Bulletin Summer 1979

First Language and Second Language (English Summary) By Professor D.C Lau We are all concerned about the progressive lowering of language standards amongst school pupils in Hong Kong. The purpose of this Symposium is to discuss the problem and see if we can come up with any ideas which will help to improve the situation. I wish to discuss the problem in connexion with the teaching of Chinese and to put forth some personal views with the hope that they may provoke discussion among participants. I I think it is important to draw a distinction between first language and second language. The methods appropriate to the teaching of the one are very different from that appropriate to the other. There are certain conditions enjoyed by the learning of the first language which are, at least partially, absent in the learning of a second language. First, when a child learns his first language, his language potential is in a most pliable state, something which will never happen again. Second, the child is normally in a uni-language environment where he is exposed to the language all the time. In contrast, when a person comes to learn his second language, his language learning potential is, to a greater or lesser degree, less pliable. Any feature of the second language which is different from the first will have to be mastered with conscious effort, the degree of success depending on how gifted the person is. He is bound to be older in age than when he learned his first language. Lastly, and perhaps, most important of all, he is usually in an environment where exposure to the second language is limited. Given these differences, to treat a second language as if it were a first language is bound to lead to unsatisfactory results. II In Hong Kong over 99% of school children have Cantonese as their first language. This means that not only English should be taught as a second language, but, for pedagogical purposes, pu tong hua/ pai hua wen as well. The implications are that in the teaching of this combination of pu tong hua and pai hua wen methods appropriate to the teaching of second languages should be used. In other words, the knowledge of the first language must be fully exploited. Let us divide a language into three component sounds, grammar and vocabulary. It would mean that sounds of the second language will be taught on the basis of the sounds in the first language with which the pupil is already familiar. Similarly, grammatical structure of the second language must be explained in terms of the grammar of the first language. The teaching of grammar is at the moment not fashionable, but I should like to remind the audience that in matters of education what is fashionable need not be sound and one must have the courage of one's convictions. What I am advocating is not only that we should teach the grammar of pai hua wen but also that we should teach this through a contrastive approach. In order to do that we must first investigate Cantonese grammar, a subject which is still largely unexplored. Once we have investigated Cantonese grammar not only can we do a contrastive study of Cantonese and pu tong hua but of Cantonese and English as well. Finally, there is the problem of vocabulary. This is, perhaps, the most difficult of the three components. With a second language there must be areas to which the pupil is practically never exposed. For instance, how many people who are considered competent in speaking pu tong hua and writing pai hua wen can speak or write, without difficulty, about matters pertaining to the kitchen? In recognized languages, one can at least resort to bilingual dictiona But in the case of Cantonese, being a mere dialect, there is no such aid. There is, therefore, an urgent need to compile aCantonese-paihau dicti so that the pupil when faced with something he can say in Cantonese has a reference work he can turn to to find the pai hua equivalent. To a lesser degree a dictionary giving Cantonese equivalents to pai hua expressions will also be useful. III I am in favour of teaching pu tong hua. The correct pronunciation of a language is an integral part of that 12