Chinese learning for Ethnic Minority Children in HK

[skylee]

pedagogy of teaching Chinese as a foreign language

In HK, there is a recent report released by the Equal Opportunities Commission which says that children of ethinic minorities suffer socio-economically because it is hard for them to learn Chinese as a second/foreign language in HK. I think the report is quite enlightening.

In Hong Kong, all eligible local children, including non-Chinese speaking (NCS) children, who are mainly ethnic minorities (EM), are entitled to 12 years of free education, 9 of which is compulsory. Despite having equal right to education, the number of EM students attaining higher level of education is disproportionately low compared with the majority local ethnic Chinese.

There were great challenges faced by EM students in learning Chinese due to lack of support from their families, and inadequate resources for schools to offer intensive coaching.

the principals/teachers considered that most of the serving teachers lacked expertise in teaching Chinese as a second/foreign language, and hence, adversely affecting the quality of teaching and effectiveness of learning.

My apologies for going off-topic.

[Meng Lelan]

In HK, there is a recent report released by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which says that children of ethinic minorities suffer socio-economically because it is hard for them to learn Chinese as a second/foreign language in HK

That's really interesting to me because I teach reading here using a series of Chinese readers published in Hong Kong and the publisher told me the series came about in response to the situation you mentioned. When you say Chinese as a second/foreign language are you talking about Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese or....?

[skylee]

In HK, “Chinese” usually refers to spoken Cantonese and written standard Chinese in traditional characters. Learning them may be quite hard for South Asian children if their families do not speak any form of Chinese and do not support the children learning it. So failure in learning Chinese -> little chance of completing school -> very little chance of getting into university or even a stable job in HK.

But of course there are successful cases. Like this TV reporter, who speaks very good Cantonese -> http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

[jbradfor]

In HK, there is a recent report released by the Equal Opportunities Commission which says that children of ethinic minorities suffer socio-economically because it is hard for them to learn Chinese as a second/foreign language in HK.

I think this is universal. If you look at USA/Canada and Europe as well, the average education levels and average income is typically lower -- sometimes much lower -- for minorities and immigrants.

[roddy]

My apologies for going off-topic.

It's alright, I'm sure a passing admin will split it off so that an interesting discussion doesn't get buried under an irrelevant title. Oh look, I just did.

[yonglin]

I think this is universal. If you look at USA/Canada and Europe as well, the average education levels and average income is typically lower -- sometimes much lower -- for minorities and immigrants.

There are quite a few exceptions to this rule. In addition, I doubt their is much of a correlation once you account for whether the person in question grew up in a poor household -- poverty is very persistent.

I think an important point is that in places like the US, Canada and even Europe, immigrant children are put in the same schools as native-born children, and most immigrant families are economically integrated within a generation or two. I was very surprised to see in the document skylee posted that the HK ethnic minority population accounts for 3.2% of the pre-primary student population -- that's about one ethnic minority kid per class! Obviously, you don't see that many ethnic minority kids in most schools, presumably because of the "designated schools" system through which these kids are concentrated in just a few schools. I think it's important to note that these kids are not necessarily recent immigrants -- it seems a very large share were born in HK.

As outlined in the report, it also seems that there is very much that could be done (quite easily, too) in order to improve the future of these kids. I hope someone will be brave enough to push through reform.

[Meng Lelan]

I don't know anything about HK schools, wish I knew more, but here are my questions - all classroom instruction from K through 12 is given in Cantonese? When is English introduced as an academic subject? Are they considering reforms where those ehtnic minorities receive additional, supplementary supports to help accelerate learning Cantonese? What about English? Are there any HK schools where instruction is given in Mandarin? Sorry for my endlessly ignorant questions but I find the situation in HK to be relevant to my situations with some of my Spanish speaking students who are also deaf...

I think this is universal. If you look at USA/Canada and Europe as well, the average education levels and average income is typically lower -- sometimes much lower -- for minorities and immigrants.

My thinking too, especially more so for my deaf Spanish speaking students.

[skylee]

AFAIK, which is not much, most schools in HK use Cantonese as the medium of instruction (MOI). Few schools (more expensive, or more elite, or international schools) use English as MOI, fewer still (or equally few) use Mandarin. However, both English and Mandarin are academic subjects since kindergarten or grade one.

The general objective of HK's language policy is to train students to be biliterate (Chinese and English) and trilingual (Cantonese, Putonghua and English). I am not sure how successful this has been, but if universities are still talking about achieving this and worrying about students' English level, perhaps it is not very successful. Or only partly successful. Most universities do not seem to worry about students' Mandarin level.

It seems to me that many local kids of ethnic minorities have no difficulty in spoken Cantonese. But accorinding TV news reports, and also the report mentioned above, they have real difficulty in learning Chinese (I suppose that means written Chinese).

You can learn more about HK's education system here -> http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=97&langno=1

[chevil]

To me it doesn't really make sense that children are struggling at school because Chinese is a 'second' language. As Yonglin pointed out, children of immigrants are put into the same classes as other children and generally learn English - or the language of choice - with little difficulty. Again, these are children who I assume are entering school at around age five and in a strictly Chinese-speaking environment.

Further, there are many Han communities where the members older generation speak a fangyan (possibly quite divergent from the language of education). For the children of these communities as well, the standard language is a second language (literally a second language, with significant lexical and structural differences), and they tend to pick it up quite well, no?. For example, c.f. the situation in Taiwan fifty years ago. I assume these children might be quite common in schools, so don't tell me that the teachers aren't trained in teaching the standard language as a second language.

I believe there are probably many factors *besides* language or general learning ability, including possible racism or discouragement at school and lack of support or apathy coming their communities (i.e. parents). In terms of my own experience, in Taiwan, the aboriginal Austronesian communities are educated in Mandarin - indeed, many of the younger generation speak very little of their parents' or grandparents' language - and yet they still tend towards lower socioeconomic status in adulthood. Is this indicative of language barriers or other, more invisible trends in society?

[skylee]

Here is the report in Chinese -> 人人有書讀

I believe there are probably many factors *besides* language or general learning ability, including possible racism or discouragement at school and lack of support or apathy coming their communities (i.e. parents).

This is what the report says -

Some schools expressed the view that challenges also came from Chinese parents. It was not uncommon that when the intake of EM students into the school increased, Chinese parents tend to avoid sending their children there or even choose to leave, hence the school would be unable to provide an environment conducive to learning Chinese. Therefore, parent education and promotion of racial acceptance should be strengthened.

[wushijiao]

I saw the SCMP's write up of this a few days ago.

Here are a few points:

It also pointed out the current examination system put ethnic minority students at a disadvantage because their low attainment in Chinese adversely impacted on their total scores and minimised their opportunities of advancement.

"Ironically, we all know that university students do not have to speak and write well to have good results in most of the subjects," Lam said.

The commission recommended that the Education Bureau adapts a number of measures to improve the situation.

These included offering language and cultural programmes for ethnic minority students at pre-primary level and establishing a separate Chinese-language curriculum and assessment for non-Chinese speakers for educational advancement and employment. "We have just sent the report to the Education Bureau, and we hope that it would respond to our recommendations and follow them up. Or else, we do not rule out the possibility of exercising the authority of the commission," he said.

I think it's quite common to have kids of Filipino or Indian/Pakistani origins who speak English rather fluently, but speak broken Cantonese and know very few, if any, Chinese characters.

I'm not sure what should be done in this situation. On the one hand, they probably should learn "Chinese" to integrate into society. But then again, society is, to some extent, two-tracked in the sense that there are Cantonese and English speaking societies in HK , and one could argue that the kids could get by with just English.

One can certainly see how it might be unfair to these kids, because many of their Chinese counterparts have nowhere near the same fluency level in English, and if, say, 12-year-old Cantonese kids had to take exams that native speakers of English normally take, I'm not sure how well they would do.

I think the problem is that some communities in HK have very little interaction, which isn't to say that there is hostility or anything, there's simply not much interaction (at least as I see it). Under those circumstances, it can be difficult for children of one community to learn the language of another.

[gato]

It also pointed out the current examination system put ethnic minority students at a disadvantage because their low attainment in Chinese adversely impacted on their total scores and minimised their opportunities of advancement.

It seems that some HK universities like HKU have all their undergrad classes in English. These schools should also offer English-only entrance exams so that the entrance requirements align better with what's required in their classrooms.

[wushijiao]

It seems that some HK universities like HKU have all their undergrad classes in English. These schools should also offer English-only entrance exams so that the entrance requirements align better with what's required in their classrooms.

Yes, it's a bit absurd that people would need Chinese to get into HKU (since they're fairly strict about prohibiting Chinese in the classroom). To some extent, if you're a white gweilo no one expects you to learn Chinese (whether in the university setting or the business world) and they bend over backwards to provide services in English. But if you're a Pakistani or Filipino, there's a hint of resentment when you use only English.

That's why I suspect that, to some extent, people don't want these kids to clog up the university system (although that may be completely off base).