When Stanislavski Met Halliday: A Case Study

The justification for incorporating Stanislavski’s System and the associated research becomes evident when considering its effectiveness in enhancing writing skills for Chinese as Second Language students (CSL). Hence, as demonstrated in this chapter, the case study presented herein possesses a wider value for the field of CSL research, extending beyond its specific context. In the context of Hong Kong, the presence of a rising population of ethnic minority students has led to an increased need for acquiring Chinese as a second language after the language policy change in 1997. This chapter centres around a case study that examines the application of Stanislavski’s System in addressing challenges encountered in Chinese narrative writing among students learning Chinese as a Second Language in a local secondary school in Hong Kong. The study’s theoretical framework consists of three main pillars: (1) the second language acquisition theories, specifically the Input Hypothesis Model proposed by Krashen (The input hypothesis: issues and implications. Longman, 1985), and the Interactive Hypothesis put forth by Long (Long MH. Input and second language acquisition theory. In: Gass SM, Madden CG (eds) Input in second language acquisition. Newbury House, pp 377–393, 1985, The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In Ritchie WC, Bhatia TK (eds) Handbook of second language acquisition. Academic, pp 413-468, 1996); (2) Stanislavski’s System (Creative work with actors: a discussion on directing. In: Cole T, Chinoy H (eds) (1976). Directors on directing. Macmillan, 1936, An actor’s work. Routledge, 2008); and (3) the genre theories regarding narrative writing, which are based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (Introduction to functional grammar, 1st edn. Arnold, 1985). The research participants in this study consisted of a Chinese language teacher and her class of Form 2 ethnic minority students (N = 9). The collaboration between the practitioner-as-researcher and the schoolteacher involved the application of Stanislavski’s System (Stanislavski K. Creative work with actors: a discussion on directing. In: Cole T, Chinoy H (eds) (1976). Directors on directing. Macmillan, 1936, Stanislavski K. An actor’s work. Routledge, 2008) within the context of a Chinese narrative writing class over a period of one year. The analysis of students’ writings was conducted employing Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday MAK, Matthiessen CMIM. An introduction to functional grammar, 3rd edn. Routledge, 2004, Halliday MAK, Matthiessen CMIM. Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar, 4th edn. Routledge, 2013). The study hired a pre-experimental research design to assess the efficacy of Stanislavski’s System in improving the Chinese narrative writing skills of non-native Chinese speaking (NCS) students. The findings indicated enhancements in the overall writing performance. As a result of the discovery of more emotive lexicons, the students’ capacity to convey their emotions through the written form of Chinese improved as well.