Professional Capacity Building of Multicultural Teaching Assistants in Hong Kong Kindergartens with Ethnic Minority Children

Abstract

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.

What Empowers Ethnic Minority Parents to Change towards Supporting Their Children’s Learning of Chinese in a Hong Kong Home-School-Community Project?

“…Some parents had higher participation in program activities than others. Echoing the recent observation that the Chinese language proficiency of children whose parents have higher program participation rate improved more than children having parents of no or low participation, parents learned together with their children in activities and enjoyed the learning with appreciation for the support offered by both NGOs and schools (Tse et al, 2021a(Tse et al, , 2021b(Tse et al, , 2020bNg et al, 2020). As evidenced, some parents were less involved in their children's school activities, and data showed the main obstacles as follows: full-time working parent status; time constraints of parent within family schedule; limited activity choices.…”

“…NCS parents at family level have limited proficiency in Chinese language. This creates difficulties in their communication with schools (Tse et al, 2021a(Tse et al, , 2021b(Tse et al, , 2021c, and also in their monitoring of children's learning progress (Tse et al, 2020a(Tse et al, , 2020b. Therefore, helping parents to learn Chinese language is essential to make the NCS families, both parents and children, to be more adapted to the education system in Hong Kong.…”

Professional Development of Preschool Teacher Assistants in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts

“…Most studies have focused on teacher self-efficacy and its enhancements to school and preschool (Lauermann & Hagen, 2021). Studies on TAs in general, and more specifically on TAs' self-efficacy in working with LCDC are rare (Tse, 2021). Generally, preschool TAs are not formally educated or certified to work with children.…”