At Victoria Shanghai Academy (VSA), the mission is to develop passionate, healthy, and accomplished bilingual learners who are globally engaged. This is achieved by:
- offering multiple language pathways with a strong emphasis on Chinese language and heritage,
- cultivating intercultural understanding and respect through both curricular and co-curricular learning, and
- providing a holistic education that emphasizes emotional and physical well-being and character development.
Language learning at VSA promotes international-mindedness and cultural awareness. Our school takes pride in the fact that students will graduate as bilingual and biliterate learners of Chinese (Putonghua) and English. Through VSA’s commitment to bilingual education, the Language and Literature departments recognize the importance of nurturing a love of reading through the careful selection of course texts, library programs, and award-winning visiting author workshops. These components are an integral part of both VSA’s Chinese and English programs and provide opportunities to develop the skills that will enable them to be responsible and articulate users of both languages.
Intercultural understanding at VSA is about exploring human commonality, diversity, and the interrelatedness of all nations and peoples, and the complexity of these. VSA encourages learners to appreciate critically their own perspective (beliefs, values, experiences, and ways of knowing) as well as the perspectives of others, to nurture a spirit of open-mindedness and curiosity about other cultures, and display empathy and respect.
VSA stands out as a unique and innovative institution in multilingual teaching and learning due to its comprehensive approach to bilingual education. The school promotes international-mindedness and cultural awareness, ensuring that all students graduate as bilingual and biliterate learners of Chinese and English.
VSA recognizes the diverse language skills and experiences within its student body, reflecting its cosmopolitan setting in Hong Kong, China
Joining the MLRC School Network was driven by a commitment to enhancing educational practices for multilingual students at VSA. The MLRC focus on using evidence to strengthen learning aligns perfectly with VSA’s goal of ensuring excellence and equity for all learners. By becoming part of this global research-practice partnership, VSA recognizes the value of connecting with educators and researchers to tackle common challenges in multilingual education. The specific focus of VSA’s action research project was centered around how Tier 2 (academic vocabulary) was learnt in a multilingual context, which also led to the examination of the overall vocabulary size of the entire cohort! Qualitative interviews were also conducted, and these proved to be most interesting to dig deeper into students’ perceptions of their own language learning.
Membership of the MLRC School Network provides VSA staff with access to powerful learning tools and collaborative research opportunities. Furthermore, the chance to collaboratively shape a research agenda tailored to VSA’s specific needs allows interested parties to address the unique challenges that VSA faces in its specific linguistic context. Engaging in action research through the MLRC empowers our educators to explore relevant problems of practice within our school, fostering a culture of inquiry and continuous improvement. Overall, joining the MLRC School Network enhances VSA’s capacity to support multilingual learners and strengthens their educational community.
By participating in the MLRC School Network, VSA hopes to deepen its understanding of effective strategies for supporting multilingual learners. VSA is particularly interested in exploring challenges related to understanding the complexities of language acquisition in a bilingual context and the interrelatedness of Chinese and English, and how these two unrelated language systems support one another
VSA is also excited to learn from the shared experiences of other educators and researchers within a community of practice that encourages innovative solutions. Additionally, VSA aims to apply research findings to enhance its instructional methods and develop more effective learning environments for multilingual students. Overall, VSA’s participation in the MLRC School Network is driven by a commitment to continuous improvement and a desire to create equitable educational opportunities for all learners.
