Macao students' attitudes toward English: A post-1999 survey

This paper describes a survey that assessed the attitudes toward English among university students in Macao five years after it reunited with the People's Republic of China and ceased to be a Portuguese colony. A group of 144 Macao-born and 197 Mainland-born Chinese students studying in a university in Macao were surveyed using a 22-item questionnaire. The results reveal students' strong motivation to learn English and readiness to use English as a medium of instruction. Mean comparisons using t-tests indicate that the Macao-born students are, compared to their Mainland-born counterparts, less comfortable in speaking English and less certain of whether or not Portuguese is superior to English. These differences might lie partly in the remaining influence of Portuguese as the sole official language of Macao over the past four centuries and partly in the lack of long-term language policy and English learning campaigns in Macao.