An investigation into Hong Kong pre-service teachers’ and in-service teachers’ attitudes to World Englishes (WE) and their perceived benefits of WE courses in teacher-training programmes

This essay presents findings from an empirical study that adopts a mixed-methods approach attempting to investigate how pre-service and in-service teachers perceive benefits got from WE-related courses in their teacher-training programmes. It also finds the similarities and differences in the perception as well as the reasons why these similarities and differences exist.
The quantitative phase is based on 50 pre-service and 50 in-service teachers in Hong Kong. The quantitative findings suggest that generally speaking, pre-service and in-service teachers in Hong Kong have positive perceptions towards WE-related courses. A majority of the subjects claimed that they were highly benefited even though the is a discrepancy between their explicit perception and their actual attitudes towards the issue.
On the other hand, the qualitative phase is based on 5 pre-service and 3 in-service teachers in Hong Kong. The qualitative findings show that there are differences between both groups because of the difficulties faced as well as the personal English learning experiences they have.