ABSTRACT
This chapter reports a comparative case study – from practitioners’ perspectives – of the process of implementing a Cantonese-based music and theatre project for culturally and linguistically diverse pupils in Hong Kong and London. Both groups – the majority-language learners of South and Southeast Asian origins in Hong Kong, and heritage-language learners of Chinese descent in London – are linguistic minorities in these two world cities. They are learning Cantonese for different purposes (i.e., majority language versus heritage language) in the early years. This project primarily focuses on how this project manifested itself in relation to contextual factors situated in different language-learning settings. Findings on the potential of the DiE pedagogy as an overall humanistic approach adaptable across language-learning contexts will be discussed, with future avenues explored.
