17 December 2021 (Friday)
The research seminar “Diverse Strategies in Supporting Non-Chinese Speaking Students?” took place on 17 December 2021 by guest speaker Principal Cheung Po Man and seminar host Dr Jan GUBE, as an initiative under the Education for Multicultural Futures of Asia Research (EMFAR) Dialogue Series.
The event welcomed 86 participants both at EdUHK and on Zoom, including teachers, non-governmental organisation representatives, academic and research staff members of EdUHK, and students.
Principal Cheung first shared the general non-Chinese speaking families lack a macroscopic vision of the current Hong Kong society, resulting in their narrower picture for further studies and employment than local students. Especially when it comes to learning the Chinese language, non-Chinese speaking parents have gaps in their children's learning requirements, and they may even feel that understanding English is enough to live in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, in reality, many jobs in Hong Kong require a certain level of Chinese proficiency. Many non-Chinese speaking students are not surprised until after graduation that there have fewer job options than other peers.
Principal Cheung emphasised the role of the school is to guide students of different backgrounds to have equal opportunities to develop their talents. Therefore, the school have various strategies to implement this core belief. For example, they have cultural activities in different Chinese festivals, virtual tours to communities in different parts of Hong Kong, etc.
Another crucial part is to allow non-Chinese-speaking parents to understand the purpose of various school activities. Hence, they will help to encourage their children to participate. Principal Cheung’s school has adopted multiple strategies to communicate with parents. For example, there is a class observation day for Primary 1 students' parents at the beginning of the term in September, Dual-Class Teacher System and annual home visits to strengthen communication with parents.
In addition, the most challenging part of teaching Chinese to non-Chinese speaking students also has multiple strategies. Principal Cheung mentioned that they have a Chinese bridging course for the newly enrolled students during the summer vacation, to ensure they have basic knowledge of Chinese characters and pronunciation before the term begins. At the same time, taking advantage of technology, the school also produces a variety of additional interactive materials to help students train their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills at home. Principal Cheung specifically mentioned that the most significant benefit of this strategy is that both parents and students can study together, which reduces the family's resistance to learning Chinese.
The sharing sparked conversations on the importance of diverse strategies to reduce the diversity on learning ability and the importance of inclusiveness.