Parent-Children English Reading Workshop for the Newly-Arrived Children

The two-day workshop was held in the Tai Po Campus, Hong Kong Institute of Education on 19 th and 20 th April, 2008. Sponsored by Simatelex Charitable Foundation (Hong Kong), and co-organized by Mission to New Arrivals Ltd., the workshop was a part of the project aiming to provide school-based support to the target cross-border and newly-arrived students and their families.

Day One (19 th April)

Although typhoon No.3 had been hoisted for two days, 24 families had already gathered before 9:30a.m. After the registration and the opening ceremony, the representative of Mission to New Arrivals Ltd., Miss Creamy Chiu, led the participants for ice-breaking activities. These activities were intended to familiarize the participants with the environment and get ready for the two-day programme. The parents could make use of the activities to build up closer contact with their children. As one parent said, “the games are important as they draw me and my children together. They also helped us to relax for the coming learning activities”.

The participants were then divided into two groups, the parents and the children. Dr. Rosalind Wu and Mrs. Ellen Yip, who are both experienced in promoting home English reading, had prepared a tailor-made seminar for the parents. The objective of the seminar was to help the parents to read English with their children. Dr Wu and Mrs Yip shared a variety of strategies which could be used by parents of different English backgrounds. To many parents, reading English with their children was something that they had never thought of. However, as the speakers demonstrated, it was not only possible but also a feasible practice to improve both the English standard and the relationship between parents and children.

On the other hand, NET teacher Mr. David Eason had also prepared a series of activities for the children. Mr. Eason had chosen a more active and flexible approach in contrast to the spoon-fed one that is commonly employed in Hong Kong school. He believes that the efficiency of English learning is directly proportional to the passion of the individual learner. Thus, in his class, Mr. Eason introduced the children to various English word games in order to expose them to the interesting aspects of the language.

After lunch the participants were then divided into two groups. This session was designed to give an opportunity to the parents to try out with their children the strategies introduced in the seminar in the morning. The participants worked in small groups of four to five, and the two speakers in the morning, Dr. Wu and Mrs. Yip, were present to offer help and advice. To many parents, it was their first time to open an English book together with their children. They were touched by the experience.

Day Two (20 th April 2008)

The fine weather on Sunday 20 April had attracted new faces in addition to those who had turned up Saturday. Like the previous day, the programme of Day Two began with the warm-up exercises led by Miss Creamy Chiu.

Then the participants were once again divided into two groups of parents and children. Dr. Sam Leung and Dr. Rosalind Wu had organized another seminar for the parents. This seminar was the continuation of the one on Saturday, except with a focus on how to make use of school and community resources for English reading. Themes discussed in this seminar included choosing the appropriate books, browsing the websites and other resources to support children to read English.

While the parents were immersed in the theories, the children were busy with their “show-and-tell” activities. In day one, Mr. Eason had asked the children to bring to the class something which was related to their hobbies. In day two, the children were to give a brief talk with the phrases that Mr. Eason had taught on Saturday. As the children were getting more familiar with Mr. Eason, they were more motivated and less shy than yesterday. Many volunteers, bringing together with all sorts of things (including models, toys, books etc.), spoke aloud in front of the class in English.

After lunch, the participants were involved in a role-play session with Dr. Leung and Dr. Wu. The participants were allowed the maximum freedom to choose the story that they were interested most, and they also needed to make adequate arrangements for the improvisation. Although the time for preparation was short, the motivation and the innovativeness of the participants had offset this disadvantage.

The last activity of this two-day workshop was a sharing session. Dr. Celeste Yuen presented a slide-show of photos taken from the 2-day workshop, capturing the different memorable moments in these two days. In the sharing, both the parents and the children were eager to share with others some thoughts and ideas that they had had in the workshop.

Though short, many participants had expressed that this workshop was very helpful. To the parents, the workshop had not only exposed them to new theories of and strategies in parent-child English reading, but it had also provided them with a chance to bridge the gap between them and their children. In addition, the workshop could help them to establish a network of fellow newly-arrived families.