This study investigates students' perceptions about their teachers' adoption of a new way to use feedback in writing classrooms in two elementary schools in Hong Kong. The innovation comprises three feedback stages (i.e., pre-feedback, during-feedback and post-feedback) over the course of a teaching-learning cycle to maximize the potential of feedback to the learning effectiveness of the students. Data included student questionnaires, interviews with students and teachers, lesson observations as well as documentary analysis of teaching material. Results indicate that the students considered feedback delivery in the three stages as beneficial to their interest, confidence, motivation and self-perceived performance in writing. The article highlights the need to offer feedback in all three feedback phases to maximize its effectiveness and to offer a more positive learning experience to students.
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This study investigated the associations among reading strategy instruction, student motivational factors (i.e., attitudes toward reading, reading self-concept, and motivation to read), gender, and reading achievement. The analyses were conducted using the Hong Kong sample (students at Level 1, n=3,875 and teachers at Level 2, n=133) from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2011 through multilevel structural equation modeling. The results showed that, first, the relation between the frequency of reading strategy instruction and student reading achievement was mediated by student attitudes toward reading. Second, the frequency of reading strategy instruction was significantly related to student attitudes toward reading and motivation to read and student attitudes toward reading was significantly associated with reading achievement. Finally, girls had more positive attitudes toward reading, more positive reading self-concept, higher motivation to read, and higher reading achievement than boys. These findings may shed light on how teachers should arrange their reading strategy instruction to interplay with student attitudes toward reading and motivation to read and to help improve reading achievement.
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Based on the data of Program for International Student Assessment 2009, this paper examines how various aspects of home literacy environment, school climate and students' reading engagement related to their reading performance. A profile of Hong Kong students' three indices of reading engagement - namely, reading enjoyment, reading diversity and online reading - relative to other East Asian societies is first presented. The relative contributions of different family-level and classroom-level factors on Hong Kong students' reading engagement are then examined by using hierarchical linear modelling. Assessment of the relative impact of the three engagement indices on reading performance shows that reading enjoyment is the strongest predictor. That home-school cooperation in cultivating a positive reading climate, nurturing a good reading habit for all students and enhancing the classroom and teaching climate appear to be promising avenues for improving students' reading engagement and performance may be of importance for shaping future policy and practice.
[Copyright of Journal of Research in Reading is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.]

Reading is the basis of most learning but is regarded by students as a boring activity in Hong Kong. Therefore, schools in Hong Kong have launched different reading programs to promote reading. One of the successful examples is Reading Battle which gamifies the reading comprehension assessments with points, levels, e-badges and leaderboard on an interactive learning platform. This study looked into how gamification affected the flow experience of students and discussed to what extent the nine flow dimensions were experienced by them, especially the heavy users of the gamified learning platform. This case study chose nine students from four different elementary schools in Hong Kong and adopted a mixed method such as questionnaires and interviews. While many students first did it for external motivation such as getting more points and ranking high on the leaderboard, the study found that the heavy users of Reading Battle became committed to reading and many enjoyed the flow experiences where they seemed to forget about time and discomfort and truly enjoyed the reading process.
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The present study re-examines the reading experiences of eight primary school students in Hong Kong. Framed around theories of gamification and self-determination, the study looks at how these students developed as readers on an online gamified reader known as RB. An electronic extension to a reading database that contains more than 15,000 comprehension questions made from around 500 popular children's books, RB is found to enable the students feel competent, autonomous and connected with their family and friends during their game play. These feelings can be explained away by the three psychological needs of self -determination literature. For instance, after a period of time playing on RB, the students displayed competence in that they did well on their academics, increased their reading speed, expanded their vocabulary, and further developed their learning and problem-solving skills in school. They also showed autonomy in their learning, manifested in the expansion of the scope of their reading choices, a diversity of their reading methods, an increase in their reading frequency, and a boost to their drive in picking up a book for leisure read. Finally, they felt more connected now with their family and friends than before they used RB, for the bondage they formed over RB lasted well beyond their game play. Based on a re-evaluation of their success stories from gamification and self-determination perspectives, the study concludes that RB is an effective early English learners' tool in Hong Kong.
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The contribution of teacher knowledge to learning outcomes at the beginning stages of literacy acquisition is of growing concern because the ability to provide quality instruction is central to successful literacy acquisition, particularly for pupils with dyslexia. To date, the majority of research has focused on teachers of English as a first language. Yet, English is the most widely taught foreign language today. The present study extends the exploration of teacher knowledge by probing two heretofore unexamined groups of teachers who are responsible for teaching beginning stages of literacy in English as a foreign language: regular class teachers who are non-native English-speaking (N = 96) and native English-speaking teachers (N = 24) working in the kindergarten setting in Hong Kong. As these two teacher groups serve as gatekeepers of beginning English as a foreign language literacy for kindergarten children in Hong Kong, it is crucial to gather information about the depth and quality of their teacher knowledge. This information can be instrumental to improving the quality of beginning literacy instruction in English and assisting early identification of dyslexia. Both groups completed the basic language constructs survey (Binks-Cantrell, Joshi, & Washburn, Annals of Dyslexia, 62, 153–171, 2012a). Results showed while native English teachers performed significantly better than non-native English teachers, total percentage correct scores were below 50%, except for phonological awareness tasks. All teachers scored higher in items requiring syllable as opposed to phoneme manipulation. Only teacher type predicted teachers’ performance on the survey. The need for quality instruction, particularly for children at-risk for dyslexia or those struggling at the beginning stages of literacy acquisition, is addressed. Copyright © 2020 The International Dyslexia Association.

New social annotation practices have the potential to become a “signature pedagogy” for educators in literary studies, because social annotation encapsulates both the expected learning outcomes and the underlying value commitments of literature education. We give an account of a project conducted by colleagues at the Education University of Hong Kong, during which colleagues explored social annotation technologies in literary studies courses. After implementing social annotation in our courses, instructors held roundtable discussions, collected surveys and conducted focus group interviews. Basing our interpretation of these data on Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading and writing, we propose that social annotation can help students engage with literary texts more effectively by showing them how to move toward an aesthetic mode of reading. Students participating in social annotation, moreover, understood its application to literary studies in ways that directly reproduced Rosenblatt's account of literary interpretation. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).

In many Asian countries and increasingly in the West, primary and secondary school students receive private tutoring, often in the form of lectures in cram schools. As English is an international lingua franca, many students enroll in English courses after school. Students enrolled in English private tutoring (EPT) are often examination-driven and extrinsically motivated to learn English, but past studies have not examined whether they like EPT lessons. Hence, we integrate motivation and tutoring into a theoretical model of EPT enjoyment at different levels (student, family, teacher, tutoring) and empirically test it with the survey responses of 543 Secondary Six (Grade 12) students enrolled in EPT courses in cram schools. The findings show that most Secondary Six students in Hong Kong like EPT lessons. Family, reasons for tutoring, tutoring, and student attributes are linked to EPT enjoyment. These students are more likely to like EPT if they (a) are in families perceived to have superior financial resources, (b) are not influenced by advertisements or other people to join EPT lessons, (c) attend face-to-face tutoring, (d) have a specific tutor, (e) like the tutor more than their teachers, (f) are interested in English, or (g) have greater English self-concept. The results of this study can contribute to our understanding of which motivation and tutoring factors affect students' enjoyment of EPT and inform EPT improvements. Copyright © 2020 De La Salle University.

This article introduces the use of public exam questions in fishbowl debate to engage highly exam-oriented secondary students with communicative language teaching (CLT). The practice aims to address the issue that many teachers of English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) in Asian contexts either teach to the test or implement CLT without catering for the students' pragmatic needs to pass external assessment. A series of activities was implemented in a secondary school in Hong Kong to promote positive washback from the public exam. The author's experience and reflections informed by ongoing dialogue with the stakeholders in the school and data collected from student focus group interviews suggest that the fishbowl debate encouraged students to use English for authentic and meaningful purposes, while appreciating its relevance to the writing exam. An important pedagogical implication is for teachers to balance CLT and exam preparation and help students to reach both their mastery and performance goals. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).

Content-based education programmes, in which a second/foreign language (L2) is used as the medium of instruction when teaching non-language content subjects, aim at both content and L2 learning. With such dual goal in mind, and with the rapid expansion of the programmes to contexts where students might have only basic L2 proficiency, there have been consistent calls for reconsidering the roles of first language (L1) in the teaching and learning process. The functions of L1 in content-based classrooms have been well documented, but it is necessary to have a more systematic approach to planning and using L1. This paper seeks to address this gap by applying the notions of 'curriculum genres' and 'task structure' when analysing patterns of teachers' use of L1 and L2 in a collection of content subject lessons observed in English-medium secondary schools in Hong Kong. With illustrative episodes presented in this paper, we would argue that 'curriculum genres' and 'task structure' can serve as useful tools for both researchers and teachers to analyse and critically reflect on patterns of pedagogic practices and language use in content-based classrooms. These will have significant implications for future research on using L1 and illuminate effective pedagogy in content-based education.
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