Strategies for teaching reading and writing in a Chinese as a second language classroom: reading reports and job application letters as examples

Abstract

This paper identifies the difficulties of ethnic minority students in reading and writing Chinese as a second language in Hong Kong through an analysis of their Chinese learning background. It then presents two research studies where Cooperative Learning Strategy and Reading to Learn Pedagogy were adopted to teach reading reports and job application letters to ethnic minority students. The researchers proceed to evaluate the effectiveness of the two pedagogies through class observation, semi-structured interviews and text analysis. The comparison of pre- and post-test results showed significant improvement in the students’ performance. All participating teachers and students gave positive feedbacks on the teaching process and its effectiveness. The two studies highlighted that Cooperative Learning Strategy and Reading to Learn Pedagogy can effectively help second language learners improve their Chinese reading and writing skills. Suggestions on how to teach Chinese as a second language in Hong Kong are also made in the concluding part of the paper.