This paper reports a case study of teaching Cantonese to Hong Kong ethnic minority pre-schoolers using process drama. Based on Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts of minor literature and language, becoming and de-/re-territorialisation, this paper aims to reconceptualise a playful adaptation of process drama developed by Joe Winston (Citation2012) as a language-minoritising approach to the teaching and learning of a major language that is very foreign to children. The findings suggest that, to accomplish ethnic minority children’s becoming Cantonese speakers, the theatre games and language play should involve minoritorisation and de-/re-territorialisation of the normative practices of process drama, the target language as well as learner identity. Copyright © 2023 Pedagogy, Culture & Society.

傳統的語文教學側重以期末考試形式來評估學生的學習水平與成效，但在這種模式下，學生只是被動地接受評估，未能積極參與學習並進而反思所學。教師可嘗試在語文教學中運用同儕評估的方式，提升評估過程中的雙向性與互動性。通過在香港中學普通話科進行的教學實驗，發現學生多能借此提升對評估要求的認識，並據以檢討和改善個人的口語表現，可見同儕評估有助提升教學成效，值得在語文學科中加以推廣。 Copyright © 2017 廣東教育出版社有限公司.

Narrative writing task is the foundation of learning how to write, and it is also frequently used in the writing assessment. This study is intended to map Primary 3 and Primary 6 students “writing performance features” reviewed in Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) Chinese writing assessment in Hong Kong. By analysing students’ writing performance as reviewed in the TSA Chinese writing assessment, we can get a glimpse of the language features and linguistic characteristics of the students and their development. The result of the analysis tries to enrich and improve Chinese language teaching and learning of Chinese writing in Hong Kong. The research findings showed and proved the hypothesis that a “Good Performance” Chinese narrative writing in TSA has a more complete narrative schematic structure than that of a student who is “Reaching Basic Competency” in TSA. Texts written by Primary 6 students and students with Good Performance contain a larger number of and diversity in transitivity terms indicating not only material processes but also mental processes and reflect good context cohesion. Copyright © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Mark Shiu-kee Shum and Peter Mickan; individual chapters, the contributors.

For the past two decades, a significant number of ethnic minority students from diverse racial, cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds have entered Chinese language classrooms in Hong Kong for the first time. Simultaneously, Chinese language teachers have come under criticism for their lack of understanding of diversity and their failure to integrate ethnic minority students academically and socially. However, there is little research on how these teachers can transform their educational beliefs, teaching techniques, and attitudes toward diversity and inclusion to respond effectively to the drastic changes taking place in their professional work. This study examines how a group of Chinese language teachers employed translanguaging as a social justice strategy to address the challenges of teaching minority students in a monolingual and assimilative educational setting in Hong Kong. Classroom observations show that teachers enacted a translanguaging stance, using students' familiar semiotic resources to make their teaching more inclusive and equitable for ethnic minority students from low socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. Teachers reported becoming more aware of diversity in the classroom as well as of the social inequalities and racial discrimination outside of school. The study shows that criticism has been unfairly levied on Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong, who should not be held responsible for the social problems hindering ethnic minorities' social mobility. Research should include a decolonial perspective to legitimize translanguaging as a social justice strategy for more transformative praxis in the education sector in postcolonial Hong Kong. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

This paper presents a systematic review of research on Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) education for ethnic minority students in Hong Kong SAR. Using three databases and screening with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, the study selected 38 empirical studies published in English-language peer-reviewed journals. We find that there has been a surge of publications in Hong Kong in the past decade (2010–2020), and they are mostly authored by scholars from three universities in Hong Kong. Most of the research took a phenomenological approach, using interviews as the main data collection method and focusing on underprivileged South Asian students in secondary schools. The thematic analysis showed that Hong Kong’s CSL adopted a poststructuralist paradigm for understanding and revealing social inequalities surrounding Chinese language education for ethnic minority students. The study concludes that Hong Kong must decolonise its education system to genuinely support ethnic minority students to achieve educational equality and social justice. Copyright © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH.

Purpose>This review study focuses on the framework for pre-primary education and language acquisition for non-Chinese-speaking students (NCS students) from ethnic minority families (EM families) in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approach>This paper adopts a multidisciplinary perspective that involves both assessing the broader governing framework and researching their specific needs. In its overview of the significant changes made in recent years and an exploration of the gaps in the framework, with reference to other jurisdictions, along with input from developmental psychology as it relates to the issues faced by NCS students.Findings>This study contributes to the literature on how to shape further policies and reforms to optimize learning of NCS children in Hong Kong from a young age. This helps NCS students and families achieve their right to education and equal opportunities and schools to cater the needs of these students and families, which is essential to providing an enriched learning environment for our children regardless of their ethnicity.Originality/value>This study uses multidisciplinary approach to study pre-primary education and Chinese language acquisition of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2022 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Copying characters presented previously (delayed copying) is an important skill in Chinese literacy acquisition. The relations of delayed copying and a set of literacy-related skills (including vocabulary knowledge, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness), visual-orthographic judgment, motor coordination, pure copying of foreign scripts, and delayed copying to Chinese spelling were examined among 294 typically developing Hong Kong kindergarteners. With all other variables statistically controlled, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, motor coordination, and delayed copying all uniquely explained Chinese spelling. To further investigate how delayed copying interacts with other skills, path analyses were conducted. The final model showed that vocabulary knowledge, visual-orthographic judgment, and pure copying had indirect effects on spelling through delayed copying. These findings partly support spelling models developed in alphabetic writing systems, but also reflect the uniqueness of Chinese. In addition, results suggest that delayed copying is a unique window into how children learn to write words in Chinese. The potentially critical role of delayed copying in Chinese spelling makes it a potentially good clinical indicator of early spelling proficiency and spelling difficulties. Copyright © 2022 SAGE Publications.

系統功能語言學認為語言具有其系統和功能，語文教學應該使學生掌握語言的系統，並在互動中學習如何恰當地使用語言。本文通過實證研究分析59位香港非華語學生的真實語料，結合量化數據和質性分析，探討第二語言學習者的實用中文寫作表現。研究發現，非華語學生整體實用文寫作能力較弱，尤其在語旨、語式、連接、文法等層面表現最弱；在語境內容方面普遍文類知識不足，無法掌握特定文類的寫作目的和結構，文步和層次不完整，亦缺少語境的概念；在表述方式層面詞匯量有限；在文法呈現方面受到英文文法影響，體現了語言的負遷移現象。本研究亦通過基於系統功能語言學發展出的寫作評估標準，為寫作評量提供新的視角，使教師和研究者能更細緻地了解非華語學生的寫作難點和學習需求，掌握學生到底是在語境內容、表述方式或文法呈現當中的十四個層面有甚麼不足之處，才能進一步發展有針對性的教學設計，通過相應策略提升第二語言學習者的寫作能力。Systemic functional linguistics emphasizes on the system and functions of language, and it suggests that language education should help students learn the system of language and how to apply it in communication appropriately. This empirical research analyzed the authentic materials of 59 non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students through quantitative and qualitative analysis. The research findings discovered the weak performance of NCS students in practical writing, especially in the aspects of tenor, mode, conjunction, and grammar. Other problems included the insufficiency in the genre knowledge, inability to understand the writing purpose and structure of certain genre, incomplete steps and phases, lack of the concept of context, limited vocabulary, and the language form affected by English grammar as the result of negative transfer in second language. This research not only studied their practical writing performance but also introduced a new scoring scheme of Chinese writing developed based on systemic functional linguistics. Therefore, teachers and researchers can understand students' writing difficulties and learning needs from the perspectives of context, discourse, grammar and presentation, and develop specific teaching design or relevant strategies to improve the writing ability of second language learners. Copyright © 2021 香港中文大學香港教育研究所.

This study examined reading motivation in Hong Kong secondary school students, taking account of school-related factors of medium of instruction, teacher support and peer support and demographic factors of gender, grade and socio-economic status. Specifically, the research questions were: (1) How are the school factors of medium of instruction, teacher support and peer support related to reading motivation in Chinese (first language; L1) and reading motivation in English (second language; L2)? (2) How are the demographic factors of socio-economic status, gender and grade related to reading motivation in Chinese and English? and (3) Are there differential patterns of prediction of school factors and demographic factors for Chinese and English reading motivation? The SRQ-Reading Motivation Questionnaire, designed to measure reading motivation as conceptualized by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), was adopted. Nine hundred and forty-one secondary school students participated in this study, from the grade levels of secondary one, four and six in seven secondary schools in Hong Kong. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that their reading motivation was comprised of two factors, Autonomous Chinese Reading Motivation (ACRM), Autonomous English Reading Motivation (AERM), Controlled Chinese Reading Motivation (CCRM) and Controlled English Reading Motivation (CERM). To address the three research questions, structural equation modeling was used to investigate the relationships among the variables examined in the present study. The findings showed that Teacher Support significantly predicted all reading motivation outcomes. A higher level of teacher support was associated with higher levels of autonomous and controlled reading motivation in the two languages. Peer Support was also a significant predictor of all reading motivation outcomes. Surprisingly, peer support had a negative relationship with controlled reading motivation in Chinese and in English but a positive relationship

In this study, we investigated the direct and indirect associations of different cognitive–linguistic skills and Chinese reading comprehension in Hong Kong kindergarteners. We assessed 179 children's nonverbal IQ, cognitive–linguistic skills, word reading, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. Results showed significant correlations between all variables and reading comprehension. Further path analysis results indicated that rapid automatized naming, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness contributed to reading comprehension via word reading. Nonverbal IQ and vocabulary knowledge were associated with reading comprehension through listening comprehension. Beyond that, nonverbal IQ and morphological awareness still contributed directly to reading comprehension. Overall, our findings elucidated the importance of nonverbal IQ and cognitive–linguistic skills within the framework of the simple view of reading in Chinese and highlighted the unique roles of nonverbal IQ and meaning-related skills in Chinese reading comprehension, which contributed to understanding the simple view of reading in Chinese. Copyright © 2022 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan.