Learning To Be Bilingual: How Do Non-Chinese Background Parents Support Their Children’s Chinese Language And Literacy Learning In Chinese Complementary School And At Home

In the UK particularly since this new millennium, the Chinese weekend school begins to accommodate children from non-Chinese backgrounds. For those children, Chinese is a complete foreign language. Without their parents’ support, they would not decide to learn it. Within the above context, my study sets out to investigate why those non-Chinese backgrounds parents send their children to the Chinese community school. Apart from that, it is important to investigate how Chinese as a foreign language is taught in the class where teachers and the majority of classmates are of Chinese background and how Chinese is learnt by those non-Chinese background children in the class. The way in which non-Chinese background parents get involved in their children’s Chinese learning is essential in this study. This research is ethnographically based, and taking place in the London Mandarin School. Participants include 2 non-Chinese background students, two mothers,2 Chinese teachers in the class and a private teacher who is giving private tutoring to both of the students at home. Data is collected through interviews, participant observations and documentation. The research findings confirm that parents’involvement in their children’s learning would greatly enhance their children’s learning motive and achievement; parents’ attitudes towards the target language and its culture is highly valued. The observation data also demonstrate that the teachers apply flexible bilingual approaches-scaffolding, translanguage and dual language to provide an inclusive class for non-Chinese background children. It is hoped my research findings will serve as a reference for non-Chinese background parents who want to support their children to learn Chinese and Chinese teachers in community weekend schools.