Empowering Educators Beyond Textbooks: How Teacher-led Training redefined a School's English Culture

Many families at the NTW & JWA Yuen Long Nursery School come from grassroots backgrounds and may not provide additional educational resources for their children beyond regular schooling. As a result, their access to and exposure to a second language, such as English, is often limited. Recognizing English as a global language, the Wofoo Foundation has partnered with Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education (YCCECE) to enhance the quality of English language teaching in these kindergartens. This initiative focuses on providing professional development for principals and teachers, as well as integrating English instruction into the curriculum and daily conversations.

Impact on teachers

Principal Kong, from the school highlighted the transformative effects of the project on teachers and students. “Teachers are now more inclined to integrate English into their lessons, and there is a noticeable shift towards using English in circle time, drama, music, movement and storytelling, enhancing students' exposure to the language.”. These areas were covered in the five training workshops conducted by YCCECE

Feedback from students

The results among students have also been remarkable. “Students are showing notable improvements in their English vocabulary, sentence construction, and overall confidence. They can now use sentences in conversation rather than just isolated words!” One innovative outcome has been the class's creation of their own picture book in English, moving beyond the Chinese-only books they previously made. This e-book is available for other students to read, fostering a long-term culture of English learning.

Benefits for the community

Meanwhile, the school has actively involved parents by sharing videos of children presenting in English, allowing families to witness progress and celebrate achievements together. It has reinforced the community's belief in the value of education and the importance of English as a global language.

The program has driven a change of culture in teaching and learning English in the school. Principal Kong has also embraced this change, recognizing the necessity of establishing an ongoing English context within the school. She has taken the significant step of hiring a Native English Teacher (NET) as a classroom teacher starting this year.

Building on its success, the project will continue to expanding its reach to K1 classes and the findings from this project are also expected to provide valuable insights for other kindergartens in Hong Kong, contributing to the broader community through increased awareness of the importance of English and the quality of early childhood education.