This five-year project is initiated by HKJC to develop a Holistic Model (HM) that synergizes the capacity of different stakeholders, through mobilising cross sectoral collaboration, to enhance the Chinese proficiency of Non-Chinese Speaking (NCS) children in local kindergartens to facilitate early integration into the community. Taking the important role of stakeholders including parents, living environment as well as the effectiveness of teaching into consideration, the target of this project is to build a collaborative model between home, school and community to enhance the Chinese proficiency of NCS students in local kindergartens to facilitate social integration and better transition into primary education. Hence, the objectives of this project are to: (a) develop culturally responsive resources for effective learning of Chinese in home, schools and the community; (b) promote resources for the cultivation of a culturally responsive environment in schools and the community; (c) develop children’s fundamental Chinese language skill in order to facilitate social engagement in schools and the community and better transition into primary education, and (d) build a pool of facilitators, including parents, professionals, local and ethnic minority mentors to support, enhance and sustain learning of Chinese. The Project will design different intervention programme meticulously to engage parents, school teacher and community so as to facilitate NCS students learning Chinese language in a living, pleasurable and effective ways. Most importantly, the programmes will enhance learning opportunity for NCS preschoolers. Tertiary institutes and NGOs with different expertise will collaborate closely with HKU project team. They included the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, the SKH Lady MacLeHose Centre, the Hong Kong Christian Service, and the Education University of Hong Kong. The HKU team will focus on developing school-based curriculum, assessment tools, L/T resources as well as capacity building of 20 kindergartens’ teachers.
Official website of C-for-Chinese@JC: http://www.c4chinese.hk