Maria English Society came into being in 1998, organized by several English
language scholars and the directors of Maria College.  Everyone of them has
more than 40-year experience of language research under a fiery passion
for English.  They devoted effort and paid out money just for the selfless
purpose of promoting the standard of the English language in Hong Kong.

We’ll drive well if we know what bad driving is – don’t drive too close to the car before you, don’t drive fast on a blind bend, and so on. Likewise, to write good English, we can start with an understanding of what bad English is so as to avoid the errors committed by bad writers.

In the past decades we have held many public contests such as essay composition competitions and error detection contests.  Over 2 million dollars has been awarded to the elites of the English language masters.  They pointed out, with authority, the mistakes in the writing of the professors of the English language, in the Language Benchmark Assessment for teachers of the HK Examination Authority, in the Article 23 Consultation Document, and in the legal papers of the Government and so on.

Since our first contest was held in 1998, we have succeeded to arouse the public’s
awareness of the serious language problems in Hong Kong, and the following
have come to our knowledge:

1. The present situation in the English language field is that the blind (the professors and the Examination Authority) are still leading the blind (students).
   
   
2. Examination results cannot be used as a yardstick to measure one's proficiency in English as  we can see from the desperate English language skills of our university graduates.
   
   
3. Knowledge of the language and not examination oriented should be the goal of learning.  When people are really competent in English, any kind of examinations or daily work should pose no problems to them at all.

When complaints about falling standards of the language are heard around, and when criticizing the current usage is a favorite pastime everywhere, it is high time that we took actions to improve our English now.

With knowledge oriented in mind and understanding of learners’ faults in the use of the language, Maria English Society, under the sponsorship of Maria College, has developed comprehensive English courses.  Learners of all levels will be guided to success step by step in a sure way.