7.1 Diversified Learning and Teaching Materials
(1) Guiding Principles on Selecting Learning and Teaching Materials
Language learning materials can be texts, audio-visual materials, objects, authentic materials, including the environment. Diversified learning materials can arouse students’ learning motivation. Schools may focus on the characteristics of Chinese “expression of meaning” as well as NCS students’ learning difficulties in Chinese, together with learning targets and learning objectives and students’ cognition to adopt different kinds of materials to increase students’ learning interests.
To help NCS students acquire useful language habits, teaching materials have to be designed with a language context, so that teachers can teach students to transfer their knowledge and skills. Teachers are advised to design different language contexts to capitalise on Hong Kong’s cultural environment in enabling NCS students to transfer such knowledge to their own ability/ skills. As regards the contents of teaching materials, they have to be authentic, derived from daily life contexts so as to heighten students’ learning motivation. The following guiding principles are for teachers’ reference –
General Principles
• Conform to NCS students’ cognitive development
• Catering for learner diversity
• Positive contents
• Diversified texts
• Arousing learning interests
Principles on Choosing Texts
• With a high readability
• Focus on practical texts
Principles on Choosing Audio-visual Materials
• With vivid languages
• Diversified expressions
• Excellent audio-visual effect and colourful images
• Highly interactive, arousing students’ learning motivation
[ Please refer to p.73 of “Chinese Language Education Key Learning Area Curriculum Guide (Primary 1 to Secondary 3)”; p.71 of “Chinese Language Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4 to Secondary 6)”. ]
Principles on Chinese Learning Material Selection
y Learning materials have to conform to students’ intellectual development.
Compared to other local students, some NCS students may have less chance to use Chinese language, so their Chinese language standard may be lower than their Chinese-speaking counterparts of the same age. When teaching NCS students, teachers at initial stage may adopt learning materials for junior classes to match up with students’ standard. However, even if the type of teaching material reaches suitable standard, the content may not be able to conform to the age and mental development of students. Consequently, to promote students’ improvement and development, teachers are advised to more careful in selecting learning materials and not to adopt anything directly without adjustment.
y Learning materials have to take into account the feature of diversified cultures among minority groups. NCS students of different nationalities possess different cultural backgrounds such as religion, cuisine and costume etc. Some of their customs may be greatly different from Chinese culture.
When select learning materials, teachers are advised to pay special attention to the content of material and respect the various cultures to prevent cultural disputes.
NCS students may not understand Chinese culture as much as their Chinese-speaking counterparts. NCS students are actually curious, and they would be glad to know more about Chinese culture. Therefore, elements of Chinese culture could be added into learning materials appropriately to help students grasp the cultural characteristics of their resident country, city and people around them. From that NCS students could immerse into Hong Kong society and grow up together with other local students. (Please refer to Appendices VIII and XI.)
(2) Teaching Materials Developed by Schools
Since NCS students’ learning paces are different, schools have to design some learning and teaching materials that are suitable for their needs. It is advisable for the materials to embody diversified cultural backgrounds, but sensitive contents need to be avoided. Nowadays, some schools have already developed systematic materials for their NCS students. The Quality Education Fund also sponsors schools to develop teaching materials reflective of Hong Kong characteristics. These resources are available in the Central Resources Centre (CRC) for teachers’ reference.
At the same time, the results of on-site school-based support services and some exemplars have been uploaded on the Language Learning Support Section website.
We hope that more school exemplars can be collected for the establishment of a resources sharing platform for teachers.
7.2 Learning Resource Development (1) Developing Package Materials
The Chinese Language Education Section of the Curriculum Development Institute, Education Bureau (EDB) will help to develop a series of package teaching reference materials. These include “Lexical Lists with English explanations for Fundamental Chinese Learning in Hong Kong Schools” and its web-version, “Path to Mastery of Chinese Characters: Courseware on Chinese Character Writing” (bilingual version) and “Path to Moral Excellence: Primary Chinese Language Learning Software on Traditional Chinese Virtues” (bilingual version) and “From Traditional to Simplified Characters: Simplified Chinese Character Courseware” (English version) and “From Simplified to Traditional Characters: Traditional Chinese Character Courseware” (English version). (For package teaching reference materials, please refer to Appendix XX.)
(2) Teaching Material Adaptation
EDB will collect current school teaching materials, absorb frontline practical experience, and gather opinions widely. After review, research and adaptation, EDB will revise the materials according to students’ development to design learning sets (in a similar format as textbooks) for primary and secondary schools’ reference and use.
Based on these learning sets, schools may make adjustment for more suitable learning materials in accordance with students’ language and cultural backgrounds. More diversified teaching materials are expected to be developed in the future for NCS students’ use in Chinese language learning.
7.3 Use of Community Resources
Building on existing strengths, schools may make good use of services and resources provided for NCS students in helping teachers to improve their teaching quality. Parents can have more comprehensive support. The community can also provide more suitable facilities for NCS students to integrate into the Hong Kong society.
(1) On-site School-based Support
EDB will continue to provide on-site school-based support for those schools with intakes of NCS students. Through school visits, co-planning, teachers’
professional development, establishment of a web-based platform as well as developing school-based teaching resources database, EDB will help teachers to better cater for NCS students’ Chinese learning needs.
A school-based curriculum is designed with reference to students’ different starting points. From “word recognition” to “reading”, from “reading” to “writing”, different support programmes are provided to help students enhance their Chinese reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. Focus is first put on developing
“integrated skills” teaching in which listening, speaking, reading, writing, together with literature, culture are included. Project learning is also developed to help
students acquire more comprehensive language learning and increase their language application skills.
(2) Collaborative Development
Schools may seek professional assistance from services and projects provided by educational organisations, charitable organisations, tertiary institutes and NGOs to provide appropriate support to NCS students. For example, EDB has commissioned tertiary institutes to set up a Chinese Language Learning Centre to jointly render support to teachers and students.
(3) Enhancing Teachers’ Professionalism y Professional Qualifications
Tertiary institutes will provide teachers with programmes for professional qualifications, e.g. certificate, diploma, degree. Through training, teachers are helped to better understand NCS students’ learning difficulties from their perspectives. After obtaining the qualification, teachers may be able to develop more suitable curriculum, learning and teaching strategies and assessment tasks for their own NCS students.
y Teacher Professional Development Programmes
EDB will organise in-service training programmes to enhance the professionalism of primary and secondary school teachers regarding NCS students learning Chinese language.
y Joint-school Teacher Professional Development Activities
Currently, teachers’ experience in teaching NCS students is rather rudimentary, therefore schools should focus on cultivating human resources and teachers should be encouraged to equip themselves. Apart from studies, courses, seminars, workshops and joint-school experience sharing sessions organised by EDB or tertiary institutes are also beneficial to teachers. They may gain more successful experiences about topics of common concern to enhance their teaching quality.
(4) Parental Support
Regional Offices (REO) under EDB, NGOs and other frontline departments are providing parents of NCS students with services at different levels. As most of the NCS students’ parents do not know Chinese, schools should reinforce communication with them from time to time so as to let them know how their children are performing in school. Some of them cannot read Chinese characters and can hardly help their children with their studies. Hence, schools need to understand parents’ difficulties and give them whatever support they need. Moreover, EDB will provide more information about education and policy to enable NCS parents to understand Hong Kong education policy and their children’s learning progress for the purpose of integration into the Hong Kong society.
(5) Community Support
There are rich resources in every district community. If such resources can be fully utilised, NCS students and parents can be taken care of more comprehensively. For example, community centres can provide after school remedial lessons or nursery services. Through these, NCS students can communicate with others in Chinese language, thus facilitating their integration into the community. Besides, schools may also consider opening their campuses for appropriate after-school support for NCS students. Schools may even enroll parent volunteers to help organise activities for NCS students, encouraging them to communicate in Chinese so that their listening and speaking skills could be enhanced.
(6) Research and Development Projects for NCS students
EDB has commissioned tertiary institutes to develop research projects on NCS students’ learning, e.g. collecting data from different schools for analysis; or investigating second language learners’ experiences in other districts. Meanwhile, one of the institutes also conducts research on NCS students’ language standards.
Based on the listening, speaking, reading and writing data collected, an assessment tool would be developed. Teachers may make good use of similar assessment tools to evaluate NCS students’ Chinese language proficiency so that they can adjust their learning and teaching strategies.