In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau stipulates in the curriculum document that schools should enrich English language learning and teaching through incorporating moral and civic education, and use of information technology for interactive learning. To prepare preservice teachers to meet these pressing demands, an experiential learning project was conducted to engage student teachers outside the formal curriculum to produce a series of digital stories that stress values education for primary school children. A total of 11 bachelor of education students and MATESOL students joined the project, in which they collaboratively developed 12 digital stories using online tools, such as Book Creator and Canva. Interactive learning activities were designed to accompany the digital stories to facilitate school learners to develop positive values and good character, including respect, responsibility, confidence building, problem solving, sportsmanship, friendship, caring, helpfulness, compassion, civic sense and service to others. Various evaluation methods were used to gauge the usefulness of the experiential learning project. These encompass school trials, post-lesson evaluation, student teachers’ self-reflections and interviews. The findings indicate that the experiential learning process not only enabled the participating student teachers to enrich their pedagogical knowledge and skills but also provided opportunities to enhance various generic skills, such as creativity and critical thinking. Evidence shows that experiential learning plays a valuable role in equipping student teachers with the necessary skills for the challenges in their future teaching careers. Copyright © 2023 ECLL.

古人讀書歷來文史哲不分家。通曉文學、歷史、哲學，有人為求功名利祿，也有人藉此修養身心。文史哲知識的融合，能表現個人的學養、文采、思想和立場。現代社會分工精細，中學教育已經文史分科，語文、文學、歷史均各自成科，儼如互不相干。分科的優點固然能令各個科目的教學更加聚焦，但分立的如果是選修科，而學校選擇不開辦的話，學生就難免錯過學習專科的機會，香港的中學中國歷史科正是一個典型例子。學生無緣學習中國歷史，也會減少對中華文化的認識，連帶削弱語文素養。 為促進香港學生對國情和中華文化的認識，教育局在2018/19學年落實中國歷史成為初中的獨立必修科，並於2020年9月從中一級開始逐級推行。雖然如此，中國歷史時代久遠，課程涵蓋面廣，而學校教時有限，教學無疑極具挑戰。如何能把握教學機遇，引起學生學習歷史的興趣，同時提升學生的語文及文化素養，值得教育同行深思。 在新課程的指引下，當局強調通過多元化的策略推動中國歷史教學，鼓勵教師按「政治演變」、「文化特色」及「香港發展」等主題，調適教學內容，以照顧學習差異。同時，新編的中國歷史教材陸續推出，可以反映新課程的精神能否體現。 從文史不分家的角度出發，本文將以新編的中國歷史教材為例，剖析新修訂的歷史科學習內容在字詞、文句及通篇層面的專科語文運用特色，並評價學習歷史對提升語文素養的現實意義。 Copyright © 2022 香港教育大學中國語言學系.

學習古文經典的語文教育意義毋庸置疑，在小學階段奠定古文根基，也能促進中小學的語文學習順利銜接。然而文言作品時代久遠，確實不易理解，因此容易喪失對現代讀者的吸引力，尤其是小學生。 學習動機是學習的原動力，不能引起學生興趣，教學將事倍功半。要提高文言文的閱讀教學效能，教師必須創設適合學生與文本的情景，發掘作品中的情味，才有望激發學習文言作品的動機，消除學生的畏難情緒。為此，本文將嘗試從小學生的學習心理著眼，按生活情趣、好奇貪新、浮想聯翩三條主要線索，探索香港小學常見的文言教材中，切合小學生心智成長的情味旨趣，並設想維持相關篇章學習動機的可行路徑。 Copyright © 2022 香港教育大學中國語言學系.

This study investigated learning strategies for Chinese character handwriting (CCW) among students of Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Hong Kong international schools. It first developed an inventory for identifying CCW strategies. The data obtained from the international school students showed that the most frequently used learning strategies as those related to the meaning, structure and shape of Chinese characters; the least frequently used strategies were found to be games, calligraphy, and metacognitive strategies. Then, a factor analysis revealed that two dimensions exist for CCW strategies: knowledge-based and indirect, indicating that both linguistic features of Chinese characters and the cognitive process of handwriting influence students’ employment of CCW strategies. Accordingly, suggestions for teaching approaches and improvement were provided. Copyright © 2024 The Education University of Hong Kong. All Rights Reserved.

This chapter discusses the rationales for promoting the data-driven learning (DDL) approach in Cantonese learning and teaching. Instead of relying on prescribed grammar rules stated in textbooks, it is more important for learners, through authentic and natural language data, to explore, internalize and generalize the patterns and usage of the target language. Using the Corpus of Mid-20th Century Hong Kong Cantonese developed at the Education University of Hong Kong, we illustrate the types of linguistic information that can be provided by corpora but not by traditional learning materials such as textbooks and dictionaries: Usage frequency, collocation information, authentic language examples. The DDL approach also concerns that Cantonese learning materials should be more practical and communicative. With the increasing amount of Cantonese language data available in the cyber world, it is anticipated that more Cantonese learning materials will be compiled, which can make the learning process of Cantonese more flexible, exploratory and motivating. Copyright © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Siu-lun Lee; individual chapters, the contributors.

In Hong Kong, the issue of teaching Chinese as a second language (CSL) to school children is receiving considerable attention in recent years due to the trending proportion of CSL students in classrooms. While the Hong Kong Government encourages the integration of these students into mainstream schools in which the medium of instruction is predominately Chinese, the inadequate support provided puts these school aged children in a disadvantaged position. In light of this, there is a need of developing effectual interventional strategies to support the CSL learning of these students at preschool, primary and secondary levels. This chapter introduces a new support mode, the Dynamic Enrichment Learning Mode (DELM), which has been specifically developed for an intervention programme for promoting CSL students’ proficiency in Hong Kong kindergartens. Pre-test and post-test data were collected from 146 CSL kindergarteners aged 4 to 5 years who received DELM activities (DELM group) and compared to that of 110 CSL kindergarteners of the same age group who learned Chinese by merely learning in an immersion setting (immersion group). Findings show that the DELM is more effective in promoting CSL kindergarteners’ overall Chinese proficiency levels when compared to an immersion setting. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

As varieties of the Chinese language, Mandarin and Cantonese are both tonal in nature and involve pitch cues for distinguishing characters and words. Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners often find Chinese tones difficult to grasp, especially for those at the preschool stage. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the dominant variety of Chinese for daily communication and serves as the medium of instruction in local kindergartens, whereas Mandarin is used in Chinese language teaching in international kindergartens. Children’s songs are widely used to foster preschoolers’ CSL learning in the aforementioned settings. With adequate phonological input in a pleasurable learning environment, such an approach helps facilitate tone perception, which is key to the development of prosodic competence for better facilitation of reading comprehension. However, the tone-melody mismatches in children’s songs and their negative influence on CSL learners’ tone learning have long been underestimated. This chapter looks into the problems concerning teaching CSL through children’s songs from a comparative perspective. Based on a contrastive analysis of the Mandarin and Cantonese tone systems with reference to multimodal learning, the authors recommend that teachers and curriculum developers should be more sensitive to tone-melody relationships when selecting or creating children’s songs for pedagogical purposes to better support CSL literacy development. It is also important to raise the preschoolers’ tone awareness, particularly in Cantonese-medium CSL classrooms, given the distinct tonal features of the target variety. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.