Mainland Chinese research postgraduate students' attitudes to using English in an English-medium university in Hong Kong

Abstract

 This study explored a group of mainland Chinese research postgraduate students’ attitudes to using English in their current academic and daily lives in Hong Kong. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. An interview survey with seven participants was carried out to seek in-depth information about participants’ perceptions of using English in Hong Kong. Based on the major themes found in the preliminary analysis of the interview survey, an online questionnaire survey was designed and sent out to investigate a much larger group of mainland research students' English language use experiences in Hong Kong. The results revealed that this group of students generally had positive attitudes to using English in their academic lives in Hong Kong while had relatively negative attitudes to their experiences of daily English language use. Their perceptions of the English of different groups of people in Hong Kong were varied although they all opined that English was an important language in the educational, commercial and other formal settings in Hong Kong. The pedagogical implications for mainland research students, their academic supervisors and university language policy makers are discussed and future research directions are suggested.