Jane’s capstone topic – the intelligibility of Hong Kong English – is to some extent quite difficult. Despite this, she was able to read critically and analyze, summarize, and synthesize the findings of a number of journal articles about Hong Kong English. She used them to construct a data collection survey that she gave to ten teachers of English at varying levels (primary, secondary, tertiary). After collecting her own data, she in turn compared her data against the synthesis from her readings, in order to better understand which features of HKE should be focused on in terms of instruction at the three levels of English education in Hong Kong. Her project was also linked directly to her own vocational goal of becoming a speech therapist in Hong Kong. A very impressive project for an undergraduate student!

This project attempts to identify the problematic features of Hong Kong English, followed by suggestion of pedagogy to help people improve their speech. This research is mainly comprised of three parts: literature reviews, interviews, and pedagogical suggestions. For the first part, I have identified the problematic features of Hong Kong English from literature reviews and summarized linguists’ opinions on whether the features affect intelligibility. Following that, I had conducted interviews with teachers to find out their opinions on Hong Kong English and intelligibility, so that I can compare and contrast these results from both linguists and teachers to spot some general trends. Finally, after looking at the problematic features, pedagogical practices would be suggested to correct the problems. It brings pedagogical implications to English teachers in Hong Kong, as well as insights to researches of Hong Kong English.

The relationship between this project and my post-degree plan is that it helped me better understand the influential factors that affect the intelligibility of Hong Kong English. Besides, it trained me to think alike to a speech therapist. Throughout the process of doing this project, I have been doing what a speech therapist has to do— identifying problems and suggesting pedagogy.