A student’s ‘meaning in life’ and his/her connectedness to school, friends and family are believed to be factors that influence the development of life skills. Teachers could be aware of these factors in their endeavours to foster ‘whole-person development’ in their students. In this small-scale study, twelve secondary school teachers participated in three focus groups and reported their perceptions of students’ meaning in life, connectedness and life skills. In general, they believed that having a definite goal means students have found preliminarily the meaning in life and the source of motivation. The teachers also observed that high achievers tend to set goals for future achievement, whereas the goals and aspirations of low achievers are much more short-term. Teachers suggested that development of students’ connectedness and life skills can be facilitated by the opportunity to converse with teachers, and the creation of a caring culture in schools that makes students feel valued. Conversely, parental expectations and strong academic orientation of the school may restrict students’ personal goal-setting. The findings have practical implications for teachers, counselling professionals and other support staff in schools because specific guidance activities can be devised to strengthen students’ connectedness, meaning in life, and life skills. Copyright © 2020 NAPCE.

This study investigated the direct and indirect roles of verbal and visuospatial memory in Chinese reading comprehension. One hundred twenty-eight Cantonese-speaking children participated in the study at the end of their 3rd year of kindergarten in Hong Kong. Both verbal and visuospatial memory were found to be significantly associated with Chinese reading comprehension. Path analysis showed that visuospatial memory was significantly associated with reading comprehension through word reading. Verbal memory was associated with reading comprehension indirectly through listening comprehension. Additionally, the direct path from visuospatial memory to reading comprehension was significant when word reading and listening comprehension were considered simultaneously. The findings of the direct and unique role of visuospatial memory in reading comprehension in Chinese elaborated and extended our understanding of the simple view of reading in young children in a non-alphabetic language. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature B.V.

Chinese is a tone language, i.e., pitch cues are used to distinguish different lexical meanings. Chinese tones are important but difficult for foreign learners who acquire Chinese as a second language (L2). This paper provided a systematic discussion on teaching methods, including the teaching methods and materials as well as the teaching sequence of Chinese tones. Based on the tone categories and pitch features of Chinese tones, this paper proposes several effective methods of teaching tones to second language learners. From the perspective of tone categories, there are two methods to enhance tone teaching: (1) applying minimal pairs, which consist of same segments of consonants and vowels but different tones; (2) applying meaningful phrases in the tone order. From the perspective of pitch features, there are three effective methods for tone teaching: (1) utilizing the similarities between musical tones and linguistic tones; (2) utilizing the visual assistance of pitch contours; (3) utilizing multimedia assistance of simple acoustic measurement, which can be realized by a free software called Praat. In addition to tones in isolated citation form, the teaching sequence for tones in non-canonical forms are also discussed. The teaching materials and methods proposed in this paper can help to enhance the efficiency of teaching Chinese tones to L2 learners.漢語的一個顯著特點是聲調語言，這在對外漢語教學中既是重點也是難點。本文系統地探討了對外漢語聲調教學的方法，包括教學中可使用的材料、手段以及注意事項等。從漢語聲調本身的特點出發，有兩種教學方法可以應用：第一，巧用聲調的最小語音配對，通過辨識詞義和反復朗讀讓留學生熟習國語的四個聲調。第二，巧用按聲調順序排列的詞組或成語，幫助留學生記憶和熟習漢語的聲調。若從音高的特性和呈現方式出發，以下幾種方法也可以幫助留學生掌握漢語的聲調：第一，巧用音樂音高或語調音高和聲調音高的耦合訓練學生的聲調聽辨能力。第二，巧用聲調音高曲線的視覺形象，幫助留學生掌握漢語聲調的調高和調形。第三，巧用簡單的語音測量（在免費軟體PRAAT 下完成）輔助聲調教學。除了標準字調的教學，本文還探討了變調的教學。本文提出的教學資料和方法，能幫助二語學習者更有效地學習漢語的聲調。 Copyright © 2019 The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK).

Decoding and language comprehension skills have been found to be the core components of reading comprehension across many writing systems. The present study examined the contributions of vocabulary and some discourse-level skills to reading comprehension in Chinese in addition to that of decoding. One hundred and seventeen Chinese second and third graders in Hong Kong were tested on decoding, vocabulary, discourse-level skills, and verbal working memory. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that the discourse-level skills contributed an additional 5% of variance to reading comprehension over decoding, vocabulary, and other control variables, and all factors accounted for a total of 70% variance in reading comprehension. Further path analysis showed that all the direct paths of word reading, vocabulary, text-structure knowledge, and topic knowledge to reading comprehension were significant. Vocabulary also contributed to reading comprehension through indirect paths to discourse-level knowledge. The present findings support the simple view of reading with elaborations on the language comprehension component, namely, (a) vocabulary is a foundational language skill for text comprehension through its role on discourse-level knowledge, and (b) some discourse-level knowledge also plays an important role in passage comprehension. Copyright © 2018 Cambridge University Press.

This paper reports on a treatment program for children with developmental dyslexia (specific reading disability) administered at the Developmental Dyslexia Clinic of the University of Hong Kong. Recent research attempts to relate poor reading abilities of dyslexics to the poor development of metalinguistic awareness (an awareness about the structure of orthography). The basic hypothesis behind this treatment program is that by fostering the flexible application of phonological regularity and consistency rules in reading, the reading performance of dyslexia children will improve. The training program is divided into three phases: the establishment of phonological regularity awareness in the first phase, the building of phonological consistency awareness in the second phase and the flexible application of regularity and consistency rules in the third phase. Results indicate that there is an overall improvement in post-treatment reading scores of the Hong Kong Graded Chinese Character Naming Test (HKGCNT). The probe results also reveal the corresponding effect of manipulating treatment materials on performance. The results suggest that the program is affecting the reading strategies used by the clients and is effective in improving reading performance. 本文報告在香港大學兒童讀寫障礙診所進行的三組療程。近期的研究指出，讀障學童的閱讀能力是由於元語言意識的發展不足所致。元語言意識是指讀者對文字結構的意識。讀者自行分析字型、語言和語義之間的關係，整理出一套形音義規則，再將規則靈活地應用在閱讀上。本療程的基本假設是︰如學童能靈活地運用中文字的語音規則性 (phonological regularity) 和語音一貫性 (phonological consistency) 規則，他們的閱讀能力會得以提升。療程分為三個階段:第一階段建立語音規則性的意識；第二階段建立語音一貫性的意識；第三階段促進語音規則和一貫性意識的靈活運用。結果顯示在治療後，學童在《香港中文單字閱讀測試》的表現有明顯的進步。在每節治療後進行的測驗則顯示，治療中所選用的字詞類別直接影響學童的元語言意識發展和閱讀策略，有提升閱讀能力的效果。
[Copyright of Hong Kong Special Education Forum is the property of Special Education Society of Hong Kong Ltd.. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
https://sites.google.com/a/seshk.org.hk/seshk-org-hk/c_publication]

This study examined the treatment efficacy of PEERS®; (Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills) among Chinese adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Hong Kong. The original PEERS®; manual was translated into Chinese, and cultural adjustments were made according to a survey among 209 local adolescents in the general population. 72 high-functioning adolescents with ASD were randomly assigned to a treatment or waitlist control group. The 14-week parent-assisted training significantly improved social skills knowledge and social functioning, and also reduced autistic mannerisms. Treatment outcomes were maintained for 3 months after training and replicated in the control group after delayed treatment. The present study represents one of the few randomized controlled trials on PEERS® conducted outside North America.
[Copyright of Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders is the property of Springer Science & Business Media. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3728-1]

Although there are studies showing that higher education would benefit university students, empirical research that comprehensively assesses student general education learning outcomes and related demographic correlates based on longitudinal data is minimal, especially in the Chinese context. To address the research gaps, the present study was conducted to investigate learning outcomes amongst university students in one university in Hong Kong based on a four-year longitudinal design (N = 460). Four dimensions of student general education learning outcomes were measured, including effective reasoning and problem solving, leadership, moral character, and integration of learning. Results suggested a U-shaped pattern of student learning outcomes for most dimensions, with no improvement or even a decrement in the second year and a steady growth thereafter. While family background did not affect student development, gender showed a significant moderating effect on students’ development in two dimensions (i.e., effective reasoning and problem solving, and integration of learning). These findings suggest that students benefit from general education-embedded university study in multiple dimensions, especially after the first year of transition period. Practical implications of the findings and future research directions were also discussed.
[Copyright of Applied Research in Quality of Life is the property of Springer Netherlands. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9645-9]

The predictors of attitudes regarding academic plagiarism were investigated in Hong Kong secondary school students. The participants were 257 Grade 10 and 11 students who were taking liberal studies. Quantitative analysis showed that the students were unfamiliar with what actions constituted plagiarism. The best predictor of attitudes was the perceived descriptive norm regarding plagiarism (i.e., perception of the frequency of plagiarism in one's environment). We explain this finding by applying the cultural-self perspective and present our recommendations for teachers. Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This report is part of a larger project investigating school satisfaction of early adolescents in Hong Kong. The research questions in this part of the study focused on the school experience of 21 high-ability Chinese students aged 9–14 in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the participants. From the qualitative data collected, six influences on their school satisfaction emerged ― two that could be classified as 'personal influences' (goal-directed thoughts and motivation; self-discipline and self-regulation) and four themes that reflected 'environmental influences' (positive teacher-student relationships, classmates emotional and instrumental support, parental involvement in students' learning, talent development opportunities). The findings from the study can help to inform school personnel on modifiable aspects of school environments that can help high-ability students succeed and at the same time enjoy their school life.
[Copyright © 2017 The Author(s).]

The English and Chinese reading proficiency of 1376 Grade 4 students in 24 Hong Kong primary schools were assessed using measures developed for the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Students' parents provided information about home reading activities (HRA) aimed at supporting their children's reading prior to them entering school ("early home reading activities", EHRA) and during Grade 4 ("home reading activities"). Results indicated that EHRA was a stronger predictor of reading performance in both Chinese and English than HRA. Moreover, 'typical' HRA such as reading books, telling stories and singing songs were found to be predictive of reading performance in both Chinese and English. In English, in addition, playing word games or character puzzles were also activities beneficial to reading performance. Together, these results provide evidence for the beneficial effects of traditional early childhood activities at home such as book reading, telling stories and singing songs for reading performance in later primary school in children's first as well as second language.
[© Australian Council for Educational Research 2017]