Interviewee's thoughts concerning HK Education & Cantonese

To better understand the problems and challenges that the Filipino community in Hong Kong are facing in regards to learning the local language, it is important to first look at the issue from their point of view. We have found that all three of our participants expressed a strong desire to learn Cantonese but somehow the Hong Kong educational system have not managed to teach the language in a successful manner to local minorities. They explained that when they were younger, they did not really understand the importance of learning Cantonese because at school, the majority of their classmates and friends were like them, South Asians who spoke English in addition to a language from their country of origin and communicating with each other was never really a problem. They also had this strong preconception that Hong Kong is an international city and everyone is supposed to be able to speak English. Once they entered the work force, however, they soon realized that this was not exactly the case and not knowing Cantonese proved to be a language barrier.

They gave us some insight into how to make Cantonese easier to learn for local minorities which include motivating students and helping them realize that Cantonese will be a great advantage in their futures - if not crucial.  For this reason, they also thought it was important to have passionate and engaging teachers so as to make the classes more interactive because they were often disappointed by teachers who simply read out from a textbook.  They also suggested that having a teacher who is a native speaker of Tagalog could prove to be better-able in teaching Cantonese efficiently because they would understand what difficulties Filipino students face when learning Chinese. They also expressed that since Chinese characters are harder to memorize, more time, patience and exercises should be given to reinforce previously learned material.