Trilingual Education in Hong Kong Primary Schools: An Overview

Autor/inn/en	Wang, Lixun; Kirkpatrick, Andy
Titel	Trilingual Education in Hong Kong Primary Schools: An Overview
Quelle	In: Multilingual Education, 5 (2015) 1, (26 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2191-5059
DOI	10.1186/s13616-015-0023-8
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Elementary School Students; Bilingual Education; Sino Tibetan Languages; Mandarin Chinese; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Native Language; Language of Instruction; Language Planning; Multilingualism; Literacy; Curriculum Design; Questionnaires; Educational Policy; Educational History; Models; Program Effectiveness; Hong Kong + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Bilingual teaching; Bilingualer Unterricht; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Teaching language; Unterrichtssprache; Sprachwechsel; Mehrsprachigkeit; Multilingualismus; Alphabetisierung; Schreib- und Lesefähigkeit; Lehrplangestaltung; Fragebogen; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; History of education; Bildungsgeschichte; Analogiemodell; Hongkong
Abstract	Hong Kong is linguistically complex and diverse with three principal languages: Cantonese, English and Putonghua. A substantial debate on the language policies governing the three principal languages has continued for more than two decades among policy-makers and educators. The political transition in 1997 has greatly affected Hong Kong society, including language education. Since then, the HKSAR government has made a series of language policy reforms trying to create a reasonable balance among the three languages in Hong Kong. The policies of "biliteracy and trilingualism" and "mother-tongue teaching" are two of the most significant in terms of controversy and impact. They are now guiding the curriculum design in Hong Kong language education. The goal of the former policy is to train Hong Kong people to be truly biliterate (written English and Chinese) and trilingual (spoken English, Cantonese and Putonghua). However, Hong Kong primary schools presently do not have an agreed method for the implementation of trilingual education. After a comprehensive historical review of the development of language education in Hong Kong schools, this study aims to find out how the "biliterate" and "trilingual" language policy is currently implemented in Hong Kong primary schools. 155 Hong Kong primary schools participated in a questionnaire survey on how trilingual education is implemented in the schools. The findings suggest that the implementation of trilingual education varied significantly from school to school, and the effectiveness of the trilingual education models varied as well. It is hoped that the findings will help us to gain a better understanding of trilingual education in Hong Kong, and the study could lead to some insightful and theoretical contributions to multilingual education in general. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01