Hundreds of people pledged to promote the learning and use of English as the Standing Committee on Language Education & Research launches its first English Festival today.

Funded by the Language Fund, the English Festival will feature seven different activities in the coming two months and has appointed aspiring young artists Mandy Cho and Alex Fong as ambassadors.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, the festival organising committee chairman Stephen Chan said the English Festival 2005 is a new initiative to raise public interest in the learning and use of English through a variety of activities targeted at students as well as the general public of different age groups and educational background.

He said there is certainly something for everyone and encouraged students and the public to participate in the festival activities.

One-minute English

TV programme series "One-minute English" produced by the Television Broadcasts Limited will be launched on TVB Jade Channel at 11.05pm on Monday.

Festival activities already launched earlier this school year include "English Play Stations", a series of English workshops for young children organised by the Tsung Tsin Primary School and Kindergarten, and "Momentum -The Rising Bunch", a year-long programme comprising debating, word games and poetry writing competitions for Chinese middle school students organised by the Association of Hong Kong Chinese Middle Schools.

Other activities to come include:

*"Interacting in Hong Kong - A Theatrical Learning Experience" - interactive English drama performances and workshops by the British Council;

*"Skipping Rhymes - Jumping Jive" - a competition on skipping with rhymes for Primary Three to Five students by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators; and,

*"Shakespeare-rama: A Midsummer Night's Dream" - drama performances by primary students by Shakespeare4All.

For more details, click here.