The English Language curriculum has always attached high importance to the learning and teaching of vocabulary building skills. The Curriculum Guides prepared by the Curriculum Development Council (CDC) encourage teachers to raise students’ awareness of how words are formed and related to one another, through explaining lexical relations such as synonyms, antonyms and collocations, and teaching idiomatic uses of words. The CDC Curriculum Guides also identify topics and themes that are intended to provide contexts for language use. Teachers are encouraged to select the vocabulary items that are most appropriate for their students.
There is increasing evidence that many secondary school graduates will need a much larger vocabulary than they have already developed if they are to undertake further study. In fact, a recent study at the Chinese University of Hong Kong concluded that the majority of school leavers entering undergraduate study know fewer than 3,000 English words (Chiu 2005). International research into the English language proficiency of students studying degree courses through the medium of English has suggested that a vocabulary size of about 5,000 words is necessary for students to cope with the demands of reading academic texts in English (Laufer 1989 and 1992). In order to promote higher English vocabulary targets for Hong Kong school leavers, the Education Bureau, in collaboration with the English Language Teaching Unit of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has undertaken a study of the vocabulary needs of primary and secondary students in Hong Kong, with a view to producing English vocabulary lists for Basic Education and Senior Secondary Education.
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İEnglish Language Education Section, Curriculum Development Institute, Education Bureau, The Hong Kong SAR, All rights reserved