A case study of trilingual education in an international kindergarten in Hong Kong

The introduction of the ‘Biliterate and Trilingual’ (兩文三語) language policy in 1997 has contributed to the rise of trilingual education being implemented in Hong Kong kindergartens where three different languages are being taught to children. Studies have shown that implementing a double immersion program in the early years would lead to the children acquiring a higher proficiency in a second language (Genesee & Lambert, 1983; Li, 2022). This case study investigates the implementation of trilingual education in an international kindergarten in Hong Kong, looking closely at the kindergarten’s curriculum(s) aspects and objectives, the time allocated to each language, and the teaching methodologies employed. In addition to analyzing kindergarten documents such as the kindergarten booklet, school schedule, and French curriculum objectives, one school director and two language teachers are interviewed to understand further the kindergarten's operation and educators' views on trilingual education. The results show that the kindergarten adopts a system that authorizes the parents to curate their child's language learning experiences while implementing an early multilingual immersion program where the languages French, English, and Mandarin are allocated into a 50/30/20 program. Furthermore, the kindergarten applies a combination of the French, EYFS, and HK kindergarten curriculums, where each curriculum is used for the most suited language.