Mind the gap: Content, pedagogy and assessment in English language arts in Hong Kong secondary schools

Concerns about the culture of high-stakes testing and its negative impact on student learning have resulted in assessment reforms in Hong Kong. At the same time, efforts are made to make English language teaching more communicative by boosting the Language Arts component in the senior secondary school curriculum. This chapter reports on a study of assessment in Language Arts. It finds little evidence of coherence between the forms of pedagogy promoted in official documents, and the type of assessment adopted in the classroom. The chapter explores some of the contextual influences that contribute to this mismatch, and suggests ways in which greater coherence might be achieved. Copyright © 2010 Sichuan University Press.