Chinese language provision for ethnolinguistic minorities in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools: policy, practice, and phenomenology

After the 1997 handover, policymakers in Hong Kong have instituted a series of language policies that emphasise the importance of the Chinese language to rebrand the postcolonial city as a ‘biliterate and trilingual’ financial hub in Asia. One unintended consequence, however, is that a burgeoning population of linguistically and culturally diverse students struggles to learn Chinese – i.e., Cantonese as the spoken code and Standard Written Chinese as the written code – as an additional language (CAL), which has escalated into a notable language education issue because later-life prospects are increasingly dependent upon their proficiency in Chinese as a majority language. Informed by findings of a systematic review carried out as part of the present study, and the Douglas Fir Group’s (2016) call for a transdisciplinary framework encompassing the micro, meso, and macro levels of additional language learning in a given milieu, a multi-dimensional, mixed-methods design was adopted to problematise CAL provision for ethnolinguistic minority students with CAL needs as the focal language policy and planning (LPP) phenomenon in post-1997 Hong Kong, as well as to particularise local realities with a cross-section of CAL instructional spaces and key participants therein. Through uniting both emic and etic paradigms, exploratory light was shone on the following dimensions of the existing phase of CAL provision (i.e., from 2014 onwards): (i) CAL policy intentions; (ii) CAL policy enactments; and (iii) experiences of CAL students and teachers who have lived through the current policy ecology. Five methods – qualitative content analysis, language assessments, questionnaires, lesson observations, and phenomenological interviews – were employed. Concerning CAL policy intentions (i.e., the ‘Policy’ domain), textual data from a sample of 173 policy documents published since 1997 were gathered and analysed using the method of qualitative content analysis. As for CAL policy enactments (i.e., the ‘Practice’ domain), two primary schools and two secondary counterparts were purposively recruited to explore CAL instruction vis-à-vis the primary-secondary interface. Data from this domain consisted of (i) student data drawn from having administered language assessments and questionnaires with 101 students, and (ii) classroom data from having observed 24 lessons (i.e., 1394 minutes) taught by four CAL teachers. To further triangulate policy and practice data, phenomenological interviews (i.e., the ‘Phenomenology’ domain) were administered with a subsample of 15 CAL students from the four CAL settings observed, as well as their four teachers. At the macro level of policy, the current phase of CAL provision is largely intended as decentralised programmes of policy measures at K-12 levels, which is further supported by CAL measures aiming to strengthening the infrastructural and/or nonformal aspects of CAL provision (e.g., research and resources). Despite demonstrably enhanced CAL provision since the introduction of ‘Chinese Language Curriculum Second Language Learning Framework’ in 2014, results of the analysis point to the existence of policy incongruities: on one hand, the government intends to facilitate CAL students’ integration into the mainstream curriculum; on the other hand, the government authorises and subsidises CAL students to seek alternative qualifications in Chinese. At the micro level of policy enactment across the primarysecondary interface, classroom data demonstrate, among other findings, that CAL instruction at secondary levels is associated with a narrower range of CAL talk and task characteristics, with noticeable alignment with overseas Chinese-as-a-foreignlanguage assessments (i.e., prioritising alternative arrangements). Yet, this pattern of instructional alignment is not identified among CAL settings at primary levels, with classroom data pointing to their orientation towards the mainstream curriculum, as well as the affordances of adopting mixed-abilities grouping and differentiated materials to manage CAL learner diversity. Apart from corroborating findings gleaned from the classrooms, interview data offer additional insights into the diverse realities experienced by CAL teachers and their minority students, especially in areas relating to CAL curriculum development and implementation, CAL learning experiences in postcolonial Hong Kong, and their respective identity trajectories. Taken together, although CAL provision for ethnolinguistic minority students has received ample policy attention and been accordingly enhanced from 2014 onwards (e.g., increased commitments of recurrent funds, and CAL measures targeting the kindergarten sector), it has all along been subject to the ecological influences of a laissez-faire policy ecology favouring school-based management and loose coupling (see Weick, 1976), as well as the broader examination-driven culture. Against this backdrop of CAL decision-making (e.g., curriculum development and resource allocation) devolved to frontline practitioners situated at various key K-12 stages, it is argued that secondary CAL teachers’ agentive actions instantiate what Cummins (2000) refers to as ‘the narrowing of the curriculum brought about by teaching to the test’ (p.248). In other words, CAL instructional spaces lack coordination between primary levels and secondary counterparts. The tight coupling formed between CAL instruction at secondary levels and overseas Chinese assessments (i.e., short-term CAL goals) might possibly undercut the intended efficacy of existing CAL provision as a whole. Potential future research avenues are explored with implications for further policy optimisation that attends to the constraining effects of the policy ecology (e.g., the lack of a sound assessment-cum-accountability system) on local actions, in hopes that more efforts will be purposively channelled towards the longterm and worthwhile CAL goals of mainstreaming and socially just integration.