An investigation of school-based curriculum of effective Chinese character learning for Non-Chinese speaking kindergarteners

Abstract

根據志願機構的統計數字，生活於香港的非華語家庭，大部份的經濟環境並不富裕。香港政府提供十二年免費教育(小一至中六)，並不包括幼兒教育，因此幼兒教育的學費十分昂貴。香港的非華語家庭較難負擔年幼子女的幼稚園學費，故此過去較少非華語家庭送他們的年幼子女就讀幼稚園。2007年起，香港教育局推行｢幼稚園學劵制｣，政府為幼兒提供學費津貼，於是愈來愈多非華語家長送他們的年幼子女到幼稚園學習中文。由於這些幼兒的母語並非中文，中文是他們的第二語言，因此他們的學習需要、過程和困難都與本地學生不同；教師教導這些學生時遇到很多困難。 本硏究參考｢綜合高效識字｣課程、第二語言學習理論，以及香港幼兒口語發展的硏究，並按照非華語幼兒的學習需要和困難，為他們設計校本中文識字課程、教材和教學法；是香港第一個大規模及有系統的非華語幼兒識字硏究。參與本硏究的幼稚園共有三間，參與硏究的人數包括約120名非華語幼兒以及他們的家長、3位幼稚園校長及6位中文教師。本硏究的課程設計，以幼兒常用的口語詞彙類別及頻率作為指標，安排教學主題的次序，並教導他們認識簡單的漢字部件和結構。此外，教師透過運用不同的識字教學法，包括遊戲識字、情境輔助識字法、部件識字、集中識字法、字根識字法、韻語識字、生活經驗識字等，幫助幼兒有系統地學習漢字，提高他們對學習漢字的興趣，加強他們對漢字字形結構的感敏度，從而促進識字學與教的成效。本論文報告是本硏究的設計理念，並詳細說明教材、練習和教學法的內容，初步提出促進非華語幼兒識字的有效課程和方法。 Based on the research findings of non-government agency, the number of 'non-Chinese speaking' Hong Kong citizens are increasing, most of them have relatively low social-economic status. Hong Kong SAR government provides 12-year free but compulsory education (from Grade 1 to Grade 12), but not includes pre-school education, this makes the school fee for pre-school education very expensive. Therefore, the non-Chinese speaking families found it difficult to afford these educational expenses, and seldom send their young child to go to kindergartens. Starting from 2007, Hong Kong Education Bureau carried out the 'Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme' which provide fee subsidy for parents. Since then, more and more non-Chinese speaking parents send their young child to learn Chinese language at kindergartens. As Chinese language is a foreign language to them, their educational needs, learning processes and difficulties are quite different from local young children. As a result, many Chinese language teachers encountered a lot of difficulties when teaching non-Chinese speaking students. The present study applied 'integrative perceptual approach on the teaching of Chinese characters', second language learning theories, and the developmental study of Hong Kong young children’s spoken language as the research framework, and consider non-Chinese speaking young children’s educational needs and difficulties, then design a school-based Chinese language curriculum (mainly focuses on Chinese characters learning), learning materials and teaching strategies for kindergartens. This is the first large-scale and systematic study on the Chinese characters learning and teaching of non-Chinese speaking young children in Hong Kong. There are three kindergartens, with about 120 non-Chinese speaking young children and their parents, three kindergarten principals, and six Chinese language teachers participated in the present study. The curriculum design of the present study is based on the oral language development of young children in Hong Kong, types and frequency of vocabulary which young children can speak. They will also learn the structure and components of Chinese characters. Furthermore, Chinese language teachers applied various teaching strategies to teach Chinese characters, including 'learning by playing games', 'create language environment', 'composition of Chinese components', 'find out common components', 'find out root of Chinese characters', 'nursery rhyme', and 'learning from life experiences' etc., to help non-Chinese speaking young children to learn Chinese characters systemically, increase their learning motivation, enhance their sensitivity to the structure of Chinese characters, so as to strengthen their learning performance. This paper reported the preliminary design of an effective school-based curriculum for the learning and teaching of Chinese language for non-Chinese speaking young children, with explanation of the theoretical framework, the rationale for the design of the curriculum, teaching materials (with exercises) and teaching strategies.