Culturally responsive education in kindergartens: Supporting non-Chinese speaking ethnic minority children in Chinese learning and social-emotional learning

Culturally responsive education in kindergartens: Supporting non-Chinese speaking ethnic minority children in Chinese learning and social-emotional learning

• Chung, Kevin Kien Hoa The Education University of Hong Kong
• Ho, Barbara Pui King The Education University of Hong Kong
• Lam, Chun Bun Ian The Education University of Hong Kong
• To-Chan, Sing Pui Tikky The Education University of Hong Kong

The 9th Asian Conference on Education & International Development (ACEID2023) (2023: Tokyo, Japan)

• N Students & Student Services
  • NO Minorities & Immigrant Students
• P Social Context of Education
  • PH Minorities & Education, Racial & Ethnic Factors

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Pre-Primary Education

In Hong Kong, around 33,000 non-Chinese speaking ethnic minority (NCS-EM) students were studying in local schools in 2019-2020, and nearly 40% were kindergarten children. However, from 2015 to 2019, the percentage of NCS-EM students admitted to government-funded postsecondary programmes remained 10% lower than that of the overall student population (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2020). Many NCS-EM students have experienced challenges in school adaptation because of difficulties with Chinese language. Studies on NCS-EM children’s problems in Chinese learning revealed that insufficient exposure to Chinese language in children’s daily living made them lag behind their Chinese-speaking peers (Oxfam et al., 2019). Even though some of them were locally born, their Chinese language proficiency, especially in recognizing Chinese characters and writing Chinese characters, remained a concern (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2018; Oxfam et al., 2019). This paper suggests immersing cultural responsiveness in support of NCS-EM children in learning Chinese language and social-emotional skills. The focus will be on teacher professional development, curriculum planning, and learning and teaching. Practical suggestions derived from a five-year Hong Kong based ‘C-for-Chinese@JC’ Project, which underscores the use of culturally responsive education benchmarks in kindergartens, are given. Guidelines for providing support to NCS-EM children for building up a learning environment with equity will be proposed. Copyright © 2023 ACEID.

Paper presented at The 9th Asian Conference on Education & International Development (ACEID2023), Tokyo, Japan.

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/f61ac867

2023-08-10