Teaching literature to English-speaking students in Hong Kong
Subtitle: an analysis of interviews with five international school teachers.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 155
Subjects: English literature -- Study and teaching -- China -- Hong Kong.; Private schools -- China -- Hong Kong.
Description: This thesis study explores how literature in English is taught to secondary students in Hong Kong's international schools. Transcripts of 2 sets of one-on-one interviews with 5 English teachers and 1 focus group form the basis for the analysis. Data were collected over a one-year period from 5 English teachers in different international high schools. A qualitative approach was employed to find common themes in teaching practices. These commonalities were then analyzed and positioned within theories that frame the teaching of literature in English worldwide, including reader response theory, post-colonialism, and multiculturalism.The results from these interviews reveal that these teachers regard their students' identities as open and flexible, particularly when responding to literary texts. Their students' 'inner focus of attention' and freedom to choose from a variety of cultural repertoires allows for meaning making at the local level. Likewise, greater value can be given to cultural 'misreadings' of texts in these settings, while aesthetic judgments can be unmoored from notions of universality. Findings of this study point the direction towards teacher practices which are focused on authentic assessment and individual student response, and which engage socio-cultural questions of identity, authority and voice in more problematized ways. Discussions such as these will shape practices which better engage and interpret the implications of globalization and increasing cultural migration and which, as a result, contribute to the creation of new meanings in classrooms around the world where literature in English is taught.Hong Kong offered a unique research opportunity because of its post-colonial setting situated at a complex historical juncture in its relationship with mainland China. The city represents a vital example of a new kind of postculture. Hong Kong also supports an educational environment infused with Confucian values. Asian students from diverse cultural backgrounds and with multilingual abilities are increasingly populating international schools in the region. Still, literary works from the western canon are mainstays of the secondary English curriculum. Therefore, questions of what texts to teach and how best to teach them constitute a particular challenge for teachers of English.
Notes: Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-06, Section: A, page: 2088.