South Asian students’ Chinese language learning in Hong Kong: motivations and strategies

Abstract

This paper offers insights into an under-researched area of Chinese language learning among Hong Kong's less affluent South Asians, a group whose members have often been stereotyped as unable to function in the Chinese medium instruction (CMI) teaching system. Data were collected from a survey of approximately 300 South Asian secondary school students and from follow-up semi-structured interviews with 30 student participants. By cross-examining students' language competency and practice in Chinese, English and mother language(s), the research found that South Asian students, even though in a majority language environment, invest less in Chinese language learning and practice. Their language motivation is instrumentally driven and there is a lack of adequate family support for learning Chinese. It thus highlights the role of schooling and teachers' support in Chinese language learning as the main remedy for insufficient parental involvement. This research argues that in order to attain high competency in the Chinese language, which is considered important for upward mobility, there is an urgent need for teachers and researchers to understand the limited use that students make of the Chinese language and to develop a suitable teaching pedagogy for fostering language motivations.

Educating Teachers of “Chinese as a Local/Global Language”: Teaching “Chinese with Australian Characteristics”

“…The focus is on deepening and extending the entry-level capabilities of learners by using their perceptions of the cross-sociolinguistic between English and Chinese, and having them use Chinese in their recurrent, everyday sociolinguistic activities. In this way, this study contributes to the scholarly debate within China (Gao, 2011;Shum et al, 2011;Zhu, 2010), and internationally (Chen et al, 2010;He & Jiao, 2010) about making Chinese learnable. Further educational research is needed to investigate ways of improving the theoretic-pedagogical frameworks to enable teacher-researchers to make Chinese learnable.…”

“…The debates in the literature point to multiple reasons for this challenge. It is possible that innovations in teacher professional education could better prepare teachers capable of focusing on language learners and the need for more appropriate teaching/learning strategies and materials (Liu, 2006;Shum et al, 2011;Zhang, 2010). Duff and others (2013) report on an innovative study of Chinese language education from the perspective of non-Chinese background adult learners.…”

“…For instance, the literature points to concerns about the quality of existing teachers in Australia (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2011;State of Victoria, 2012), China (Gao, 2011;Shum et al, 2011;Tsung & Cruickshank, 2011b;Zhang et al, 2011), the UK (Li & Zhu, 2011;Zhang & Li, 2010), and the USA (Zhang, 2010). In Australia these concerns are also directed at programs for the education of teachers of Chinese (Orton, 2008).…”

Bicultural orientation and Chinese language learning among South Asian ethnic minority students in Hong Kong

“…Hong Kong implements a mother tongue (defined as the mother tongue of the majority Chinese ethnics) education policy and the majority of its primary and secondary schools use Chinese as medium of instruction, which has greatly reduced South Asian students' social mobility since these students have frequently reported encountering great difficulty grasping Chinese (Cantonese as the spoken form and Modern Standardized Chinese as the written form; Ku, Chan, and Sandhu 2006;Shum et al 2011). Despite Hong Kong being a multilingual society, the South Asian ethnic minority students do not have much exposure to Chinese in daily life since the language (s) at home are usually their heritage languages and/or English, and they most often live in geographically segregated regions in Hong Kong.…”

Reading to Learn, Learning to Write Pedagogy: How Effective is it on Teaching Narrative Writing to Non-Chinese Speaking Students?

“…However, the main medium of communication used in Hong Kong is Cantonese. Their linguistic barriers hinder their involvements in the main social activities and hamper their development in the local mainstream society, which further leads to their positioning in the underprivileged sections of the community [15]. In order to change their disadvantaged socio-economic status in Hong Kong, acquisition of Chinese language proficiency is the key to success.…”