Development of Chinese narrative writing skills in primary 3 and 6 students in Hong Kong

Narrative writing task is the foundation of learning how to write, and it is also frequently used in the writing assessment. This study is intended to map Primary 3 and Primary 6 students “writing performance features” reviewed in Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) Chinese writing assessment in Hong Kong. By analysing students’ writing performance as reviewed in the TSA Chinese writing assessment, we can get a glimpse of the language features and linguistic characteristics of the students and their development. The result of the analysis tries to enrich and improve Chinese language teaching and learning of Chinese writing in Hong Kong. The research findings showed and proved the hypothesis that a “Good Performance” Chinese narrative writing in TSA has a more complete narrative schematic structure than that of a student who is “Reaching Basic Competency” in TSA. Texts written by Primary 6 students and students with Good Performance contain a larger number of and diversity in transitivity terms indicating not only material processes but also mental processes and reflect good context cohesion. Copyright © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Mark Shiu-kee Shum and Peter Mickan; individual chapters, the contributors.