Supporting materials for non-Chinese speaking primary students in Hong Kong : design rationale and teaching strategies

Abstract

Reading and writing Chinese are the major barriers for non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students learning Chinese in Hong Kong. The long-standing lack of suitable Chinese textbooks makes it necessary to design tailor-made learning materials and adopt innovative teaching strategies to support NCS students in learning Chinese. Based on the discussion and analysis of typical grammatical errors made by NCS students as well as the pros and cons of mainstream textbooks, this study develops Chinese character lists, a grammar learning system, evaluation points and teaching strategies, which leads to the compilation of the Chinese supporting materials. As part of the design rationale, the association of word structures and grammar can systematically increase the vocabulary size of NCS students. Each unit of the materials consists of three major parts, namely character learning, word combinations and sentence building, and each learning point is designed as a task incorporated with games and activities. This study aims to accommodate the learning needs of NCS students and enhance their effectiveness in learning Chinese. 香港非华语学生学习中文最大的困难是阅读和写作。长期以来适合本港非华语小 学生的中文教材十分短缺，因此有必要设计体现前沿教学策略的教材，为本港非 华语学生提供适切的中文学习支持。本研究在分析非华语小学生读写中文的困难 及典型语言偏误、正规教材优缺点的基础上，研发了针对非华语小学生学习需要 的二语字词学习表、语法学习系统、评估能力要点和教学策略，并据此设计了针 对非华语小学生的辅助教材。教材结合字词结构和语句语法，有系统地增加学生 的字词量和语法知识。同时，教材以认字、构词、造句为纲目，按不同语言点实 践任务型教学策略，采用游戏和练习的形式进行教学任务，以期逐步提升非华语 学生的中文听说读写能力。