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Professor Cheng Pui Wan is the principal investigator to the Scheme.  Professor Cheng is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where her teaching areas include psychology of learning, specific learning disabilities, special educational needs and special education, and classroom management.  Professor Cheng had been involved in numerous research grants and projects, most of which dealt with literacy difficulties, specific learning difficulties, psychology and pedagogy in handwriting and learning Chinese, and particularly in the areas of early intervention.

Bishop Domingos Lam Centre for Research in Education 
University of Saint Joseph, Macau

Colégio de Santa Rosa de Lima - Secção Chinesa
Escola Cham Son de Macau
Escola Nossa Senhora de Fátima
Escola Secundária Lou Hau
Escola da Associação Geral das Mulheres de Macau
Escola Dom João Paulino

A Teachers’ Conference was held in April 2019 to share the results of the pilot Scheme with school administrators and teachers across Macau.  The Conference was attended by representatives from the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau as well as about 200 teachers from 25 schools in Macau.  Teachers from the two seed schools shared their teaching experiences and how they had witnessed the improvements of students in both normal and intervention groups after participating in the Scheme.  The teaching materials developed and used in the small group intervention were also put on display.

The GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme’s key mission is to help build a strong foundation for children’s Chinese literacy development, with teacher training being one of its key initiatives in improving the quality of Chinese language instruction for kindergarten teachers.  The first Macau-wide “Basic Teacher Training” sessions, comprising the first two of four modules, were held on 16th and 23rd of November, 2019, with over 160 teachers participating over the two days.

Modules 3 & 4 was originally scheduled in March 2020, but due to the pandemic, these sessions have now been postponed for the first quarter of 2021.

Despite the disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic, the “Basic Teacher Training” session conducted by the GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme was successfully held on the campus of the University of Saint Joseph on 31 October 2020.  Only 30 participants were allowed to attend the training onsite due to social distancing measures, and with border controls, trainers based in Hong Kong participated via video conferencing.

The training on the day consisted of modules 1 & 2 of the Basic Teacher Training module.  The Scheme’s Principal Investigator, Professor Cheng Pui Wan opened the introductory session over video conferencing, assisted by Dr Maranda Mak of the University of Macau co-leading onsite.

The afternoon session on foundation of language acquisition was led by Ms Terry Tse, Assistant Director on the Project Team instructing from Hong Kong.  Ms Amanda Lei, head kindergarten teacher from Colégio de Santa Rosa de Lima (Secção Chinesa), co-led onsite assisting on small groups hands-on exercises with participating teachers.

Teacher training is a main pillar of the GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme.  Previous teacher training sessions conducted by the Project Team had been well attended; further sessions will be held in the first quarter of next year, to comprise modules 3 and 4 of the Basic Teacher Training curriculum.

The Project Team had devised a short one-on-one screening tool for kindergarten children in order to assess their Chinese language proficiency and, as importantly, gauge their proficiency level relative to their peers.  With assistance from school administrators and teachers, these one-on-one screenings are done towards the end of each academic year in order to establish school-based benchmarks for the different age groups.  

This screening is particularly important for those graduating from K2 as it is used to identify students whose Chinese language proficiency is lagging their peer group, and therefore deemed to be “at risk” of Chinese language acquisition delay.  These students are then encouraged to participate in small group intervention during their K3 academic year, with the hope that the intervention sessions will enable them to improve their Chinese language proficiency during their last year of kindergarten, enabling them to improve their proficiency in line with their peer group before they begin their primary education.

It is hoped that under the Research component of the second phase of this Scheme, a simplified and improved screening tool can be devised in due course to enable teachers to be able to conduct such screening in class.

Small group intervention is conducted during term time for K3 students, identified as “at risk” of Chinese language development delay, with their progress being tracked and monitored.  

The pilot Scheme’s tracking of such results has shown noticeable improvements in children after one year of receiving regular intervention.  Children who received small group intervention were able to catch up to their same age peers, and the skills they learned from the small group sessions could be transferred to large group classes.

• Kindergarten students have great potential.  As long as we (teachers) are willing to put in a little bit of effort, you will see a great change, so do not underestimate your ability.
• I believe that every seed teacher who volunteered to run the intervention groups in the Scheme did so as they want to help students with weaker language abilities.  
• I hope that more teachers will join so they can benefit more students
• The intervention groups have been able to help weaker students make significant improvement and made me understand its philosophy.
• Young children develop language a difference pace.  The intervention groups are very effective in helping those who are slower to catch up.
• The intervention groups have had a positive impact on the students’ learning motivation.  The students now actively participate in both their normal classes as well as in the small groups.
• Prior to intervention, the students knew less words, were slower to say sounds and lacked confidence.  After receiving intervention, all aspects of their language skills had improved, were more self-confident, more motivated to learn and evidently participated more actively in class.
• Through participating in the intervention groups, the students were able to experience the joy of language learning and took interest in learning words in daily life.
• The teacher training improved my skills in teaching small groups as well as large classes.
• In the large class setting, it is harder to cater to the needs of weaker students. In the intervention groups, teachers are able to target their weaknesses and design appropriate educational games to enable them to learn through play and at the same time increase the learning motivation and interest.

Support and education within the family can have a lasting impact on a child’s learning and development.  The “Parents’ Seminars” are aimed at helping parents build their child’s language skills outside the classroom.  The Parents’ Seminar Series comprises age-appropriate sessions for the three kindergarten grades conducted for parents at the participating schools.  The seminars introduce parents to the appropriate developmental language level expected for their child’s age, as well as methods on how parents can also be involved in helping their child grasp language concepts and boost language skills in everyday life.  Demonstrations, role play and where possible, “live practice sessions” to include students are held during the seminars to enable parents to better understand and grasp the concepts covered.

On the 17th April, 2021, the GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme co-hosted with Lou Hau High School Affiliated Kindergarten’s first parent seminar. More than 100 families from all three grades stayed home and participated the seminar on shared reading via Zoom.

Most parents attended the seminar at home with their children, learned from speakers from Project Team members from Macau and Hong Kong over videoconference, to understand the importance of reading and to learn techniques to motivate shared reading. The two directors from the kindergarten were also on hand to encourage parents to actively participate in the shared-reading practice and Q&A sessions, winning book prizes for sharing with their children. 

As the seminar came to an end, teachers turned on their web camera to greet their students and took a “group photo” with all participants.

On the 10th of April 2021, the GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme co-hosted with Escola Dom João Paulino the school’s first parent seminar, with fifteen parents and their children participating.

Speakers from Hong Kong, via video conference, joined Ms Amanda Lei, Director of the Kindergarten of Colégio de Santa Rosa de Lima (Secção Chinesa) and Dr Miranda Mak, Assistant Professor from the Faculty of Education at the University of Macau, who conducted the seminar on site.  They illustrated the “three essentials” and “four skills” of shared reading with vivid examples and on-the-spot demonstration.

In addition to the shared reading practice section, each participating family also received a picture book for reading at home, as encouragement for parents to put what they have learnt into practice.

On 12th of December, 2020, the GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme hosted an online Parents Seminar for the kindergarten at the Macau Baptist College.  Close to sixty pairs of parents and children attended the seminar on parent-child reading, which was held via video conferencing.

Principal Lei C.K. of Baptist College kicked off the seminar sharing the positive impact brought by the Scheme after it was implemented at Macau Baptist College three years ago.  Principal Lei was pleased to witness improvements in literacy of his students, and encouraged parents to practise shared reading with their children.  In the first of the seminar’s three sections, Professor Miranda Mak from the Faculty of Education at the University of Macau discussed concepts of the Three Essentials of Reading.  The scheme’s Assistant Director, Terry Tse, then shared Four Interactive Skills of Shared Reading, followed by Professor Cheng Pui Wan, the Scheme’s Principal Investigator, who explained how to combine these skills in real settings with illustrated examples of shared reading.

The seminar included an online interactive game which was actively participated by parents in attendance; their children were also as eager to participate during the seminar.  Head teachers Ms Chen and Ms Choi of the kindergarten were also present to announce winners to the online game, who were be awarded with children books to encourage shared reading.

On 28th of November, 2020, the “GEG Chinese Literacy Development Scheme”, together with the kindergarten of Colégio de Santa Rosa de Lima (Secção Chinesa) co-hosted two parent seminars.  In line with social distancing measures advised by the Government, the two seminars were held via video conferencing, so as to ensure both parents and children’s well-being in compliance with safety measures.  Parents and children were able to comfortably, and safely, attend the sessions at home, learning together over the internet.  

Almost one hundred sets of parents and children attended the seminars in the morning session, which was on parent-child shared reading, for parents of K2 students; the Scheme’s Principal Investigator, Professor Cheng Pui Wan opened the session with highlights of the three essentials of shared reading.  Assistant Director Terry Tse went on to elaborate on the four interactive skills of shared reading, followed by Dr Miranda Mak of the University of Macau, who illustrated the applications of these skills in real settings.

For the seminar for parents of K3 students on readiness for Chinese literacy success in primary school, over 90 pairs of parents and children joined the seminar. The seminar pinpointed the critical literacy skills required for a successful transition from kindergarten to primary education in the Chinese language.  Professor Cheng and Ms. Gloria Ho, Assistant Director of the Scheme, imparted parents with the equal importance of sense and reason in parenting with two practical strategies for supporting reading aloud and handwriting.  Dr Mak reinforced these concepts with real cases and examples.

The K2 Parents Seminar on shared reading included a practice session, while both seminars included online interactive games, when parents competed in online interactive games, with winners awarded pictures books to encourage shared reading with their children.

During parent seminars, booklists recommending age-appropriate picture books are given out so that parents can use them for shared-reading time with their children.  Book Accession Numbers for each of the books that are available for loan from Macau’s public libraries are also provided.

• The Parents’ Seminar has enabled me to understand how I can communicate and explain everyday phrases to my child.
• The Parents’ Seminar has taught me how to engage in shared reading with my child. Apart from watching the demonstration, I was able to practice it at the venue.
• The Parents’ Seminar helped me find ‘joy’ in shared reading and taught me how to get my child interested in reading.
• The speaker made everything very interesting and used videos and pictures to help us better understand.
• After participating in the Scheme, there is obvious improvement in my child’s word recognition ability, and he developed an interested in reading books.
• My daughter is more able to express herself after joining the Scheme. She now will proactively ask about words she does not recognize and like to go to the library.  Each evening she will select a book to read with us.
• The Scheme has helped my child recognize more Chinese characters. My child will proactively read out the words he sees on billboards.
• My child loves the Scheme.  He will share the new characters he has learned at school with me when he comes home.
• The Scheme uses a fun approach to teaching.  As children learn words through playing the games, it increases their learning motivation.
• The information from the Scheme is very interesting and can meet the needs of my daughter.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING TO PROMOTE AND SUPPORT EARLY LITERACY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN MACAU SIGNED BETWEEN THE UNIVERSITY OF SAINT JOSEPH AND GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT GROUP FOUNDATION

After shared reading with their children, parents may recite the story book with the children again, to reinforce their reading and narrating abilities.