This study employed a mixed-method approach from multiple source of informants, including NCS students, parents, principals, teachers, multicultural teaching assistants (MTAs), and voluntary agencies to validate the effectiveness of using the Home-School-Community (H-S-C) framework in teaching Chinese to non-Chinese-speaking (NCS) children. Results revealed that NCS students receiving the H-S-C-based interventions showed a better Chinese language proficiency progression than the comparison group. Within the home domain, NCS parents increased awareness, knowledge and skills in supporting children's learning, and provided improved space for learning Chinese at home. In the school domain, principals and teachers were equipped with culturally-responsive pedagogical knowledge and skills in teaching NCS students, with MTAs' assisting in teaching and communicating with parents and teachers. Community domain programs provided experiential learning opportunities for NCS students to know the community and engage in cultural exchange with local students. With a holistic approach to home-school-community domains, a reconstruction of an L1-like Chinese language learning environment was made possible for NCS students.

A professional teaching development programme was established to equip multicultural teaching assistants (MTA) with skills and knowledge to teach non-Chinese speaking (NCS) preschoolers in Hong Kong. To evaluate if MTAs are perceived to be able to perform their intended roles (support Chinese and overall learning, provide pastoral support, bridge the communication between NCS parents and kindergartens, and promote social integration), questionnaires were collected from 18 principals and 74 teachers. To assess if the programme can equip MTAs with necessary skills for the planned roles, questionnaires were collected from 39 MTAs, and a focus group interview with 8 MTAs was also conducted. Results showed that principals and teachers were satisfied with MTAs’ performances in supporting NCS students’ learning. Moreover, the majority of MTAs agreed that the training programme helped them to perform their intended roles in preschools. Most modules taught in the training programme, apart from one exception, were well received by MTAs. The focus group interview revealed that MTAs were satisfied with the programme, though they preferred more training on Chinese writing skills and knowledge in dealing behavioral issues of children. The study shows the possibility of integrating MTAs into multicultural classrooms in Hong Kong to facilitate NCS children’s learning.

Recent literature has emphasized the importance of parental involvement of immigrant families in supporting their children's education and learning advancement. Support from parents spiritually and in terms of familial resources is important in helping their children to overcome cultural differences and learning demands. However, few studies systematically explore how the parents can be empowered in the first place to provide such support. This paper attempts to fill this research gap with findings from Hong Kong, a place where such empowerment to migrants and ethnic minority parents has been badly needed. The learning of Chinese is a great challenge for these parents and their children for life, career and education. Yet, these parents often feel little hope that they can support their children in going over the language hurdle. Chinese scripts are non-phonetic, and Chinese speech is tonal. Few of the parents are themselves literate in Chinese. In view of this, parental empowerment has been taken as one focus in a five-year collaborative project "C-for-Chinese@JC" based on a home-school-community model. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty ethnic minority parents upon open invitation in 2020. Six types of emergent parent changes were identified through their participation in program activities. Based on an analysis of the critical incidents associated with the changes, two critical aspects were identified in the parental empowerment process, which include: 1) Parents' seeing their children making improvements in their Chinese learning; 2) Parents' seeing themselves being able to play a part in the activities related to the learning and expanding their own community social networks. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on parental empowerment and change, including the need of synergetic inputs from NGOs, schools and universities under the home-school-community (h-s-c) model.

No abstract