Child Care and Early Education Research Connections

Skip to main content

Relationships between receptive vocabulary in English and Cantonese proficiency among five-year-old Hong Kong kindergarten children

Description:
There is little consensus among different early childhood education stakeholders in Hong Kong on whether it is beneficial or detrimental for children to receive an English bilingual education before the age of 6. This longitudinal study investigated the issue of potential 'detrimental effects of learning English' on Hong Kong kindergarten children's performance in L1 (Cantonese) and L2 (English) over a six-month period. The sample consisted of 53 children, 29 of whom went to international schools and received 90 minutes of daily in-class English instruction, and 24 of whom went to local schools, and received 20 minutes of daily in-class English instruction. Analyses of the relationship between L1 and L2 development showed no evidence that learning a second language is detrimental to the learning of the first. This was despite the large difference in the amount of in-school instruction time the children who went to local vs. international schools received. Children in the international schools vastly outperformed those in the local schools in English. We found no evidence that learning a second language is detrimental to learning more general cognitive skills. The results provided very weak evidence for the opposite. Thus, learning English as a second language in Hong Kong before the age of 6 did not harm children's learning in any way. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Country:
Hong Kong SAR China

Related resources include summaries, versions, measures (instruments), or other resources in which the current document plays a part. Research products funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation are related to their project records.

- You May Also Like

These resources share similarities with the current selection.

English vocabulary instruction in six early childhood classrooms in Hong Kong

Reports & Papers

Practical and conceptual aspects of children's play in Hong Kong and German kindergartens

Reports & Papers

Associations of warmth and control of Filipina domestic helpers and mothers to Hong Kong kindergarten children?s social competence

Reports & Papers
Release: 'v1.57.0' | Built: 2024-03-14 09:29:08 EDT