從香港普話科的特質談到師資培訓工作

香港教育學院的中、小學教師培訓課程每期都面對一個問題：來接受培訓的在職普通話教師普遍把學校普通話科看成是用普通話語音來教的中國語文科。這種取向不但不利於他們分析目前學生學習普通話存在的問題，也妨礙他們在課程中對教學方法研習的態度。要改善這個問題，就要從探討香港普通話科的特質開始，重新釐定該學科的特質。這樣教學目的訂定、教學方法的選用和教材內容的考慮才有所依據。這一連串的問題同時也是該學科一個根本的問題。 語言科的教學特質，取決於社會的語言環境和社會對這種語言人材的需求。香港跟國家其他城市不同，目前香港的語言環境還沒有把普通話當作第一語言來學習的條件。另一方面，香港的普通話科跟中國語文科是兩個不同的學科，應該有各自不同的任務和功能，這些都是本文前半部份討論的問題。本文下半部將從香港普通話科的特質討論目前師資培訓工作要解決的一些問題。
Every year at The Hong Kong Institute of Education , the training programme for secondary and primary school teachers is confronted by the same issue : teachers who are there to receive on-the-job training always regard the subject of Putonghua in their schools as equivalent to the Chinese Language subject taught in Putonghua. This approach, however, not only undermines the teachers' ability to analyse the problems that exist among their students of Putonghua, but also poses some hindrance to their own studies of instructional methodology. In order to alleviate this problem, we have to begin with understanding the Putonghua subject itself, examining and thereby defining the characteristics this subject should have. Once defined, such characteristics or properties will serve as the basis for setting teaching goals, selecting teaching methods and approaches, and determining the contents of the curriculum. All these issues actually are also fundamental issues of the Putonghua subject per se.
The properties of a language subject are determined by and large by the language environment of the society, as well as by the needs the society has for people with good communicative abilities in that language. Hong Kong is different from all other cities in China in that the present lingual environment is not conducive to having Putonghua taught as a first language in school. Besides, the Putonghua subject in Hong Kong at the moment is a separate subject which is different from the Chinese Language subject. Hence, it should have its own functions and serve different purposes. In the first half of this paper, we will study the nature of the subject of Putonghua in Hong Kong schools and establish its characteristics. In the second half, we identify and discuss the problems in the area of teacher training that we face in Hong Kong today. Copyright © 1999 香港中文大學香港教育研究所.