Patterns in PIRLS performance: The importance of liking to read, SES, and the effect of test prep

Analysis of PIRLS data on liking reading and SES revealed five consistent patterns: (1) 'basline': locations with high PIRLS scores, high SES, and a high level of 'liking reading' among both children and their parents. (2) 'test-prep' locations, with high SES and PIRLS scores, but little interest in reading. Our conjecture is that these students achieved high scores through test-preparation (strategy instruction) and through diligently reading very hard texts. (3) 'late-bloomers' with high SES and high PIRLS scores, with parents but not children liking reading, In most of these locations, reading instruction starts late. (4) middle SES countries and locations; (5) Lower SES countries and locations, with children liking to read but adults much less. The problem in cases in category (5) is lack of access to reading material.published_or_final_versio

An investigation of efective teaching strategies in enhancing Non-Chinese speaking students’ Chinese character learning abilty (In Chinese)

Session 2根據志願機構的統計數字，生活於香港的非華語家庭，大部份的經濟環境並不富裕。香港政府提供十二 年免費教育（小一至中六），並不包括幼兒教育，因此幼兒教育的學費十分昂貴。香港的非華語家庭較 難負擔年幼子女的幼稚園學費，故此過去較少非華語家庭送他們的年幼子女就讀幼稚園。近年，香港推 行「幼稚園學劵制」，政府為幼兒就讀幼稚園提供學費津貼，於是愈來愈多非華語家長送他們的年幼子 女到幼稚園學習中文。由於這些幼兒的母語並非中文，中文是他們的第二語言，因此他們的學習需要和 困難都與本地學生不同；教師教導這些學生時遇到很多困難。 本研究參考「綜合高效識字」課程，並按照非華語幼兒的學習需要和困難，為他們設計適合的中文識字 課程、教材、教學法、評估等；是香港第一個大規模及有系統的非華語幼兒識字研究。參與本研究的幼 稚園共有三間，參與人數約110人。 本研究的課程設計，以幼兒常用的口語詞彙類別及頻率作為指標，安排教學主題的次序，並教導他們認 識簡單的漢字結構。此外，教師透過運用不同的識字教學法，包括遊戲識字、部件識字、基本字帶字識 字法、字根識字法、韻語識字、生活經驗識字、情境輔助識字法等，幫助幼兒有系統地學習漢字，提高 他們對學習漢字的興趣，加強他們對漢字字形結構的感敏度，從而促進識字學與教的成效。此外，通過 讓幼兒寫字和閱讀兒童故事，進一步鞏固和擴闊他們的識字量。本論文將報告是次研究的結果，並提出 促進非華語幼兒識字的方法。published_or_final_versio

Struggling to thrive: The impact of Chinese language assessments on social mobility of Hong Kong ethnic minority youth

The paper aims to address the issues arising from the alternative Chinese qualifications policy on ethnic minorities’ (EM) social mobility, and how such multi-exit assessment framework affect Chinese as a second language (CSL) teaching and learning in local school contexts. Chinese language qualifications other than the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) have been accepted by the University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded institutions in Hong Kong as university admission requirements, including General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), and General Certificate of Education (GCE). These international qualifications, although recognized as CSL “alternatives”, are oftentimes considered lower-level non-equivalents to HKDSE in the job market. Even high achievers in these examinations are criticized by local employers as less-than-competent in workplace Chinese communication. Moreover, civil service jobs traditionally popular among EM require a Level 2 in HKDSE or specific government tests, which “implied” the said alternative qualifications as insufficient for career advancement. Chinese language teachers and EM students are thus torn between the manageable alternative qualifications to improve university admission chances, or the difficult HKDSE examination as well for better career opportunities, which reduce their chance of upward mobility. Through triangulation of data from different sources, the authors also look into the challenges to curriculum planning and design faced by Chinese language teachers at the time of policy changes, and recommend that policy reviews be carried out based on recent demographic shifts and classroom realities to better equip EM students’ Chinese language proficiency, so as to increase their job advantage, smoother social integration into Hong Kong society, and to resolve the intergenerational poverty.postprin

The influence of the language that Hong Kong primary school students habitually speak at home on their Chinese reading ability in school

This study examines how the language used at home, Putonghua or Cantonese, has influenced the Chinese reading attainment of 4335 primary school students in Hong Kong. Also examined was the influence of the birthplace and home background socioeconomic status (SES) of the reader. Although the indigenous Hong Kong population uses Cantonese, a dialect of Chinese, for everyday communications, the Chinese written in school is Modern Standard Written Chinese (MSWC), the written equivalent of Putonghua, the spoken language of the people of China. Many of the numerous families migrating from China to Hong Kong in recent years have brought with them children educated in Putonghua in China and with extensive experience of MSWC. It was hypothesised that the reading attainment of these students would be superior to that of classmates born in Hong Kong and using Cantonese habitually. This would apply particularly to students from advantaged SES homes. The children born in China indeed had superior reading attainment. But children speaking Cantonese at home and Putonghua 'sometimes' had the highest reading scores, regardless of their birthplace or SES. The writers reflect on assumptions about the influence of the language used at home on language attainment and the implications for educational planning. © 2007 S-k. Tse et al.published_or_final_versio

The impact of blogging on Hong Kong primary school students' bilingual reading literacy

This study looked at the types of blog consulted by 1,298 Primary 4 students in Hong Kong and whether such consultation influenced performance on standardised tests of Chinese and English reading comprehension. When students were asked if they consulted Chinese and English blogs, 42% said they looked at Chinese blogs and 19% said they looked at English blogs. This difference was anticipated since Chinese is the mother tongue of most primary school students in Hong Kong and English is a second language. The themes of sites consulted were categorised into types: the Chinese blogs being able to be categorised into three types, and the English blogs into two. Boys and girls differed in their choice of Chinese and English blog topics and the strength of the students' Chinese and English reading proficiency clearly had some influence on the choice of blogs consulted. Factor analysis was used to group together types of blog and analysis of variance was applied to test differences in performance. With over half of the students saying they did not consult either Chinese or English blogs, it is unwise to draw weighty conclusions about the influence of blogging on reading standards. There was little evidence that regularly consulting the Internet was associated with high grades on either Chinese or English reading tests. Given the large number of students who said they had never consulted blogs, discussion of the analytical outcomes and conclusions are guarded but recommendations are offered.published_or_final_versio

香港非華語幼兒漢字學與教的研究

漢字教育: 論文摘要 no. 43The Conference abstracts' website is located at http://www.cacler.hku.hk/conference12c/The number of non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students in Hong Kong is increasing year by year. Their needs for education are increasing too. The educators and their NCS parents very concern how well these NCS students can adopt to the learning environment in Hong Kong, and have better academic performance, especially in Chinese language learning. Researchers believe that if the NCS students can learn Chinese language as earliest as possible, like in kindergarten stage, they can catch up with the local Chinese language curriculum requirement and standard much easier. Researchers worked with three kindergartens, and ... 香港的非華語學童人數正逐年上升，他們對教育的需求與日俱增。香港教育界以及非華語家長最關注的，是如何幫助這些非華語學童適應香港學校的學習環境，並在學業上有好的表現，特別是中文學習方面。 研究員相信，非華語學童愈早學習中文，與本地華人學童的學習差異便愈小，愈容易適應並跟上本地中文科的課程要求和學習水平。研究員與香港三所幼稚園合作 ...postprin

Creating print media for ethnic minority youth: a case study of the use of peer-written picture storybooks in the Chinese as a second language (CSL) classroom

The Conference abstracts' website is located at http://www.igel2014.unito.it/index.php/abstractsIn Hong Kong (HK), the number of ethnic minority (EM) students learning Chinese as a second language (CSL) has been increasing in recent years. Most of them are of Pakistani and Indian descents, whereas there are also a good number of Filipinos and Nepalese. These students vary amongst themselves in terms of number of years in HK, experience of learning CSL, as well as level of Chinese proficiency. However, recent research found that EM students having studied the Chinese language for a long time are not necessarily more proficient users (Tsung et al., 2012). Furthermore, since there are huge individual differences amongst EM students, it poses a challenge for schools and teachers to cater for their learning needs. Having recognized the difficulty in developing EM students’ Chinese reading and writing abilities, this paper presents a successful case of using peer-written, formally-published picture storybooks for enhancing EM students’ Chinese reading and writing abilities in a secondary school. It is part of a teaching experiment for a longitudinal study based on the differentiated concept (Tomlinson, 2001), “Integrative Perceptual Approach” (Tse et al., 2007), various reading strategies, Genre Approach (Shum, 2010), and Drama in Education (Ho, 2011) as teaching strategies. Thirteen EM students of Pakistani or Indian descent were recruited as research participants; the teacher was provided with professional training and support. Action research and quasi-experimental design have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of this school-based curriculum. After a one-year teaching experiment, the pre- and post-tests results indicated that the research participants’ Chinese language ability has been enhanced significantly (effect sizes between 0.75 – 8.00). Their learning motivation has been strengthened too. The paper argues that the use of authentic teaching materials, particularly peer-written picture storybooks as basic teaching materials, played a significant role in these teenage students’ socialization towards integrating into HK society while enhancing their learning motivation and improving their Chinese reading and writing abilities. These print media created by other EM students not only provided flexibility for teachers’ tailoring, but also allowed the EM students to relate the content and contexts to themselves. Such relevance is multi-fold: firstly, these peer-written picture storybooks, as literary works/artworks of other EM adolescents, matched the mental age of the featured students, ; secondly, such storybooks written in relatively simple Chinese facilitated better comprehension; thirdly, the themes and concerns of these stories are shared by most EM students in HK, e.g. migrants’ lives; fourthly, the storybooks were written and illustrated by other EM students on the same language support programme and it highlighted the shared identity and experiences between authors and readers. As with other forms of mass media, print media are used by adolescents for entertainment, identity formation, high sensation, coping, and youth culture identification (Arnett, 1995). The paper concludes that while the production of peer-written picture storybooks offered EM students an opportunity to showcase their original works and to boost their confidence in CSL as a member of local society, the use of these “students’ works” also helped foster various reading strategies (e.g. the situational model, bridging inferences, and transference) and writing pedagogies that characterize personal experience and self-development, which in turn contributed to the enhancement of EM students’ Chinese language proficiency

非華語幼兒中文教育的有效教學原則

This chapter introduces the key elements for the design of effective Chinese character and reading curriculum for non-Chinese speaking preschoolers who learn Chinese as a second language, the breakthrough of the teaching of Chinese characters which generated from a 2-year study conducted by the author, strategies for the development and enhancement of non-Chinese speaking preschoolers' reading and writing ability and the collaboration between school and parents, as well as suggestions for future research study

Using think aloud approach to investigate non-Chinese speaking students' strategies to recognize Chinese characters

Conference Theme: Chinese characters education and researc

Enhancing Primary 4 students’ reading comprehension ability through drama in education and reading theories

The study presents an intervention based on an interactive approach to teaching of reading, applying reading theories including the reading schema theory, situational model, reader-response theory and the bridging inferences with drama in education. Results found that compared with the traditional “bottom up” and “top down” approaches, the Primary Four cohort examined had gained a deeper understanding of the text with their reading interests and engagement level enhanced, while their moral and independent learning abilities had been developed as well