the Direct Method and the Oral-Structural Approach (or Audio-Lingual/Audio-Visual), the latter having enjoyed a predominating position almost everywhere. And then for some time some teachers seemed to be switching back to their old favourite, the Grammar-Translation Method disguised as the Cognitive Approach (Transformational-Generative Grammar) or the 'new' Grammar-Translation Approach. Very much in vogue in the 1970s and 1980s was the formidably termed Notional/Functional Communicative Approach, which derived much of its novelty from findings and disciplines of sociology and psychology, and which has enjoyed some longevity. Of course there have been other miscellaneous methods or theories, such as the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Total Physical Response, etc., though we have not heard much about this miscellany bearing fruits in the TEFL contexts. The following diagram summarizes the development of the major approaches, the so-called swing of the pendulum:
Rational Philosophically Empirical
Cognitive Psychologically Behaviouristic
Generative Grammar Linguistically Structural
Deductive Pedagogically, Inductive
Prescriptive Descriptive
Transformational Static
Internalization with emphasis on Stimulus-response
Universals Differences
Competence Performance
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This evolution reflects various views of the learning process such as learning by heart, forming habits by drilling and repetition and acquiring rules naturally through communicative interactions. All these are valid ways in which language skills can be developed to varying degrees of success. Wilga Rivers uses a different metaphor for this. Rather than a swing of the pendulum, she describes it as climbing up a tower, which gives us a better landscape and wider perspective on language teaching and learning.10
Realizing that they are all good for different purposes and no single approach can solve all problems, many teachers resort to the 'eclectic' approach. However,to be really and effectively eclectic, one has to be very familiar with the history of the development of the theories on and approaches to language teaching and learning, which, as Professor Chris Pearson rightly points out, has become a valuable resource. How can one be really eclectic without a good understanding of these theories and approaches and a good command of the skills and techniques developed from them? For example, the practice where learners are asked to identify antonyms and synonyms, which is developed from the Grammar Translation Method, is an intensive and effective way to enlarge learners' vocabulary; the questioning and answering, a key element in the Direct Method,and repetition drills, chain drills, substitution drills, etc, stemming from the structural approach are excellent for training fluency. 11There is nothing wrong to teach English knowledge or grammar, or vocabulary. But we should not stop at the knowledge level, we should create environment for learners to practise in all four skills and to communicate. They need to become culturally aware of the language and develop their own learning strategies. Indeed, to be genuinely eclectic, one has to go deeper into the tangles of teaching and to be innovative,which again puts a great demand on the teacher and the whole set-up, the twelve elements that make up Peter Strevens' model of the LL/LT process.12 Innovative teaching and learning means humane and humanistic approaches and methodology, pedagogical diversity and variety, combining creative science with imaginative arts, the technical with the emotional and the spiritual. Here,the teacher, the teacher at heart, plays the crucial role, as Palmer points out,
In our rush to reform education, we have forgotten a simple truth:reform will never be achieved by renewing appropriations,restructuring schools, rewriting curricula and revising texts if we continue to demean and dishearten the human resource called the teacher on whom so much depends. Teachers must be better compensated, freed from bureaucratic harassment, given a role in academic governance, and provided with the best possible methods and materials. But none of that will transform education if we fail to cherish - and challenge - the human heart that is the source of good teaching. 13
To cherish and challenge the human heart, I would like to focus, in the present paper, on only two of the innumerable ways for innovation and for success: first, 'start reading early' as the key to the learner acquiring information literacy for life-long sustainable development, and secondly, 'exploit English literature, especially poetry', as a valuable, inexhaustible resource, to enhance,enrich and enliven English teaching and learning, and for the purpose of stimulating imagination, cultivating personality and fostering humanity.
4.Innovative Teaching and Learning with Young Learners
It is thrilling to learn from the TEFL-China website that actively engaged in ELL/ELT in China now are about half a million teachers and over 60 million learners, which will grow to 100 million within 4 years. It is also gratifying to learn that a nation-wide promotion of English teaching and learning in primary schools and the efforts to create a more pleasant relaxing teaching and learning environment are among the central tasks for the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Centre. For these goals, helping young learners start reading as early as possible and using poetry as a resource are among the most promising areas.
As no one doubts the importance of reading in English education, I will skip the various theories on reading. However, this point must be made very clear: whether our children successfully develop the skill and habit of reading in their early years is an issue that concerns not only the children themselves but also the society and humanity in general. In our era of information and technology, in particular, information literacy is the key to learning, to independent life-long learning, to the inexhaustible treasure of human heritage and to the even more unknown future. In short, reading serves not only as access to success in life but also as a permanent ability for survival and for sustainable development. Many teachers, or learners themselves, often feel that there seems to be a 'ceiling' to their language development or achievement. And a good reading skill and habit will help break through that ceiling. Moreover, in most TEFL situations in China, reading is still the most convenient way and has the easiest access: given a couple of storybooks, a few comic strips, or a poetry album, the child can bury itself in reading, unrestricted by time or space. In a separate paper, Start Children Reading English as Early as Possible, I discuss these questions: 1. Why is reading important for children? 2. Why do we start children reading English as early as possible? 3. How do we help children read from home to school and vice versa? And the last part of the paper consists of examples such as 'My Body', 'Being Born', 'Longer and Longer' from Oxford First Encyclopedia, excepts from A World of Fairy Tales, Do you Know about the Stars? a simplified version of our childhood favourite, Robinson Crusoe,some popular English poems and Chinese classical poems translated into English.These beautifully illustrated child-friendly and easy-to-read materials, sparkling with love, humanity, knowledge and wisdom, are suitable for beginners, arousing their interests and stimulating their imagination, and developing their multiple intelligences. Let's look at this simple example from Oxford First Encyclopedia:
Chapter 1 My Body
Look at your face in the mirror.
You can see your eyes, your ears, your nose, and your mouth.
You see with your eyes.
You hear with your ears.
You smell with your nose.
And you taste with your tongue.
One or two year old toddlers, beginning to feel curious about their body,prompted by the attractive pictures, can learn their monosyllabic words easily and quickly. It is followed by
Being Born
This is a story how a baby grows.
It takes two people to make a baby——
A father and a mother - (daddy and mommy)
Babies learn quickly.
Soon they can smile and laugh,
grip with their hands, roll over and make noises.
By the age of two, they walk and talk.14
Children learn familiar words (nouns and verbs) and count numbers, which can be further exploited by innovative teachers not only as an English text but also as healthy interesting material for life-science education.
The simplified version of Robinson Crusoe, consisting of only 30 pages,with attractive pictures, definitely makes absorbing reading material for primary school children. It begins in this way,
I go to sea
I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family. At a very early age I wanted to go to sea. My father was a wise man, and he begged me not to do so. For a time I decided not to think of it any more. But one day I met a friend who was going to sea on his father's ship. He asked me to go with him. Then, without asking my father,without asking God's blessing, without any thought of the result, I went on board the ship.
The ship is lost in a storm
After a few days there came a fearful storm. The wind and waves threw the ship this way and that for twelve days. The ship was badly broken and a lot of water was coming in…… 15
Pupils should be encouraged to imitate good simple writing, like what this 5th grade boy wrote about himself:
I was born in the year 1992, in the city of Macau, of a very good family. At an early age I wanted to go to [all parts of the] world. My father was a kind and wise man. He asked me to wait until I grew up……
I am confident that with more creative effort and imagination, some pupils can even do better and achieve more.
Finally, let's explore the use of poetry in TEFL. Like Chinese poetry, English poetry is also the wealth and treasure shared by all humanity, and is an inexhaustible resource for teachers and learners of English. To begin with,children enjoy reading poetry and do not really find it as difficult as we teachers imagine. Let's compare the texts below, one being a piece of prose and the other a little poem on the same theme, with about the same language items to be learned:
Macau and Home Birds have nest
We have homes.
I am John. I'm a pupil. I live Macau is my home,
in Macau. This is my home. Where East meets West.
I have a dog. This is Peter. Go East Go East
He has a bird. It has a nest. Go West Go West
We have homes. Birds have Home is best! Macau is best!
Nests……
(Ieong, 1999)
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If the poem is accompanied by music or is presented on PowerPoint or in other multi-media ways, with the lines virtually flying onto the screen, it is pleasing to the ear, to the eye and to the joy of our children. Poetry can be read, read aloud, recited, sung and acted out and there is story and picture in poetry,all helping boost whole-person development. We Chinese have a wonderful tradition growing up reading poetry since our early years.
Moreover, many classical Chinese poems, which are already very familiar to and well liked by young Chinese learners, have been translated into English and made their way into prestigious anthologies of English poetry. Let's study a few of our heirlooms:
Thoughts on a Still Night Li Bai
Before my bed is a pool of light -
Can it be frost on the ground?
Looking up, I find the moon bright;
Bowing, in homesickness I'm drowned.
Seeing Meng Haoran Off
At Yellow Crane Tower Li Bai
My friend's left the west where the Yellow Crane towers,
River Town's veiled in green willows and red flowers.
His lonely sail is lost in boundless blue sky,
Where I see but the endless River rolling by.
Spring Morning Meng Haoran
This morn of spring in bed I'm lying,
Not to awake till birds are crying.
After one night of wind and showers,
How many are the fallen flowers!
On the Stork Tower Wang Zhihuan
The sun along the mountain bows;
The Yellow River seawards flows.
You will enjoy a grander sight
By climbing to a greater height.
Snow on the River Liu Zongyuan
From hill to hill no bird in flight;
From path to path no man in sight.
A lonely fisherman afloat
Is fishing snow in lonely boat.
These poems are quoted from the same source.16 Children can read these poems bilingually. At least the lovely rhythm and rhyming is good for learning pronunciation. Moreover, in our IT era, we can also turn them into computer games, readings with music and pictures, software products or audio-visual activities, where children can switch to Chinese or English as they like, thus benefiting from both.
All this, indeed, depends on us - creative and innovative teachers. And I have to leave this to you, as well as myself, as homework for innovation.
Notes:
1 Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, 1998; Gong, Innovative Learning: Revolution of Learning Style, 2002.
2 Ieong, Fostering Humanity: The Role of Poetry in Language Education, 2001; Zhang,Fostering Humanism and Bringing about a Profound English Education Reform, 2002.
3 See Article 9, Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region, PRC,1993.
4 See Ieong, S L, 'Rubbing Shoulders in Macau: Scenario and Prospects', in Koo R,and Ma, K T, (ed.), Macau Education, Macau: Macau Foundation, 1994, pp. 60-70,and Ieong, S L, Reflections on the Language Issues in Macau: Policies, Realities and Prospects, published by ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, 1993,ED 368 168.
5 Ieong Wan Chong (ed.), Macau 2020, Macau: Macau Development Strategy Research Centre and Macau Association of Economic Sciences, 2000, pp. 97.
6 See "Campaign to Wipe Out Chinglish", China Daily, Hong Kong Edition, 6 Dec 2002.
7 See Professor Bolton's paper, "Research on English in Hong Kong and South China",presented at a FSH seminar, the University of Macau, 2001.
8 See plenary paper, World Englishes, by Nicky Hockly at the 1st International TEFLCHINA Conference, Tonghua, Jilin, China, 12-15 August 2002.
9 Ieong, S.L.:'Rubbing Shoulders in Macau: Scenario and Prospects', in Koo R.,and Ma,H.T., (eds.), Macau Education, Macau: Macau Foundation, 1994, pp. 60-70, and see McArthur, T., A Foundation Course for Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press, pp. 104.
10 Rivers, Wilga, Speaking in Many Tongues, Cambridge University Press, pp. 18.
11 See plenary paper, The Chinese English Teachers Training Programme in the UK, by Chris Pearson at the 1 st International TEFL-CHINA Conference, Tonhua, Jilin, China,12-15 August 2002.
12 Strevens, P., New Orientations in the Teaching of English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 35.
13 Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, Jossey-Bass Inc., pp. 3.
14 See Langley, A. Oxford First Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press, 1998.
15 See Chapter 1, Robinson Crusoe, (Simplified), Longman, 1987.
16 See Yuan, Xingpei (ed.), Xu Yuanzhong translated, Classical Chinese Poems translated into English, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000.
References:
1. Bolton, Kingsley, Research on English in Hong Kong and South China,paper read at a University of Macau seminar, 2001.
2. Bray, M. et al. Higher Education in Macau: Growth and Strategic Development, Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, the University of Hong Kong, 2002.
3. Brumfit, C. J., The Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
4. Ching, C. F. (ed.) Collection of Essays on Language Teaching and Learning in Macau, Macau: Macau Social Sciences Society, (in Chinese, English and Portuguese), 1992.
5. Chomsky, Noam, 'Linguistic Theory' in Robert Nead, Jr. (ed.), Report of the Working Committee, New York: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language, 1966.
6. Doff, A., Teach English: A Training Course for Teachers, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
7. Fries, C., The Structure of English, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1952.
8. Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. An Introduction to Language, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978.
9. Gong, Chunyan, Innovative Learning: Revolution of Learning Style, Beijing:Science & Technology Publishing, 2002.
10. Halliday, M. A. K., Explorations in the Functions of Language, London:Edward Arnold, 1973.
11. Ieong, S.L., Reflections on the Language Issues in Macau: Policies, Realities and Prospects, published by ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, USA, ED 368168,1993.
12. Ieong, S.L., 'Rubbing Shoulders in Macau: Scenario and Prospects', in Koo R, and Ma, H T, (eds.), Macau Education, Macau: Macau Foundation, 1994,pp.60-70.
13. Ieong, S.L., Fostering Humanity: The Role of Poetry in Language Education, paper presented at the 8th International Literacy & Education Research Network Conference on Learning, Spetses, Greece, 4-8 July 2001, Sydney:Common Ground Publishing, at website: www.LearningConference.com and http://SylviaSaoLengIeong.Author-Site.com
14. Ieong, S.L, Start Children Reading English as Early as Possible, unpublished paper developed from a talk at the Books Exhibition 2002, Cultural Plaza,Macau, 2002.
15. McArthur, Tom, A Foundation Course for Language Teachers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
16. Nunan, David, Language Teaching Methodology, Prentice Hall, 1991.
17. Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc, 1998.
18. Rivers, Wilga, Speaking in Many Tongues, Cambridge and New York:Cambridge University Press, 1983.
19. Strevens, Peter, New Orientations in the Teaching of English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
20. Widdowson, H. G, Teaching Language as Communication, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
21. Wu, Z.L., Ching, C.F. and Ieong, S.L. (eds.), Conference Proceedings on East-West Cultural Interflow, Macau: Macau Foundation, (in Chinese,English and Portuguese), 1994.
22. Yuan, Xingpei, (ed.) Xu Yuanzhong trans. Qian Ja Shi, Classical Chinese Poems translated into English, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2000.
23. Zhang, Jianzhong, Fostering Humanism and Bringing about a Profound English Education Reform, Recommended Papers, 2002, at website:www.tefl-china.net
*Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Education,University of Macau
