「教學法」是所有師資培訓課程必備的元素。傳統的語文/語言教學法主要教授師訓學員一些特定的教學技術和施教步驟，以便學員有法可依 (崔永華、楊寄洲，1997；黃錦鋐，1990；彭震球，1979)。這樣的訓練方式無疑能增強學員的「安全感」，面對教學課題時也不致茫無頭緒，手足無措。但是，這樣的模式似乎假設所有學生都一樣，教師只是按照一定的程序，就能夠把教學任務完成；事實當然並非如此。更重要的問題是，由於長時期觀察不同教師授課，不少師訓生都自以為對教學工作的要求十分熟悉，在學習「教學法」時往往掉以輕心，只重形式，不問原由。結果到真正教學時，師訓生就連「教學法」的知識也嫌太理論，因為這些知識不恣解決他們教學上的實際問題。 美國學者 Shulman (1987) 提出七項教師必備的知識，其中「學科教學知識」(Pedagogical Content Knowledge-PCK) 引起師資培訓者的廣泛討論，九零年代甚至成為師資培訓的研究核心 (Carter, 1990)。PCK的重要性和與別的知識不同之處主要在它不斷發展的特質，不同學科可以有以該學科為本的PCK；而根據個人的經驗、學養、對學生的認識和教學環境的判斷，每位學科教師也可以發展出不同內涵的PCK，以切合教學的需要。一般相信，如果能在受訓其間，促進師訓學員「學科教學知識」的發展，將大大提高師資培訓的素質。而要在現今的多元社會中有效教導多元化的學生，培養反思能力將是促進師訓學員「學科教學知識」發展的最直接的途徑 (Cruickshank, 2003；Grossman, 1991；林進材，1997)。 針對傳統語文/語言師訓形式的不足，本文探討的是如何借鑑外國的教育研究經驗，嘗試突破傳統師訓的框框，通過反思能力的培養，發展學員普通話教學的專業知識，深化香港的小學普通話「教學法」學習，務求為師訓生的教學實習做好準備。實行的方法包括： 一、重新編排一個「小學普通話教學法」單元的授課程序 二、濃縮大課講授的內容 三、組織學員在課堂上試教不同的重點範疇 四、設計評核模式，讓其他學員即場評核 五、過濾學員的評核，並作適時回饋，讓所有學員共享 六、評量教學成效 作為語文/語言師訓形式的嘗試，對教員和學員都將會是一項新刺激。雖然外國的經驗不一定全盤適用於中文教育，但這項嘗試起碼能讓教與學雙方都重新檢討慣常的實踐。在教學「教學法」的過程中，教員能有機會了解學員對教學法的感想，提出疑問，並加深對教學要求的認識。因此，這項嘗試應該值得跟各界師訓同工分享。只有促進教學雙方的互動，不斷反省實踐的得失，教學的質量才有望逐步提升，教學才有機會發展出更合時宜的路向。

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.]

In Hong Kong, as a result of an education reform, the School Management Initiative (SMI), which started in 1991, formally introduced a teacher appraisal system to the schools. Whereas some criteria for teacher appraisal have been set up, there has not been any clear guideline as to who is going to use them to appraise whom. Addressing this issue, this chapter is based on two recent studies on the purpose of teacher appraisal and approaches for formative and summative appraisal. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for implementing a teacher appraisal system for achieving formative and summative purposes, paying special attention to the roles of appraisers and appraisees as well as relationship between appraisal and professional development.
[Copyright © 2005 Nova Science Publishers.]

Professional development for teachers (PDT) is the primary objective of the Schools Around the World (SAW) Program, which is a multinational endeavor initiated by the Council for Basic Education in the United States. The project offers teachers of science and mathematics from around the world an opportunity to share their students’ work by uploading them to the project’s website. Teachers can then examine and reflect on their own teaching practices by viewing the student work database. Apart from individual reflection, SAW also provides a platform for an exchange of professional experiences among teachers from the nine participating countries around the world with a view to improving student achievement. The SAW project makes use of information technology (IT) to construct a model of online PDT. A number of initiatives are included, namely the establishment of the student work database, online seminars and forums, and the Shared Reflection System (SHARES). This chapter describes the principles underpinning these initiatives from a PDT perspective, outlines the content of such initiatives, and offers practical hints for teacher educators who offer online PDT projects. Having introduced the SAW model from a professional and a technical perspective, the chapter goes on to provide a summary of the experiences of the participating teachers in the United States and Hong Kong. Their reflections suggest that their perceptions of the effectiveness of the Web-based communication tools and online resources will be very much affected by their existing workload and the support given by their schools or the government. Drawing on the SAW experience, the authors provide suggestions that may facilitate the use of technology in PDT.
[Copyright © 2004 Information Age.]

In Hong Kong, the Education Commission has presented in 2000 a series of recommendations for reforming the education system. The focus of this paper is on the curriculum reform from which Physical Education (PE) is being affected in the education reform exercise. Highlighted in the analysis is the relationship between the education reform and a critical component of PE, games activities, which play a heavy weighting in the PE curriculum. More importantly, in the last decade, an innovative games teaching approach, Teaching Games for understanding (TGFU), was introduced in Hong Kong and has created a strong impact on Hong Kong PE teachers. The purpose of this paper is to review to what extend this new approach can echo the education reform towards the 21st century. The analysis reveals that the philosophy of TGFU is in line with the new curriculum reform and does contribute greatly to the development of studentsí cognitive experience, particularly problem-solving and decision-making skills as well as enjoyment from which they are highlighted by the Education Commission as generic skills, and value and attitudes components.
[Copyright © 2004 Xunta de Galicia.]