Choral singing in Hong Kong schools has been developing for over four decades. Nowadays most of the schools own their choirs for performances and competitions. However, the teaching methods of choral conducting in Hong Kong are in lack of formal research and documentation. Many music teachers tend to work on their own without seeking for improvement through research, workshops, seminars and conferences at a large extent. Meanwhile, applying kinesthetic movement and gesture (KMG) has been advocated in other overseas countries for a period of time and significant teaching effectiveness has been noticed. After reviewing the relevant literature as a background, this study therefore aims at investigating the present situation of applying KMG in Hong Kong schools by a questionnaire survey. In addition, three semi-structured interviews were conducted to seek the opinions and personal experiences of three pioneer music teachers who have been applying KMG for 10 to 24 years. Findings from the questionnaire survey reveal that those music teachers who apply KMG in their choral teaching admitted that they found KMG very effective in various ways such as relaxation while singing. Furthermore, the three interviewees have provided a number of concrete examples of applying KMG in teaching children to understand musical elements, and developing their vocal skills and choral skills. These findings provide implications on how music teachers should teach in their choral activities.

Choral singing is a key musical activity in Hong Kong schools, having grown from modest beginnings into an important aspect of the informal curriculum. It is an extension of the classroom singing experience and serves as a platform for students to nurture their singing skills, enhancing musicianship and facilitating artistic experience through choral performance. It also attracts one of the highest participation rates for young people in non-formal cultural and artistic activities. Choral teachers must manage limited rehearsal time efficiently and effectively to complete numerous musical tasks and objectives in time for performance deadlines. Class music teachers in schools are given the responsibility to build, maintain and mange school choirs but few are properly trained to fulfill the expectations of this role. While teacher education institutions are responsible for the training of music teachers in Hong Kong, there has been no curriculum, which focused on the skills and pedagogy of choral conducting and directing. This paper reports the implementation of a community-based school choral mentoring scheme launched in the Hong Kong institute of education with funding support from Tai Po district advancement association, awarding scholarships to a group of selected student choral teachers in promoting quality choral education in both school and community from 2006-2009. The author served as the founding project coordinator, with the institute’s music faculty and identified school choral teachers to work as supervisors and mentors to provide professional support for the student choral teacher awardees. The aim of this study is to investigate on how to support student choral teacher’s choral learning and teaching practice in a real school setting towards a collaborative and reflective approach. In this scheme the choral learning and teaching process of the selected student choral teachers were observed and reviewed by the institute’s supervisors and school mentors. Student

Music curriculum reform in Hong Kong has been formally implemented since September 2006. Under such circumstances music teachers are to develop their school-based music curricula with regard to their specific teaching contexts. Generic skills are positive attitude and value should be developed by all Key Learning Areas including Arts and Music. This study expands on recent case study research which found four attributes of teacher quality in music teaching at a secondary school in Hong Kong (Leung & Wong, 2005). It aims to examine how music teachers in different types of Hong Kong schools implemented curriculum reform from September 2006. It focuses on the attributes of good practice in music teaching and learning in secondary schools, particularly the relationships between contextual factors, teacher quality, teaching strategies and learning outcomes. Three samples of different kinds of schools, namely, government schools, aided schools and direct-subsidy schools were invited to participate in this multiple-case study in which classroom observation and semi-structured interviews with teachers and students were conducted. Different contexts, teacher and student characteristics and their interrelationship are to be analyzed. The findings of this study will contribute to the quality of music education by revealing successful approaches to the design and implementation of school-based music curriculum, the attributes of teacher quality and student responses to learning under the reform changes.

Choral singing is a key feature of musical activity in Hong Kong schools. It has grown from modest beginnings into an important part of extra-curricular work. Even in independent societies and associations, many choral directors possess backgrounds in music education and classroom teaching. The teacher education institutions are responsible for training the majority of music teachers in Hong Kong. Thus it would seem necessary for music teacher courses to feature choral training to properly equip teachers before entering the classroom and taking the role of choral director in class, school and perhaps community. In the past there has been no choral director training programme. It seems important to develop ideas for what might be included for the professional development of the student choral teacher, and this is one objective of the current study. This article reports the implementation of a mentoring scheme carried out in a primary school setting. One of the current authors and an identified school choral teacher worked as mentors to provide professional support for a student choral teacher who was selected as the main participant in the case study. The aim was to investigate the potential of mentoring as a way of training a student choral director in a real school setting. Findings from this study reveal that through the mentoring scheme the student choral teacher was provided with an opportunity to interpret, generate, interact and experiment with the choral teaching theory in a real school choral rehearsal setting. This could be seen as a process of knowing-in-action and reflection-in-action.
[Copyright © 2006 The Hong Kong Institute of Education, International Society for Music Education.]

Choral singing has become one of the major cultural and artistic activities in Hong Kong primary schools. It is also the extension of the classroom singing experience and served as a platform for students to nurture their singing skills, enhancing musicianship and facilitating artistic experience through choral performance. In view of the tight rehearsal arrangement, conductors are required to manage the rehearsal efficiently and effectively. In order to achieve the musical tasks and objectives being put forward within each choral rehearsal, the teaching and learning effectiveness are crucial within the process. The current paper looks at four elite choirs and their conductors focusing on their conducting and rehearsal behaviors in relation to successful and effective rehearsal performance. Besides, this study also investigates the modes of communication utilized by the choral directors within the rehearsal structure, including conductor’s task presentation, ensemble interaction and conductor’s feedback. The unique contribution of this paper to music education research is that it takes both the experimenter’s perceptions, those of the conductors and the choristers into account and triangulates these data in a detailed analysis. Certainly, such investigation could contribute valuable information on the teaching and learning effectiveness within the choral performance preparation process.
[Copyright © 2003 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This paper aims at identifying and recording good music teaching practices that promote social inclusion, and at developing effective teaching strategies that incorporate student perspectives into the pedagogies. A music teacher in Hong Kong was selected for this study, and two different classes of Form 2 (ages 12-13) were observed. The teaching process was videotaped and reviewed. Afterwards the teacher and a group of students were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview to solicit their ideas towards good practice of music teaching. Findings reveal that the good practices observed were attributed to four factors: 1) teacher’s personality, 2) teacher’s pedagogy, 3) teacher’s musical competence, and 4) teacher’s philosophy of teaching.

Textbook is a kind of operational curriculum which serves as a reflection and interpretation of the official curriculum. This study attempts to identify and compare the content demonstrated in the selected music textbook series of three publishers for junior secondary schools of Hong Kong. The balance and the emphasis of the three dimensions: "Music Elements and Knowledge", "Teaching Materials" and "Types of Activities" derived from the content of the text series are investigated by a set of quantitative content analysis instrument. The intra and inter relationship of the listed features of each textbook series provides the basis for the conclusion and recommendation of the study.