Creating print media for ethnic minority youth: a case study of the use of peer-written picture storybooks in the Chinese as a second language (CSL) classroom

Abstract

In Hong Kong (HK), the number of ethnic minority (EM) students learning Chinese as a second language (CSL) has been increasing in recent years. Most of them are of Pakistani and Indian descents, whereas there are also a good number of Filipinos and Nepalese. These students vary amongst themselves in terms of number of years in HK, experience of learning CSL, as well as level of Chinese proficiency. However, recent research found that EM students having studied the Chinese language for a long time are not necessarily more proficient users (Tsung et al., 2012). Furthermore, since there are huge individual differences amongst EM students, it poses a challenge for schools and teachers to cater for their learning needs. Having recognized the difficulty in developing EM students’ Chinese reading and writing abilities, this paper presents a successful case of using peer-written, formally-published picture storybooks for enhancing EM students’ Chinese reading and writing abilities in a secondary school. It is part of a teaching experiment for a longitudinal study based on the differentiated concept (Tomlinson, 2001), “Integrative Perceptual Approach” (Tse et al., 2007), various reading strategies, Genre Approach (Shum, 2010), and Drama in Education (Ho, 2011) as teaching strategies. Thirteen EM students of Pakistani or Indian descent were recruited as research participants; the teacher was provided with professional training and support. Action research and quasi-experimental design have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of this school-based curriculum. After a one-year teaching experiment, the pre- and post-tests results indicated that the research participants’ Chinese language ability has been enhanced significantly (effect sizes between 0.75 – 8.00). Their learning motivation has been strengthened too. The paper argues that the use of authentic teaching materials, particularly peer-written picture storybooks as basic teaching materials, played a significant role in these teenage students’ socialization towards integrating into HK society while enhancing their learning motivation and improving their Chinese reading and writing abilities. These print media created by other EM students not only provided flexibility for teachers’ tailoring, but also allowed the EM students to relate the content and contexts to themselves. Such relevance is multi-fold: firstly, these peer-written picture storybooks, as literary works/artworks of other EM adolescents, matched the mental age of the featured students, ; secondly, such storybooks written in relatively simple Chinese facilitated better comprehension; thirdly, the themes and concerns of these stories are shared by most EM students in HK, e.g. migrants’ lives; fourthly, the storybooks were written and illustrated by other EM students on the same language support programme and it highlighted the shared identity and experiences between authors and readers. As with other forms of mass media, print media are used by adolescents for entertainment, identity formation, high sensation, coping, and youth culture identification (Arnett, 1995). The paper concludes that while the production of peer-written picture storybooks offered EM students an opportunity to showcase their original works and to boost their confidence in CSL as a member of local society, the use of these “students’ works” also helped foster various reading strategies (e.g. the situational model, bridging inferences, and transference) and writing pedagogies that characterize personal experience and self-development, which in turn contributed to the enhancement of EM students’ Chinese language proficiency.