A critical review on the provision of Chinese language education for NCSS in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study provides a critical review on the provision of Chinese Language education for non-Chinese speaking students (NCSS) in traditional high-concentration designated secondary schools in Hong Kong. NCSS are equipped with L2 Chinese literacy but are asked to survive with the main stream society who sought for L1 Chinese literacy. This has been a thorny issue since 2008 where the good efforts of various stakeholders including the EDB have not yielded any positive outcomes in enhancing the Chinese literacy of the NCSS. On one hand the NGOs strongly advocate for an alternative Chinese curriculum framework for NCSS while on the other, the EDB justifies the existing provision of Chinese education such as the central Chinese curriculum framework (CCCF) and the supplementary Chinese curriculum guide (SCG) as adequate. Their entanglements have ended up as political fights and bring further disarray to schools, teachers and the NCSS.

Despite the absence of literature and few research studies, the issue of providing Chinese Language education for NCSS is pursued in this study within a theoretical framework derived from three related areas of research: Language policy in Hong Kong for government and subsidized schools, the Chinese Language curriculum for NCSS in Hong Kong and NCSS’ language acquisition and Chinese language learning. The main aim of the study is to achieve a better understanding of the Chinese literacy of the NCSS, the manner in which the school-based NCSS Chinese curriculums are adopted from the CCCF and SCG and implemented. Last, the different views of the stakeholders and their entanglements are depicted.

This study employed an eclectic approach where both quantitative (test administration and survey) and qualitative (observations, documentary review and in-depth interview) methods were administered to collect the data for the study. The essence of critical ethnography was employed in the qualitative method where in-depth interviews in a semi-structured manner and my experience and educational upbringing as an NCSS helps shed additional light and explanation to the issue which allows the issue to be holistically depicted.

The findings reveal that, despite the NCSS attaining satisfactory examination results in the international Chinese examination (GCSE); their Chinese literacy is far beyond the benchmark of the societal expectations. Second, regardless of the amount of work that the EDB has put in place concerning the implementation of the NCSS Chinese curriculum, there is a weak negotiation between the different levels of curriculum planning, namely the strategic, tactical and operational. In addition, at the operational level of planning, teachers’ inadequate LTC and LTEC in notional and operational curriculums warrant our concern. Last, the entanglements between different stakeholders arise due to their relative differences on the degree of accountability and practicality concerns towards the issue.

The study seeks to contribute to empirical and conceptual knowledge on international studies and re-conception on language education policy for linguistics minorities at the political level and fills the literature gaps on language pedagogy, LTEC and LTC at school level. Finally, it becomes a unique literature in explaining the un-imparted multilingual NCSS’ language acquisition which is absence in the field of applied linguistics.