The integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in English language teaching presents opportunities and challenges for instructors. This study explores the attitudes of higher education English language instructors towards generative AI tools, their intentions to use them and the institutional support and professional development necessary to teach and learn with them. As the field continues to evolve rapidly, it is essential to comprehend the readiness of front-line language instructors. This qualitative interpretive study seeks to identify the digital competencies and pedagogical knowledge required to implement generative AI in education and provide guidance for the design of professional development programmes that address the challenges and concerns associated with adopting AI. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with twelve instructors at a higher education institution in Hong Kong, the findings reveal the significance of familiarity and confidence with using AI-driven teaching tools, the challenges and concerns language instructors face and the need for tailored support and professional development. The study offers ten practical implications to cultivate language instructors’ digital competencies, pedagogical knowledge and positive attitudes towards integrating AI to enhance their students’ learning experiences. Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

This study, drawing upon data triangulated from interviews, classroom research reports, and school documents, sheds light on how cross-border teachers from mainland China to Hong Kong construct and negotiate their identities when teaching English creative writing. Using identity control theory (ICT) this study examines discursive and complex identity development and reveals contextual and interpersonal factors that hinder identity construction among teachers of English creative writing. Factors include isolation from local colleagues, failure to integrate into the host community due to cultural and linguistic differences, standardized school instruction, heavy workloads, students' distrust, and students' low English proficiency. Cross-border teachers were found to experience negative emotions including stress, anger, and unease due to failed teacher identity verification in a new land. This study contributes to theoretical knowledge of ICT, suggesting inaction and secondary emotions as outcomes of the incongruence between the meanings of identity standard and input. Relevant theoretical and pedagogical implications are also discussed. Copyright © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

The present study investigated the executive functioning of working memory, inhibition, shifting, and planning in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia and how they related to Chinese (L1) and English (L2) reading comprehension. Fifty-seven Hong Kong Chinese students at Grade 7 were compared with 57 typically developing readers of chronological-age-matched controls on their performance on working memory, inhibition, shifting, planning, vocabulary knowledge, rapid naming, and reading comprehension in Chinese and English. Results from the multivariate analysis of variance showed that readers with dyslexia performed worse than the typical readers in executive functioning, vocabulary knowledge, rapid naming, and reading comprehension. Hierarchical regressions indicated that working memory, inhibition, and vocabulary knowledge were significant predictors of reading comprehension in L1 after controlling for age, IQ, and group membership. Furthermore, working memory, inhibition, shifting, vocabulary knowledge, and rapid naming contributed uniquely to reading comprehension in L2. Taken together, these findings suggest executive functioning difficulties in Chinese readers with dyslexia and highlight the differential contributions of executive functioning to Chinese and English reading comprehension; working memory and inhibition appear to play an important role in reading comprehension across different languages. Copyright ©Springer Netherlands.

This research aims to explore a pedagogical strategy for the optimal use of free e-resources for supporting Chinese learners in Hong Kong to learn primary English grammar. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this research will progressively design, evaluate and then establish an effective pedagogical strategy that optimizes the use of free e-resources for learning primary English grammar. A twofold documentary analysis will be conducted for the design of a potential pedagogical strategy. To evaluate the effectiveness of the designed pedagogical strategy in the real classroom environment, two classes of local Primary 4 students will be subsequently invited to a one-month trial teaching. Students in the experimental group will learn primary English grammar under the designed pedagogical strategy; whereas their counterparts in the control group will receive no treatment during the trial teaching period. These two groups of students will sit for a pair of identical pre-test and post-test before and after the trial teaching, respectively, to investigate the impact of the designed pedagogical strategy on the learning achievement of students. Students in the experimental group will be asked to complete a questionnaire survey after the trial teaching to indicate their perceptions of the designed pedagogical strategy. One-fifth of the students in the experimental group will be further invited to attend individual interviews to share more in-depth opinions on the designed pedagogical strategy. This research will finally advise a model of the pedagogical use of free e-resources that optimizes the learning of primary English grammar among Chinese learners in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2010 The authors.

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]

Hong Kong is linguistically complex and diverse with three principal languages: Cantonese, English and Putonghua. A substantial debate on the language policies governing the three principal languages has continued for more than two decades among policy-makers and educators. The political transition in 1997 has greatly affected Hong Kong society, including language education. Since then, the HKSAR government has made a series of language policy reforms trying to create a reasonable balance among the three languages in Hong Kong. The policies of ‘biliteracy and trilingualism’ and ‘mother-tongue teaching’ are two of the most significant in terms of controversy and impact. They are now guiding the curriculum design in Hong Kong language education. The goal of the former policy is to train Hong Kong people to be truly biliterate (written English and Chinese) and trilingual (spoken English, Cantonese and Putonghua). However, Hong Kong primary schools presently do not have an agreed method for the implementation of trilingual education. After a comprehensive historical review of the development of language education in Hong Kong schools, this study aims to find out how the ‘biliterate’ and ‘trilingual’ language policy is currently implemented in Hong Kong primary schools. 155 Hong Kong primary schools participated in a questionnaire survey on how trilingual education is implemented in the schools. The findings suggest that the implementation of trilingual education varied significantly from school to school, and the effectiveness of the trilingual education models varied as well. It is hoped that the findings will help us to gain a better understanding of trilingual education in Hong Kong, and the study could lead to some insightful and theoretical contributions to multilingual education in general.
[Copyright © 2015 Wang and Kirkpatrick; licensee Springer.]

The present study evaluates the impact of the fine-tuning medium of instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong in the early stages of its implementation. It explores the key stakeholders' perspectives on a school-based policy via a case study, which gathered multiple sources of qualitative data (i.e. focus groups/interviews, open-ended questionnaires, school documents and lesson observations). The findings reveal that the increased amount of English-medium teaching encouraged by the new policy has led to the emergence of numerous controversial pedagogical and practical issues, many of which resemble those also occurring in bilingual education programmes worldwide. The evidence suggests that the school-based MOI policy and practices have only benefited the more capable students but sacrificed the interests and learning needs of less able students. The paper, therefore, highlights the need to inform local teachers and administrators on how to confront these difficulties based on their own experience so as to maximise the effectiveness and learning outcomes of the majority of the students.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2014.904872]