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.

Effective teaching requires teachers to have shared understanding with learners. If learners see the world in a way different from that of the teacher, the teacher may not be able to make connections with the learners, thus failing to convey the instructional content to them. Along this line, our project adopted the notion of ‘the pedagogy of learning’ and involved iterative cycles of research on children’s ways of seeing and the professional development of kindergarten teachers. In terms of research, we investigated the qualitatively different ways of seeing of children as manifested by the errors in the spoken words they used in everyday conversations in kindergartens while they learned to speak. Over the three years of the project, we had engaged a total of 254 in-service kindergarten teachers in observing children’s errors in their own kindergartens. A pool of 788 children’s errors was collected and 5 categories of errors were inductively identified: sound imitation (A), non-existent combination of characters from words (B), inappropriate use of the spoken forms of words (C), use of characters with inaccurate meanings (D), and creative exploitation of characters with relevant meanings (E). Concerning professional development of in-service kindergarten teachers, we presented the five categories of errors to the teachers in our professional development programmes to explore what they needed to know to teach children to correct each of the categories of errors and to use the appropriate spoken words. The presentation generated stimulating discussion among the teachers, inducing them to reflect upon their understanding of the Chinese language and their scientific knowledge about the world. On the whole, this project put forth the positive value of children’s errors and called attention to the potential contribution of the notion of the pedagogy of learning in improving the teaching of teachers for children to learn Chinese.有效的教學要求教師與學生有共同的理解，如果學生理解事物的方式與教師的不同，教師難以明白學生的想法

The study was conducted under the backdrop of the increasing demand of Mandarin-learning in Scotland and Hong Kong. Inspired by Gardner’s (2010) socio-educational model, this study is the first to compare students’ integrative motivation towards learning Mandarin under the two contexts. The data was obtained from a total of 132 secondary school students (54 from Hong Kong, and 78 from Scotland) through questionnaires. It also aimed to examine the robustness and culture-specific applicability of the model. Due to the geographical proximity and cultural similarity to Chinese, the integrativeness of non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students in Hong Kong is expected to be relatively higher compared to the students in Scotland. However, the results showed that NCS students displayed lower integrative motivation than students in Scotland. The significant difference we identified lay upon one of the constructs - fear of assimilation. This unexpected phenomenon could invite more in-depth studies on factors affecting integrative motivation in learning Mandarin.漢語作為第二語言的學習日益普及，無論是香港的非華語學生，或是全球的「漢語熱」，都顯示需求日益增長。本研究以Gardner（2010）的社會教育模式為理論基礎，比較了兩種語境下學生學習普通話的綜合動機。 是次研究的數據來自132 名中學生（54 名香港非華語學生，78 名蘇格蘭本地學生）的問卷調查結果。本研究還旨在了解社會教育模型在特定文化的適用性。由於香港地理上相鄰內地，文化亦相似，所以香港非華語學生的綜合性預期會比蘇格蘭的學生高。然而，結果卻顯示非華語學生的綜合動機較蘇格蘭學生為低。我們發現的顯著差異在於其中一個建構因素─對同化的恐懼。這個現象能讓我們對綜合動機及跨文化的因素進行更深入的研究。 Copyright © 2021 香港教育大學中國語言學系、哥倫比亞大學中文部、中華書局（香港）有限公司.

Chinese is a tone language, i.e., pitch cues are used to distinguish different lexical meanings. Chinese tones are important but difficult for foreign learners who acquire Chinese as a second language (L2). This paper provided a systematic discussion on teaching methods, including the teaching methods and materials as well as the teaching sequence of Chinese tones. Based on the tone categories and pitch features of Chinese tones, this paper proposes several effective methods of teaching tones to second language learners. From the perspective of tone categories, there are two methods to enhance tone teaching: (1) applying minimal pairs, which consist of same segments of consonants and vowels but different tones; (2) applying meaningful phrases in the tone order. From the perspective of pitch features, there are three effective methods for tone teaching: (1) utilizing the similarities between musical tones and linguistic tones; (2) utilizing the visual assistance of pitch contours; (3) utilizing multimedia assistance of simple acoustic measurement, which can be realized by a free software called Praat. In addition to tones in isolated citation form, the teaching sequence for tones in non-canonical forms are also discussed. The teaching materials and methods proposed in this paper can help to enhance the efficiency of teaching Chinese tones to L2 learners.漢語的一個顯著特點是聲調語言，這在對外漢語教學中既是重點也是難點。本文系統地探討了對外漢語聲調教學的方法，包括教學中可使用的材料、手段以及注意事項等。從漢語聲調本身的特點出發，有兩種教學方法可以應用：第一，巧用聲調的最小語音配對，通過辨識詞義和反復朗讀讓留學生熟習國語的四個聲調。第二，巧用按聲調順序排列的詞組或成語，幫助留學生記憶和熟習漢語的聲調。若從音高的特性和呈現方式出發，以下幾種方法也可以幫助留學生掌握漢語的聲調：第一，巧用音樂音高或語調音高和聲調音高的耦合訓練學生的聲調聽辨能力。第二，巧用聲調音高曲線的視覺形象，幫助留學生掌握漢語聲調的調高和調形。第三，巧用簡單的語音測量（在免費軟體PRAAT 下完成）輔助聲調教學。除了標準字調的教學，本文還探討了變調的教學。本文提出的教學資料和方法，能幫助二語學習者更有效地學習漢語的聲調。 Copyright © 2019 The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK).

The greatest difficulty in educating pre-service teachers is cultivating their ability to reflect on the learning in course work and apply this reflection in their teaching. Many academic articles have shown that organised learning portfolios can help pre-service teachers reflect and improve their teaching. This study focused on 20 pre-service teachers who studied the Chinese Language Teaching Methodology I module of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). They were asked to develop organized learning portfolios for use in their study programme (the first phase) and during field experience when they practise teaching (the second phase). The aim of the study was to explore the content of pre-service teachers’ learning portfolios. The research methodology focused on document analyses of artefacts and reflection reports in the portfolios. The study found that the learning portfolios could help teacher educators understand what the pre-service teachers had learnt in the lessons and the problems they encountered. In teaching reading, most pre-service teachers grasped how to help students understand the content of the passages, vocabulary, and sentence structure. However, they still lacked confidence in teaching different writing skills and rhetoric, and helping students deepen their understanding of 146 passages. The study also found the pre-service teachers’ reflections were generally limited to analysing the strengths and weaknesses of lessons and seldom included suggestions for improving future practice.教師培訓課程最大的困艱是培養準教師如何將課堂所學應用在實際教學中，如何幫助他們從反思中學習。很多文獻指出組織學習檔案能幫助準教師反思，改善教學。本研究的研究對像是20 名在香港教育大學修讀「中國語文教學法 I」的中文科準教師，他們須在大學課堂 (第一階段) 和實習期間 (第二階段) 建立學習檔案。研究旨在分析和探討準教師的學習檔案內容。研究方法採用檔分析，分析檔案中的顯證和反思報告。研究發現學習檔案能幫助導師暸解準教師的課堂所學和實踐教學時遇到的問題。準教師能掌握讀文教學中的理解課文，釋詞和句式的教法，但部分準教師對形式和內容深究教學仍欠信心。研究又指出準教師的反思只側重分析教學的優點和不足，較缺乏提出改善的建議。 Copyright © 2018 The Education University of Hong Kong.