After the change of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to People’s Republic of China, Mandarin has become increasingly important in Hong Kong society. However, it is observed that many native Cantonese speakers have problems mastering Mandarin tones despite the less complex tonal system. This study attempts to investigate the Mandarin tonal error patterns made by Hong Kong learners and the possible causes for these errors. A reading aloud test and a follow-up interview were designed to collect the data. The findings of the study show that a large number of students were confused about Mandarin tones and found them difficult to master, especially between tone 1 and tone 4 and tone 2 and tone 3. All the participants made these two mistakes in the test. This study hypothesizes that L1 negative transfer is the key factor that helps Cantonese speaking learners’ ability to establish a new tone in the L2. However, the reason for participants’ tonal mistakes is not due to one single cause; instead, the errors are caused by multiple factors, including lack of tonal knowledge, incomplete tonal acquisition, and tonal errors explained by the Speech Learning Model. Copyright © 2021 John Benjamins Publishing Company.

遊戲教學法在國際漢語教學的課堂操練中能引起學生興趣，具帶動作用。教師話語對遊戲的應用質量有關鍵性影響，但目前針對課堂遊戲教師用語的研究並不多見。故本文以遊戲教學法設計詞彙教學，錄製準教師的教學視頻，並轉寫教學話語，從話語量、話語類型和話語策略等方面進行分析，討論遊戲教學中教師應如何利用話語帶動課堂操練，並針對準教師在模擬教學中存在的問題提出改進建議，為提高準教師教學話語質量以及國際漢語師資培訓作參考。The game-based approach can arouse learners’ interests in international Chinese teaching and improve teaching efficiency. Teacher talk has a key impact on the application of games, but there are few studies on it in classroom games. This paper uses the game-based approach to design vocabulary teaching, recorded the classroom teaching conducted by a pre-service teacher, and transcribed the video into texts. In view of the problems existing in the simulation teaching, this paper puts forward some suggestions, which can be used for improving the discourse quality of pre-service teachers and as a reference for teacher training in international Chinese teaching. Copyright © 2020 香港中文大學中國文化硏究所吳多泰中國語文硏究中心.

自教改以來，學校都建立了同儕備課及觀課的專業發展文化，期望教師互相學習、共同成長，然而，研究員發現當備課和觀課恆常化之後，往往流於形式和技術性討論，對於提升學與教質量的效能不彰。研究員嘗試在一所小學的中文科引入課堂學習研究的模式進行備課和觀課，從學習困難難點出發，分析學習內容及設計教學，並進行有系統的觀課、交流和反思，探討課堂學習研究對備課和觀課成效的影響，並認為提升教學滿足感和發展校本教研模式可以成為未來持續發展的關鍵。Since the reform of education, schools have formed a mode of professional development in collaborative lesson preparation and peer lesson observation with the expectation for creating the atmosphere of mutual learning and professional development. However, researchers have found that when lesson preparation and lesson observation become a usual practice in schools, it may hinder the effectiveness of professional development. Researchers attempt to incorporate the lesson study method in Chinese Language lessons to enforce collaborative lesson preparation and peer lesson observation. Based on the perspective of learning difficulties, the research team analyzed the teaching content and lesson plans, and conducted systematic lesson observation, communication and reflection in order to explore the effectiveness of using learning study model in lesson preparation and lesson observation. The team found that enhancing teaching satisfaction and developing a school-based learning study model could be a key to future sustainable development. Copyright © 2020 香港教師中心.

本研究採用質性研究法，主要針對幼稚園階段中文作為第二語言的課程研究，對象是香港某（IB）學校（幼稚園），旨在探討以圖畫書為媒介之幼兒中文課程，在 IB-PYP（Primary Years Program, 簡稱PYP）項目中實施的歷程、成效以及遇到的困難。透過課堂觀察、教師訪談、幼兒作品蒐集資料，進行歸納和分析。研究結果如下：1. 圖畫書是IB-PYP項目探究的工具，亦是引導主題概念的形成及發展探究歷程的重要資源，從而激發幼兒學習中文的興趣。2. 藉由圖畫書進行探究式的中文學習模式，可幫助幼兒運用語言進行探索與表達，幼兒亦會及時反思和做出結論，從而發展出各自獨特的創意書寫行為。3. IB-PYP項目主題課程的規劃與圖畫書的選擇，以及實施主題課程中的教學策略，是教師在IB-PYP項目教学中遇到的主要問題。This research adopts a qualitative research method, mainly focusing on the curriculum study of Chinese as a second language. The target group is one of the Hong Kong (IB) schools (kindergarten). The study aims to explore the effectiveness and difficulties of implementing (Primary Years Program, PYP for short). Through classroom observations, teacher interviews, and children’s works, information has been collected for induction and analysis. The findings are as follows:1. Using picture books is the investigation tools in IP-PYP project. Picture books are the significant assets in children development which stimulates children’s interest in learning Chinese.2. Inquiry learning through picture books can help children effectively use language for expression. Children can also do reflection and make the summary in an instant way, also gradually develop their own creative writing language.3. The choice of picture books, the plan and the execution of IB-PYB project are the common obstacles that teachers may encounter. Copyright © 2020 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.

培養學生高層次閱讀能力，是當前閱讀教學的重要目標，對於小學四年級學生而言尤爲重要，因他們將從「學會閱讀」進入「從閱讀中學習」的階段。過往有不少閱讀策略教學研究，但較少研究聚焦於分析它對提升學生高層次閱讀能力的作用。本研究邀請六所香港本地小學參與研究，在四年級開展教學實驗，實驗班193人，控制班196人，總計389人。實驗班一年中學習六項閱讀策略，控制班無特別安排。對比閱讀前後測結果發現，實驗班成績較控制班進步顯著更大，說明閱讀策略教學可顯著地提升學生高層次閱讀能力。然而，研究也發現，實驗班學生只有在「選取語句」「聯繫經驗」「自提問題」三項策略的應用上有顯著改進。教師教學中出現的一些困難需採取措施加以克服，這凸顯閱讀策略教學成效的複雜性。研究結果可爲將來閱讀教學設計、教師專業發展提供參考。It has long been recognized an important target to develop primary students’ higher-level reading abilities, which is especially true for primary 4 students as they are experiencing the transition from “learn to read” to “read to learn”. Although a large abundant of research have been done on reading strategy, fewer research have focused on its effect on higher level ability. This study has invited six local primary schools to attend a quasi-experiment. Participants were a total of 389 primary 4 students from these schools. Among them, 193 students were classified to experimental classes for which a one-year long intervention of reading strategy instruction was provided, while the remaining 196 students were classified to controlled classes without special arrangement. The results showed that experimental students gained significant higher improvement in reading comprehension performance compared to their controlled counterparts, indicating the positive effect of reading strategy on developing students’ higher-level ability. However, it has also been found that only three out of six taught reading strategy were applied more frequently than before, i.e., selecting sentences, integrating prior experience and self-questioning. Besides, teachers’ concerns were also raised. These suggested the complexity in teaching reading strategy. Nevertheless, findings of this study could be referred to when planning lessons and designing teacher professional development programs in further study. Copyright © 2020 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.

The way culturally responsive teaching is employed in school settings in non-Western contexts is unclear. The question of how to teach Chinese effectively to ethnic minority (EM) children in Hong Kong has recently attracted much attention because their generally low level of Chinese language proficiency hinders their education and social integration. This study investigated teachers’ competence in utilizing culturally responsive teaching to teach Chinese to EM children in kindergartens. Focus group interviews were conducted with 43 teachers from 20 kindergartens. The results showed that teachers from kindergartens with a high concentration of EM children were more competent in adapting their teaching methods to cater for EM children’s learning styles and educational needs. However, teachers from low concentration kindergartens were less competent in incorporating multicultural elements in curriculum design and teaching materials. They demonstrated a more monocultural mindset in teaching Chinese to EM children. Teachers from high concentration kindergartens developed a better understanding of EM cultures, were more caring and had higher expectations of EM children. Implications for teacher education, school level and policy were discussed. Copyright © 2021 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

The present study examined the contributions of vocabulary knowledge, syntactic skills, and oral narrative skills to sentence reading comprehension among Chinese junior elementary school children. Various language and reading measures were administered to 85 Chinese normally-achieving children at Grades 2 and 3 in Hong Kong. Results showed that vocabulary knowledge and oral narrative skills contributed significantly to word order skills, an important syntactic skill in Chinese. Vocabulary knowledge contributed to word recognition directly and contributed to sentence comprehension indirectly through word recognition and syntactic skills; and syntactic skills contributed to sentence comprehension directly. These findings suggest that while vocabulary knowledge is important for Chinese word reading, syntactic word order plays a central role in Chinese sentence comprehension. The implications of these findings for our theoretical understanding of the Simple View of Reading, as well as reading instruction, will be discussed. Copyright © 2020 Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada.

“Hong Kong and Taiwan adopt the same standard of traditional Chinese characters.” “Characters are pronounced only in those ways specified in the dictionary.” These are some simplistic notions that teachers commonly hold about the standard of correctness of characters. But if we closely examine the actual usage of characters in everyday practice, there exists subtle variants of the characters. This paper reports on the results of our project to identify linguistic variation in characters for raising teachers’ awareness in a teacher education course. Our project focused on those characters in the curriculum and, by gathering multiple sources of data, endeavored to find out what categories of variation existed in these characters. Two such categories of variation, namely, variation in written form and variation in stroke order, are explained in full detail. These results have practical implications to teaching since problems often arise when children adopt a variant of characters different from that of the teachers. Knowledge about possible variants of characters is thus necessary for teachers to appropriately respond to the children. Multiple standards, which teachers should interpret as helpful references rather than dogmatic rules, are recommended. We conclude the paper with suggestions for future research on practical linguistic knowledge for teachers. Copyright © 2020 Centre for Language Studies, National University of Singapore

Background: Studies have shown that word dictation and syntactic skills are significant predictors of written composition performance among Chinese children in elementary grades. However, there is a paucity of research on the bidirectional relationships between these two cognitive‐linguistic skills (i.e., word dictation and syntactic skills) and Chinese writing skills. Methods: This paper reports the findings of a 1‐year longitudinal study tracking the developmental patterns of Chinese writing among students in Grades 3 and 5 in Hong Kong. The participants were administered tasks involving cognitive‐linguistic skills (working memory, word dictation and syntactic skills) and writing skills (narrative writing and expository writing). Results: Multiple regression analysis revealed that word dictation and syntactic skills in Grades 3 and 5 were significant longitudinal predictors of Chinese written composition performance in Grade 4 and Grade 6. Syntactic skills, but not word dictation, contributed a significant amount of unique variance to writing performance after controlling for the autoregressor effect of writing. The results also showed that written composition performance in Grades 3 and 5 contributed unique variance to individual differences in syntactic skills in Grades 4 and 6, after controlling for syntactic skills in the preceding year and other cognitive‐linguistic variables. Conclusion: The patterns of results underscore the significance of syntactic skills in Chinese written composition in upper elementary grades and the bidirectional relationship between syntactic skills and written composition in Chinese. Highlights: What is already known about this topicChinese word dictation, syntactic skills and verbal working memory are the major types of developmental skills important in Chinese writing among children in elementary grades. What this paper addsThe longitudinal contribution of word dictation to writing performance across grades was mediated by the contribution