Abstract
Reading to Learn (R2L) is a widely used pedagogy in numerous countries. However, most studies on R2L pedagogy focused on teaching English as a second language. Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language that adopts a nonalphabetical orthography, and only a few studies have discussed the application of R2L pedagogy in teaching Chinese as a second language. To fill this gap, a quasi-experimental study was adopted to explore the effectiveness of R2L pedagogy in improving the performance of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong in terms of Chinese composition. Four teachers and 103 students from two middle schools were invited to participate in the study, which lasted for three months. The hypothesized positive effects on increased student writing performance in the explanatory genre were demonstrated via empirical data. Moreover, R2L pedagogy improved the students’ awareness of the importance of incorporating various stages and details when writing essays. Student participation considerably increased with additional support from peers and teachers. However, teachers encounter three challenges in implementing R2L pedagogy. First, they must possess a basic understanding of systemic functional linguistic theory and R2L pedagogy before designing the curriculum. Second, full participation might conflict with the limited teaching time during the implementation of R2L pedagogy. Third, teachers must deal with students’ various learning needs due to the latter’s diverse language levels and backgrounds. The practical implications of this study have also been discussed.
Highlights
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL), known as the pedagogy of the ‘Sydney School’ e.g., [1, 2], considers language as a meaning-making system [3] and highlights the social functions of language [4]
As the first attempt to apply the R2L model to evaluate the Chinese writing of South Asian ethnic minority students, this study aims to gain insight into the challenges faced by teachers when using R2L in their classrooms
The initial equivalence between the experimental and control groups in the intermediate Chinese (IIC) and Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) cohorts were examined with an independent t-test
Summary
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL), known as the pedagogy of the ‘Sydney School’ e.g., [1, 2], considers language as a meaning-making system [3] and highlights the social functions of language [4]. SFL discusses how particular language choices are made by writers to construct meaning and stresses how social contexts influence textual realisation This theory advances the idea that language always has three meta-functions: the ideational meta-function for experiencing inner and outer worlds; the interpersonal meta-function for connecting ideas; and the textual meta-function for transforming the above two constructs into spoken or written texts [5]. These three meta-functions are always present, integrated in language and their realisation relies on the specific contexts in which language is produced. Inspired by SFL and genre theory, considerable research has been conducted to improve language teaching worldwide. e.g. [1, 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]
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