Abstract
On-going knowledge mobilization and migration take place on a daily basis in the globalized world. Canada is a multilingual and multicultural country with a large number of visitors and immigrants. One in five Canadian speaks a foreign language other than English and French (Postmedia News, 2012). This case study examined six-year-old Chinese children’s heritage language learning in a community school from multiliteracies perspective using observations, interviews, and artefacts to understand children’s literacy learning. The findings indicated that Chinese children’s literacy learning was not in the traditional repetitive way but involved multimodal communication at school. Useful implications are made for heritage language educators regarding ways to support meaningful heritage language teaching and learning.
Highlights
Canada is a multilingual and multicultural country with a large number of visitors and immigrants
My research question is in what ways do Chinese children learn Mandarin Chinese at a community heritage language school that operates according to the school calendar days? I present the theoretical perspectives that guide this study
In conclusion, the findings of this study break the traditional stereotypes of Chinese language learning as learning through repeated print literacy activities and indicate that Chinese language learning can be multimodal and engaging
Summary
Canada is a multilingual and multicultural country with a large number of visitors and immigrants. The People’s Republic of China is one of the top immigration source countries and the Chinese language is one of the top three frequently spoken mother tongues at home (CIC, 2015). It is for these reasons that educators need to understand Chinese children’s schooling in Canada. This paper examines Chinese children’s heritage language learning from a multimodal lens. My research question is in what ways do Chinese children learn Mandarin Chinese at a community heritage language school that operates according to the school calendar days? My research question is in what ways do Chinese children learn Mandarin Chinese at a community heritage language school that operates according to the school calendar days? I present the theoretical perspectives that guide this study
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