Chinese Language Learning by Ethnic Minority Students in Hong Kong: Policy and Support

Chapter “ Contexts of Learning, Priorities for Research ” has charted the broad international situation of Chinese second language (CSL) learning and the need to provide different learning pathways to cater for the needs of learners with diverse familial and language learning backgrounds. The present Chapter will zoom in to the Hong Kong situation and the education of its non-Chinese ethnic minority learners, to provide the local context for what readers will see in the later Chapters of the book. The Chapter will briefly review the situation, covering (a) how the problem of Chinese language education and integration of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong has been addressed by the Government in terms of education and language policy (Parts I and II of the chapter); (b) how some of the ethnic minority students and parents have perceived their situation and needs (Part III); and (c) how some teachers and researchers have attempted to face the CSL challenge and improve the learning of these students (Part IV). The review mainly focuses on the period from 1997 to 2018, the initial 20 years of Hong Kong after its political handover, when it become a Special Administration Region (SAR) of The People’s Republic of China. In the first 10 years, the SAR Government seemed to be quite accommodating to the ethnic minority’s demands about education. However, its assimilative policy stance became clearer in the second 10 years. Nonetheless, the review indicates that some innovative pedagogical experimentation has happened at the school and classroom level over these 20 years, through the collaborative efforts of teachers and researchers, which could be useful in informing possible CSL policy and practice improvements in the future. The Chapter will only provide a glimpse of such pedagogical innovations, while more of the details will be presented in the later chapters of the book.