A Case study : the teaching strategies used for discipline-based study in English

The rapid growth of economic globalization has resulted in a fastening pace of internationalisation of higher education in Hong Kong. Since the hand-over in 1997, Hong Kong's universities have been attracting an increasing number of Mainland students to undertake English studies. In spite of a remarkable social change and close connections to the Chinese education system, Hong Kong has still more or less maintained a British-style higher education system which is reflected in the fact that English-medium education and Western-oriented pedagogy are widely accepted. Research has been conducted on both local Hong Kong and Mainland students' strategies of learning English, but limited research is concerned with lecturers' pedagogical practices in teaching disciplinary studies of English, although language teaching methods for Special Purposes in Hong Kong have long been discussed. This study attempted to identify teaching strategies used in the English Department at a university in Hong Kong. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used. The findings revealed various teaching strategies and elicited responses from the two sub-cultural groups of students. The study focused on the students' views on higher education in Hong Kong and therefore it should make a potential contribution to the enhancement of teaching and learning at most institutions in Hong Kong. It is also of significance to quality learning and teaching in universities other than those in Hong Kong in the context of internationalization.12 page(s