Comparing attitudes to the medium of instruction among junior and senior secondary students in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the attitude of junior and senior students of Hong Kong secondary school toward the medium of instruction. This study involved 37 senior students and 34 junior students of the same CMI secondary school. The research is quantitative in nature and data is analyzed statistically. The major findings are, firstly, both groups of students affirm with the benefits of CMI in enhancing effective learning of content subjects. However, they do not agree that CMI can effectively enhance their English ability. Second, students choose between CMI and EMI according to the status of Chinese and English in their mind, which varies with the changes of needs and challenges they face with. The results suggest that the status of Chinese is higher with the junior students. They are both strongly integratively and instrumentally orientated toward Chinese. The benefits of CMI outweigh the disadvantages it has on English learning. Therefore, junior students show a more positive attitude toward CMI. On the other hand, senior students are aware of the high demand in English at university and at work. Their needs to face the society after graduation cause them to be more instrumentally orientated toward English. Therefore, the status of English is relatively higher than Chinese among the senior students, which results in a more positive attitude toward EMI learning.