Hong Kong/Cantonese

In many schools in south east China Cantonese is the medium of their instruction. The students are taught to read and write standard Chinese, however, they read with Cantonese pronunciation. Cantonese is also the main language the businesses, media, and government use in both Hong Kong and Macau. In my research I also found out that Cantonese has appeared in writing since the 17^th century. It is mainly used in personal letters, diaries, comics, poetry, advertising, newspapers, magazines, and in some literature.

There are two standard ways of writing Cantonese: there is a formal version and a colloquial version. The formal version is very different from spoken Cantonese but very similar to standard Chinese and can be understood by Mandarin speakers without much difficulty. The colloquial version is much closer to spoken Cantonese and unintelligible to Mandarin speakers.


Another fact I learned was that all varieties of Chinese are tonal. You may be saying what is tonal. Tonal means that each syllable can have a number of different meanings depending on the intonation with which it is pronounced. Cantonese has between 6 and 9 tones depending on who you ask.


The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers in southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. As stated earlier Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, however, the two languages are not mutually intelligible. This is largely because of pronunciation and grammatical differences in the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also has more historic roots. The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written. In the Mandarin language the spoken word is written as such, where with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what had been said. This can result in the situating in which Mandarin and Cantonese text almost look the same, but are both pronounced differently (Cantonese, 2012). “All speakers of a language speak some dialect of that language. Dialects can be regional or social or both. People in different parts of the country speak differently but even within one area; people of different social classes may speak with different dialects” (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p.90). The Mandarin and Cantonese language share many words however, the way the words are spoken and written make it hard for the two speakers to understand each other.


The Chinese New Year is the most important celebration in the Hong Kong culture. The Chinese Folk Religion plays a crucial part of the culture. Unlucky sayings are considered offensive, and many people travel yearly to the cemetery on Ching Ming festival to honor and worship their ancestors. In Hong Kong there are many Shrines to the Gods and Goddesses of the earth. Also things like bagua mirrors are still used to protect and shield people from evil.

Numbers in the Chinese culture also play a role in people’s everyday life. The number 4 is avoided because it has a similarity to the Chinese word for die. Also a large number of Hong Kongers are Christians or Catholics. Other religions such as Islam, Hindu, are also practiced by minorities in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2012).

In Hong Kong Cantonese people represent the largest group of people. Beside the Cantonese, people of other Han Chinese groups also reside in Hong Kong. However, the Cantonese remains the largest group even amongst other Han Chinese groups in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong culture is also highly Cantonese-influenced and with the fact that Cantonese is most commonly used language of both everyday and formal conversations, as well as its use in the media and education other Han Chinese groups in Hong Kong, such as the Hakka, the Hoklo, the Shanghainese, or the Teochew, in particular those who are Hong Kong born or raised, often assimilate into the mainstream Cantonese identity of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2012).

An interesting fact that I learned was that the English language and the Cantonese language are considered the two languages of Hong Kong. English is one of the languages of the business and service industries; hotel employees, many urban Hong Kong residents, most young people and shop and service personnel understand and speak it to some degree (Hong Kong, 2012).

Teaching Writing to ELLs

What are some strategies for teaching writing to ELLs?

Teaching writing can be a challenge. It's important for teachers to know these challenges (Sousa, 2011, p. 92):

1) The mechanics of writing-how to form letters, places words and punctuation.

2) English proficiency-the extent of the ELL's mental lexicon and understanding of the rules.

3) Content Knowledge-what the ELL knows about the subject.

Several strategies mentioned to help overcome these challenges (Sousa, 2011, p. 93-94, 102-104):

·       Focus on the sounds of the language

·       Teach punctuation

·       Read-aloud to develop vocabulary

·       Pre-writing exercises

·       Teacher modeling

·       Interactive and shared writing

·       Dialogue journals and learning logs

·       Demonstrate how reading and writing are connected

·       Demonstrate how reading and writing are tools for thinking and learning

·       Brainstorm, draft, revise, edit

·       Teach grammar in the context of actual writing

·       Develop a core list of words for the students to use

·       Integrate spelling into reading and writing instruction

 What can teachers do to support ELLs in writing?

Developing proficiency in writing and comprehension can be done while listening to read alouds and reading. Both have a positive effect on vocabulary and writing. Teacher feedback on content and form is also important. ELLs can start with drawings as a prewrite exercise. Drawings help illicit conversation and written elaboration. Modeling of writing is also good. Clear examples should be provided so that students know exactly what they are aiming for.

Sousa, D. (2011). How the ELL Brain Learns. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin A Sage Company.

Q&A

1. Is language "hardwired"?

Spoken language is genetically hardwired, written is not. Learning to read is more successful when words are already known to the child.

2. Under what conditions is written English more difficult to learn for ELLs?

When L1 is non-alphabetic, written English is more difficult to learn, and this is compounded by English having "deep orthography", i.e., there is not 1 to1 correspondence of phonemes to graphemes. English has 26 letters and more than 44 phonemes.

3. What is the developmental process of alphabetic awareness?

Alphabetic awareness develops from pre-alphabetic phase to partial alphabetic, to full alphabetic, to consolidated alphabetic phase. In that final phase, learners chunk letter combinations efficiently. As alphabetic awareness develops, vocabulary increases dramatically.

4. Why should ELLs learn to speak before learning to read?

ELLs generally should learn to speak before reading, because reading depends on a knowledge of spoken vocab. Brain research confirms that reading requires more processing that is not genetically programed.

5. Should ELLs learn to read in L1? Why or why not?

Children with no EL proficiency, but who have spoken proficiency in the L1, benefit from learning to read in L1 as they develop spoken proficiency in English (because speaking proficiency facilitates learning to read) and only then learn to read and write in English. If there are no resources to develop reading in L1, English should concentrate at first only on spoken.

6. Does cultural background affect the learning of reading comprehension?

Learning reading comprehension is more difficult for ELLs partly because of cultural background differences in understanding texts.

7. Why is cooperative learning effective in teaching ELLs to read?

Because of "opportunities for sharing of understandings", cooperative learning is effective for ELLs.

8. What is BCIRC?

BCIRC stands for Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition, and has shown to be effective in developing reading in both L1 and English.

9. What does writing instruction involve?

Writing instruction involves mechanics, English proficiency, and content knowledge. Limited English proficiency and differences in rhetorical structure are two kinds of hindrances.

10. What are some communicative resources for teaching writing?

Research shows that read-alongs and drawing provide communicative resources for writing. Teacher modeling and think-alouds are effective. Graphic organizers and breaking writing tasks into small steps are also effective.

11. Why should the ELL teacher gather background knowedge from students?

Gathering background knowledge from students is effective in showing student you are interested in his/her experiences, gaining knowledge of student, and providing ideas for writing.

12. What are some ideas for teaching reading comprehension?

For reading comprehension, teaching alphabet, identifying necessary background info, modifying instruction according to need, using graphic organizers, vocabulary support, pointing to words as reading, use of illustrations, multiple readings, giving short readings, focusing on single theme or author, explicit strategy teaching, informal assessments, sharing ideas about readings, and having a reading center are all ideas for teaching.

13. What are some cooperative reading strategies?

Cooperative reading strategies include building background and vocab, predicting read aloud, partner and silent reading, treasure hunt, story mapping, retelling, writing about story, spelling, mutual checking, sentence making, test taking, direct instruction, writing workshops, and independent reading.

14. What are some ways to support learning to read?

Relating readings to students' cultures, involving family, pre-teaching vocabulary, and pre-reading activities are some ways to support learning to read.

15. What are some ways to support the learning of writing?

For writing, showing connection between reading and writing, relating both to thinking, modeling writing, demonstrating steps in writing process, giving challenging writing tasks, teaching grammar in context of writing, giving core vocabulary for writing, and integrating spelling into instruction are ways to support learning.

Bilingual Cooperative Intergrated Reading and Composition Model

The Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition model has shown success in teaching reading to ELLs in Elementary Schools. The model uses cooperative learning techniques and includes the following activities:

building background and vocabulary

making predictions

reading selection

partner reading and silent reading

treasure hunting

mapping the story

retelling the story

story related writing

saying words aloud and spelling

checking the partner

making meaningful sentences

taking tests

direct instruction in reading comprehension

writing workshops

independent reading

Cooperative learning seems to be an appropriate and effective method for children learning English. It should improve reading performance of students in their native language. In an analysis of 100 studies it was determined that student achievement in a variety of setting using cooperative learning methods increased significantly over those of the control groups.

Students who were part of the BCIRC program in second and third grade performed better on tests of Spanish and English reading than comparison students.

FIVE STRATEGIES THAT RANK HIGH IN OVERCOMING READING PROBLEMS:

FIVE STRATEGIES THAT RANK HIGH IN OVERCOMING READING PROBLEMS:
• Fluency building
• Direct teaching of vocabulary
• Relating reading to student experiences
• Chunking and questioning aloud
• Practicing paraphrasing and retelling

YouTube Video

This video is on the Cantonese language and the Hong Kong Culture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sVJngPcFLM

Morphology

Morphology is the study of words.

· A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit or part of a word.

· Words are made up of free and bound morphemes.  Linguists analyze words by their structure.

· Simple words have one free morpheme, complex words combine free and bound morphemes. 

Definition
	A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.

Discussion
	Current approaches to morphology conceive of morphemes as rules involving the linguistic context, rather than as isolated pieces of linguistic matter. They acknowledge that
	meaning may be directly linked to suprasegmental phonological units, such as tone or stress. the meaning of a morpheme with a given form may vary, depending on its immediate environment.
	Source: Payne, T. 1997a 20–21

Examples (English)

·         Unladylike The word unladylike consists of three morphemes and four syllables. ·         Morpheme breaks: un- 'not' lady '(well behaved) female adult human' -like 'having the characteristics of' None of these morphemes can be broken up any more without losing all sense of meaning. Lady cannot be broken up into "la" and "dy," even though "la" and "dy" are separate syllables. Note that each syllable has no meaning on its own. ·         Dogs ·         The word dogs consists of two morphemes and one syllable: dog, and -s, a plural marker on nouns Note that a morpheme like "-s" can just be a single phoneme and does not have to be a whole syllable. ·         Technique The word technique consists of only one morpheme having two syllables. Even though the word has two syllables, it is a single morpheme because it cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

Classification
	Morphemes may be classified, on the basis of word formation, characteristics into the following types:
	Morpheme type Structure Bound Free root simple, made up of a single morpheme; a basis for compounding and affixation   yes/no   yes/no stem may be complex, made up of one or more morphemes; a basis for affixation   yes/no   yes/no ·         affix prefix infix suffix suprafix simulfix circumfix simple   yes   no ·         clitic proclitic enclitic simple   yes (phonologically)   yes (syntactically)
	Note: A clitic is a kind of morpheme that does not fit well in the above classification system because it is phonologically bound but syntactically free.

12 Major Tenses in English

The 12 major tenses in English are:

o       Present

o       Past

o       Future

o       Present perfect

o       Past perfect

o       Future perfect

o       Present progressive

o       Past progressive

o       Future progressive

o       Present perfect progressive

o       Past perfect progressive

• Future perfect progressive

Irregular Verb Pair	Basic Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
lie/lay	Lie means rest or recline; Lay means put or place	lay laid	lain laid
sit/set	Sit means rest or take a seat; Set means put something down or prepare something for use	sat set	sat set
rise/raise	Rise means go up; Raise means lift something up or increase it	rose raised	risen raised

Writing

http://a4esl.org/q/h/9807/km-doubles.html

·       phonetic--spell words the way they sound

·       semantic--spell words alike that share the same meaning

·       etymological--spell words to reflect their origin (p. 109).

·         The silent e rule and the consonant doubling rule are procedural rules, “rules that involve changes in spelling when adding a suffix to a root word” (p.120).

·         The silent e rule can be taught by:

·         1. “Help students visualize complex words as being made up of a root and a prefix or suffix” (p.120).

·         2. Have student collect examples of silent e words.

·         3. Question students why some words have a silent e.

·         The consonant doubling rule can be taught by:

·         1. Pair students together to discuss a list of words and why you double a final consonant before adding a suffix.

·         2. Tell students “final consonants are never double before a suffix that starts with a consonant” (p.125).

Writing System	Advantage	Disadvantage
Pictographic/Ideographic – “writing consisting of pictures or symbols that represent ideas” (99).	“Writers can communicate ideas directly to people who speak different languages or different dialect of a language” (99).	“A writer has to learn a great number of different symbols, on for each idea” (100).
Alphabetic – “uses letters to represent the sounds of words that, in turn, represent things or ideas” (100).	“Writers have to only learn a small number of letters, and they can combine these letters in different ways to produce any word they want to write” (100)	“It can be understood only by a reader who speaks that language” (100).

·         Freeman & Freeman, 2004

Force	Demand	Example
phonetic	Spell words the way they sound	sit
semantic	Spell words alike that share the same meaning	hymn hymnal
etymological	Spell words to reflect their origins	One (Old English) kangaroo (Australian)

Dialect Differences

Dialect Differences

"All speakers of a language speak some dialect of that language" (Freeman&Freeman, 2004). People who live in different parts of the country speak differently from one another. However, even in a specific area, people of different social classes may speak with different dialects. Dialects are variations in language marked by certain ways of pronouncing words, particular choices of vocabulary, and even variations in syntax.

Example:

Some people say pop not soda.

People may say y'all and not you all.