Research Reports
Project number 1 of a QEF funded study in Hong Kong focused on implementing a literacy programme across the Chinese and English language learning areas. The bi-literacy programme was initiated by Chinese and English teachers and developed through a ground up teacher controlled action research approach. The aim of the programme was to expand the teaching of literacy to include both the important reading and writing skills and critical literacy. The programme was initiated in response to curriculum reform in these language areas, which requires Hong Kong students to develop ¡§critical¡¨ response to a range of text types.
The Pedagogical Problem Current approaches to literacy used in Hong Kong emphasize the teaching of grammar and information extraction. Although learning the ¡§code¡¨ is important for students, it is not enough as students need to critically respond to a range of texts, including films, images, and advertisements in senior years. The programme aims to give students a foundation in critical literacy in junior secondary school. In addition, we also theorized that the same skills and strategies to critique texts could be used commonly across the two language areas.
The programme We used the Four Resources Model (Freebody and Luke, 1990) as a schema to plan a school-based programme, organize and sequence instruction and evaluate progress. The model advocates the simultaneous teaching of literacy skills, which enable students to take on the four roles of ¡§Code ¡V Breaker¡¨ ¡§Text Participant¡¨ ¡¨Text User¡¨ and text Analyst. Students participated in the programme across a six day cycle, for 35 minutes a day, with 3 lessons in Chinese and 3 lessons in English.
Findings The Four Resources Model was general enough to be used effectively across two language areas. So it was used a planning schema and gave teachers a common meta-language to use. It also enabled the integration of programmes and activities currently used, such as phonics and grammar. However, the model is non-prescriptive, leaving instructional |
choices to the teacher and requiring school based, resource intensive programme development, The FRM is also quite ambiguous and needs to be developed into a pedagogy. This means identifying activities, skills and strategies to teach students. We found it necessary to incorporate it as one component of a ¡§wider literacy programme¡¨. The data indicates positive results from teachers and students in its use as a programme tool. We found a mix reaction from teachers, generally in response to variation in student ability, knowledge of the model and available resources. We found that the Chinese language area had greater success than the English area, due to the L1 and L2 difference. The Students enjoyed the programme and student involvement, student improvement and teacher feeling of success was highly correlated.
Implications Co-ordinating two language areas mean students can develop similar higher-order critical skills in response to different texts. In order to implement a school wide programme there is a need to:- • Commit resources to material development. • Facilitate collaboration • Identify common skills.
In order to facilitate critical literacy we need to pay attention to the activities, participation structures and discourse which will scaffold students who are not familiar with critiquing texts to be able to do it. This means, ¡§talking up the critical in the classroom. References For more information Visit our website: ¡§ School Wide Literacy Programme¡¨ http://www.twghsksk.edu.hk/hp/english/index.htm By: Chi-Wai Chan, Arthur Firkins, Gail Forey and Cherry Pik-yu Wong |
Report 2: The Pedagogical Differences in the Teaching of Chinese and English
Project number 5 of a QEF funded study in Hong Kong, focusing on ¡§Enhancing Literacy Education¡¨, considered the pedagogical differences and similarities between the teaching of Chinese and English at a Hong Kong Secondary school. Dr Angel Lin from the Faculty of Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong observed Chinese and English classes for junior secondary students. So, apart from obvious linguistic differences at the level of code between the two languages are there any striking similarities or differences in the classroom practices of Chinese and English teachers?
Findings The answer according to Dr Lin was ¡§not a great deal¡¨. Both Chinese and English lessons appeared to be driven by a very similar I.R.F. (Initiation, Response and Feedback) discourse pattern, which resulted in a similar outcome at the end of the lesson in other words the generation of a corpus of acceptable answer which were noted on the white-board by teachers, and in turn used by students to complete worksheets. The participation structures in both Chinese and English classrooms surrounded this co-construction of acceptable answers to exam questions on texts or the constraint of textbook based materials. Classroom pedagogy in both subjects seemed to reflect the effects of ¡§washback¡¨ (Cheng, 1997) i.e. testing influences classroom practice. Teacher feedback tended to focus on rephrasing the student's responses and recording responses on the white board. Although it is not possible to widely generalize the observation may be characteristic of language classroom practice in secondary schools in Hong Kong . ImplicationsThe implications of this are that across both languages, classroom practice relies heavily on ¡§what the teacher does¡¨ in this case teacher knowledge and minimally on the students cognitive effort. In order to build higher order linguistic and conceptual skills such as rephrasing, elaborating, exemplifying, reiterating and analyzing , the effort needs to be shifted more to students. This means that there needs to be an explicit focus on teaching a common set of skills and strategies in both |
Chinese and English that enable students to engage critically with a range of texts. The notion of ¡¨Common Underlying Proficiency¡¨ coined by Cummins (1984) may have applicability in conceptualizing these common higher order skills . At the school we have used The Four Resources Model (Freebody and Luke, 1990) as a schema across Chinese and English to teach common skills and strategies that will help students develop critical responses to texts. The language learning task in secondary schools is academic centred and in the context of Hong Kong sitting and passing exams is a core academic task. So building academic language proficiency in both Chinese and English as well as communicative skills should be the core pedagogical task of all language teachers.
What can teachers do? For Hong Kong Students, particularly in lower banding school we suggest that the skills to engage texts critically need to be explicitly taught to students.
Reference Cheng, L. (1997) How Does Washback Influence Teaching? Implications for Hong Kong . Language and Education Vol.11, No.1. 1997 Cummins, J. (1984). Wanted: A theoretical framework for relating language proficiency to academic achievement among bilingual students. In C.Rivera (ed), Language Proficiency and Academic Achievement.Clevedon, Multilingual Matters Freebody, P and Luke, A.(1990) Literacies, Programmes:Debates and Demands in Cultural Context. Prospect Vol.5.No.3 Visit our website: ¡§ School Wide Literacy Programme¡¨ http://www.twghsksk.edu.hk/xoops/html/hp/english/index.htm Dr Angel Lin is Associate Professor, Faculty of Education Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong |
Report 3: School Wide Literacy Programme
