Teaching and assessing EIL vocabulary in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of the outer circle regions in Kachru s (The other tongue: English across cultures. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1982) threeconcentric- circle model. It is also a bi-literate (Chinese and English) and trilingual (Cantonese, Putonghua, and English) region where English is one of the official languages. English is regarded as an international language in Hong Kong, based on McKay s (Teaching English as an international language: Rethinking goals and approaches. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, p 5, 2002) definition that EIL is a language of wider communication both among individuals from different countries and between individuals from one country . Teaching and assessing English vocabulary in such a context requires teachers and learners to be aware of the global and local cultural conceptualizations (Sharitian 2011) involved in the English word formation processes and lexical relations. Tomlinson (Which test of which English and why? In: Kirkpatrick A ( ed) The Routledge handbook of world Englishes. Routledge, London/New York, p 610, 2010) proposes learnercentred criteria, including both universal criteria and local criteria in English teaching and assessment. Kirkpatrick (World Englishes: Implications for international communication and English language teaching. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 195, 2007) summarizes a set of requirements for ELT teachers who wish to work in outer and expanding circle countries. These recent developments in ELT have implications for vocabulary teaching and assessment in Hong Kong. In this paper, I shall take EIL as a theoretical framework and reflect critically on the principles of ElL vocabulary teaching, and strategies for vocabulary learning in relation to the local linguistic landscape and learners mindscape in Hong Kong.