The Education & Manpower Bureau has proposed allocating $200 million from the Language Fund to strengthen support for language education at primary and pre-primary levels.

The measures include sponsoring teachers to attend overseas immersion courses, intensive training on specific aspects of the learning and teaching of language subjects, programmes specific for professional development of pre-primary teachers, and other support measures.

Deputy Secretary for Education & Manpower Chris Wardlaw told legislators today the measures are proposed for primary and pre-primary levels as this is the most critical age for children's language development.

"On language teachers' professional development, we propose to allocate $300 million out of the injection for the continued operation of the Professional Development Incentive Grant Scheme for Language Teachers to support at least 10,000 serving teachers for their professional development in addition to the scheme's original intended coverage," he said.

Overseas immersion

Mr Wardlaw said sponsoring local primary school English teachers to take overseas immersion programmes will expose them to an authentic English language learning environment and build their capacity for continued improvement.

"We are mindful of the difficulty of releasing teachers to attend a training tour during the course of a school term, and will assess the demand before firming up the scheme. We shall also explore with teacher education institutes programmes that centre around the summer vacation or other longer school breaks during the year such as Christmas," Mr Wardlaw said, adding consultations will be conducted before the proposals are finalised.

Turning to intensive training on specific aspects of the learning and teaching of language subjects, Mr Wardlaw proposed to inject additional resources to help primary school language teachers attend intensive courses.

On professional development of pre-primary teachers, Mr Wardlaw said the qualifications, learning approaches and needs in professional development differ between kindergarten and primary school teachers.

"As such, we have proposed to develop separate programmes for strengthening the professional development of kindergarten teachers," he said.

Other measures

Mr Wardlaw said other support measures being considered are:

* facilitating mentoring or advisory services in the adoption of well-tested teaching approaches;

* promotion of language activities such as songs, stories, games, and on-line web-based learning materials, structured around the current Guidelines to Kindergartens issued by the Curriculum Development Institute;

* stipulation of more specific guidelines in language education for children at pre-primary and primary levels;

* development of exemplar teaching kits for kindergartens and nursery teachers; and,

* conducting in-depth research into language learning at an early age, possibly in relation to neuro-scientific studies, to shed light on language policy at primary and pre-primary levels.