The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of teaching intervention for Chinese learners, who were English speakers who tended to focus on phonemic awareness, in learning Chinese. It also tried to examine the impacts of Chinese phonological and morphological awareness on their English language development. The study was conducted in…

While translanguaging has been adequately researched in various educational sectors, there is scant research at the primary-level English-L2 classroom in the Chinese educational context. Within a monolingual English-only immersion policy favoured by the state in China for many decades now, translanguaging has been a debated issue recently. Within…

Through interpreting the status of Hoche language and cultural practices from community voices, this ethnographic case study conducted in a minority language school centers on five Han and Hoche ethnic minority children's positions toward multi-language learning. My research explores how these children negotiate the policies and multilingual…

The past decades have witnessed an increasing number of studies documenting native English teachers' (NETs') challenges in professional development and collaboration with nonnative English teachers' (NNETs') across multiple educational contexts. There are also debates in TESOL regarding the essentialized dichotomy of NETs and NNETs with…

National curriculum standards for different countries mean some International Baccalaureate (IB) schools must often balance IB and national standards. Literature on how schools find this balance is limited. Using a qualitative case study design, we examined the perspectives of teachers of English in a Chinese IB school that recently employed a…

Research has established the link between socioeconomic status (SES) and children's reading development. However, the theoretical mechanisms underlying the association between them have yet to be fully understood. Moreover, few previous studies exploring the mechanisms tapped both first language (L1) and second language (L2) at the same time. In…

Language separation policies in two-way bilingual education (TWBE) reflect ideologies of double monolingualism (Heller, 1995) and ignore the sociolinguistic realities of bi/multilingual students (García & Lin, 2017). This case study investigates the design and implementation of collaborative multilingual identity text projects (Prasad, 2018)…

Chinese as the medium of instruction (MOI) is used across the curriculum for early childhood education in Hong Kong; however, kindergartens with non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students adopt different MOI, in which English remains an integral part of learning and teaching, to cater to the needs of NCS students and their families. The present study…

After the handover back to Mainland China in 1997, the Hong Kong government adopted a 'biliterate and trilingual' policy to help Hongkongers develop an ability to read and write Chinese and English, and to speak and understand Cantonese, English and Putonghua. However, there are no clear government guidelines on how and when the three languages…

In this thesis, I present three related papers that collectively investigate the instructional supports on screen and in the media viewing context that influenced English and heritage language vocabulary knowledge in DLLs. In study 1, I examine how specific pedagogical approaches used in educational media might benefit DLLs. In study 2, I…

While recent research has examined cross-national curriculum and teacher preparation for second language writing, little research has investigated the influences of the pandemic and other social changes in preparing teachers to teach writing. The purpose of the study was to understand the preparation of teachers to teach writing, the factors that…

This study examined proficiency levels and attitudes of main languages in use among ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. We surveyed 260 students from primary and secondary schools with English as the medium of instruction. They were multilingual speakers who were proficient in spoken English and Cantonese. Our results revealed asymmetric and…

Since Singapore became an independent republic, careful language-in-education planning that caters to the economic, social, and political development of the country has never been abated. A notable case in point is the constant reviews and reforms of the curriculum of Chinese language (CL), a school subject required of ethnic Chinese children, to…

English learners (ELs) are students whose primary language is not English and are eligible for English language development services through the Transitional Bilingual Instruction Program (TBIP). Eligible ELs receive TBIP services until they become proficient in English. During the 2017-2018 school year, 136,357 students were identified as ELs, a…

Children who speak one language at home and a different language at school may be at higher risk of falling behind in their academic achievement when schooling is disrupted. The present study examined the effects of COVID-19-related school disruptions on English language and literacy development among monolingual and bilingual children in the US.…