ABSTRACT
South Asian students, as disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong, are faced with challenges in Chinese language learning, which becomes the main obstacle to their upward mobility (Shum, Gao, Tsung, & Ki, 2011). This study aims to investigate the influence of teachers’ scaffolding in languaging dynamics on teaching Chinese to South Asian students in Hong Kong. To understand teachers’ languaging dynamics (Thibault, 2011), multimodal interaction analysis was employed via non-participant classroom observation with video recording in L2 secondary Chinese language classrooms in Hong Kong. One experienced Chinese teacher was chosen as the exemplar for Chinese language teaching. The teacher’s languaging behaviours in the pedagogic process were analysed with Halliday’s (2004) Systemic Functional Linguistics and McNeill’s (1992) theory of language and gesture for multimodal data interpretation. The findings show how teachers’ languaging dynamics influence the effective teaching of Chinese language to non-Chinese speaking students in Hong Kong. The study demonstrates the significance of languaging dynamics in Chinese language education and provides data and references for teacher education in L2 secondary contexts in Hong Kong.
