Media

Poor English : Why Should Hong Kong Care?

31 Aug 2010

 

China has become a major player in global business, and Hong Kong and its people are a major factor in the Chinese economy.  Yet Hong Kong's grasp of English, the international language of commerce, is embarrassingly poor.  Barry Kalb, a veteran journalist and journalism lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, discusses the situation and what is needed to rectify it.  Mr. Kalb is the author of the recently published You Can Write Better English.

The book talk is co-organized by the Hong Kong University Libraries' Reading Club and Project for Public Culture of Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU.

Details :

Speaker:  Mr Barry Kalb, Honorary Lecturer, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU

Moderator: Professor Ying Chan, Director, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU

Date:             9 September 2010 (Thursday)
Time:            7:15 pm - 9:00 pm
Venue:          Special Collections, 1/F, Main Library, HKU
Language:    English

Online registration: http://lib.hku.hk/friends/reading_club/bt2010_9.html

About the author:
Barry Kalb has taught reporting and news writing at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre since 2005, emphasizing the basics of good English writing. His work with hundreds of Chinese from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia has given him an insight into the problems native Chinese speakers encounter when trying to write English. Kalb started his journalism career in Washington, D.C., in 1967.  He was a CBS News correspondent in Hong Kong, then joined TIME Magazine as Eastern Europe bureau chief, and later moved with TIME to Rome, New York and back to Hong Kong. From 2002 to 2007 he served as an editor in the Voice of America's Hong Kong bureau.

About the book :
English is the language of international commerce and communication. Young professionals working in Hong Kong and doing business with the rest of the world are more likely to conduct that business in English than in any other language, and employers nowadays are accordingly looking for people with a good level of English. You Can Write Better English is a practical handbook to help improve written English, with special focus on mistakes native Chinese speakers routinely make when writing in the language. http://www.hkupress.org/book/9789881946010.htm

For enquiries, please contact Ms. Velentina Ma, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU (Tel: 2219 4012) or Ms Carmen Tsang, Hong Kong University Libraries (Tel : 2859 2211)