“Hong Kong and Taiwan adopt the same standard of traditional Chinese characters.” “Characters are pronounced only in those ways specified in the dictionary.” These are some simplistic notions that teachers commonly hold about the standard of correctness of characters. But if we closely examine the actual usage of characters in everyday practice, there exists subtle variants of the characters. This paper reports on the results of our project to identify linguistic variation in characters for raising teachers’ awareness in a teacher education course. Our project focused on those characters in the curriculum and, by gathering multiple sources of data, endeavored to find out what categories of variation existed in these characters. Two such categories of variation, namely, variation in written form and variation in stroke order, are explained in full detail. These results have practical implications to teaching since problems often arise when children adopt a variant of characters different from that of the teachers. Knowledge about possible variants of characters is thus necessary for teachers to appropriately respond to the children. Multiple standards, which teachers should interpret as helpful references rather than dogmatic rules, are recommended. We conclude the paper with suggestions for future research on practical linguistic knowledge for teachers. Copyright © 2020 Centre for Language Studies, National University of Singapore

Hong Kong is moving towards a knowledge-based economy. In order to nurture and motivate a population to continuously achieve world-class success, Hong Kong‟s education system has been reformed extensively since 1997, with a balanced focus on academic and practical learning. Generic forms of learning outcomes are critical to allow students to demonstrate high flexibility and adaptability in response to ever-changing challenges in the future. By using two well-validated instruments which measure students‟ achievement of generic learning outcomes and their engagement in schools, the cultural literacy and student engagement scales, this study aims to assess the development of generic learning outcomes of Hong Kong senior secondary school students, the extent to which students are well-equipped with the skills to succeed in a knowledge-based economy. The results of a survey study of 1,715 students inferred that their performances were not up to standard and questioned in particular the success of the New Senior Secondary (NSS) school curriculum. A regression model further suggested that these generic learning outcomes could largely be explained by how schools plan and facilitate students‟ learning inside and outside the classroom. It is argued that the primary role of NSS schools should focus to provide students with meaningful and useful learning experiences so as to achieve the curriculum goal of fostering their generic learning. This paper will contribute to the discussion of how to better support the NSS curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

When solving word problems, many children encounter difficulties in making sense of the information and integrate it into a meaningful schema. This is the fundamental phase on which subsequent problem solution depends. To better understand the processing underlying this fundamental phase, this study examined the roles of schema construction and knowledge of mathematical vocabularies in word problem solving. The participants were 139 Chinese third graders studying in Hong Kong. Path analysis showed that there were two kinds of pathways to word problem solving: language-related and number-related. In particular, reading fluency was related to word problem solving in two mediated language-related pathways: one via schema construction, the other via knowledge of mathematical vocabularies. In the number-related pathway, arithmetic concept was related to word problem solving via knowledge of mathematical vocabularies. These findings highlight the specific roles of schema construction and mathematical vocabulary in word problem solving, thereby providing useful implications of how best to support children in understanding and integrating the information from the problem. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The evolution of globalisation and ensuing internationalisation of higher education need radical reform of institutional policies and practices to promote education for diversity, equity and inclusion. Extant literature on university/college student persistence/retention witnesses a lack of research on the subjective sense of belonging on campus among ethnic minoritised students who have been historically marginalised in higher education and are now part of the emerging demographic on campus. This study attempted to fill the gap. Engaging qualitative individual interviews with 12 university students of South/Southeast Asian ethnicity in Hong Kong, the purpose of this study was to examine their perceptions and experiences of institutional affiliations and engagement in university. Findings suggested that being connected to the programme and university, and the depth and quality of intragroup dynamics, are key to a sense of belonging among ethnic minority students. Findings also elucidated a lack of cross‐cultural interaction and racial/ethnic diversity within the university environment, which shaped participants’ feelings of isolation and exclusionary experiences as they sought to adjust to the campus academically and socially. The study’s findings could help inform the development and evaluation of institutional strategies that can sustain minoritised students in university transitions and promote institutional connectedness and academic success among all students on campus. Copyright © 2021 British Educational Research Association

Scholars have extensively studied acculturation from different theoretical perspectives among immigrants across the societies of settlement. However, there is a dearth of knowledge about acculturation from a culture learning approach in Hong Kong. This article reports the acculturative challenges among sixteen (16) Pakistani students from six different secondary schools in Hong Kong. The phenomenographic data analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed four categories of everyday experiences in schools that hinder their acculturation. These are mainly related to inter-ethnic interactions, sensitivity towards diverse learning and sociocultural needs, and the Chinese language teaching curriculum for non-Chinese speaking students. Although the study reports Pakistani students' experiences, the findings may also translate the acculturative challenges among students with an immigrant or ethnic minority background in settlement societies. The article also discusses both the theoretical and practical implications for studying and helping immigrant young people in multicultural contexts. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comprehending native English connected speech is a daunting task for most non-native speakers (NNS) of English, who often misinterpret such input and result in poor listening comprehension in authentic situations. These misinterpretations of native English speech are critical to understanding the mechanisms underlying connected speech perception and the recovery strategies employed by NNS. In this study, we tested the perceptual errors of native English connected speech by 60 undergraduate learners of English as a second language (ESL) in Hong Kong and systematically classified their dictation responses. A total of 640 errors were identified and subsequently categorized into 9 main types and 20 subtypes of errors. The absolute number and relative frequency for each types and subtypes were reported. Our findings should inform teaching practices of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) educators and subsequently enhance the English connected speech listening comprehension skills of NNS. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd.

Purpose - Knowledge sharing, the most important process in knowledge management, enables knowledge-intensive organizations to foster innovations and to gain competitiveness. Universities, the best contemporary embodiments of knowledge-intensive organizations, nowadays face fiercer competition in the changing world. Knowledge sharing is the key for academic departments to gain competitive advantages through innovation. However, limited studies examined the relationships between top management support, knowledge sharing and affiliation and trust. Based on the literature review, this study developed a research model which aims to examine the relationship between top management support and knowledge sharing, and the mediating role played by affiliation and trust.Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire survey was conducted in eight universities in Hong Kong. Data gathered from 109 professoriate staff (including chairs, professors and [research] associate/assistant professors) were used to test the four hypotheses in the research model with partial least squares structural equation modeling.Findings - The results showed that top management support has a positive impact on affiliation and trust, and that affiliation and trust also have a positive impact on knowledge sharing. However, this study showed an insignificant linkage between top management support and knowledge sharing. Therefore, this study confirmed the mediating role played by affiliation and trust.Practical implications - Based on the results, this study provided recommendations on how academic management and knowledge management consultants increase the faculty members’ affiliation and trust, for instance, mentoring, performance appraisal system, social interactions and communication pathways.Originality/value - The findings of this study contribute to the literature in two ways. First, affiliation and trust are two interplayed elements of team climate that should be considered together. Second, this study

As the content knowledge of English language learners and immigrant students is assessed in their less proficient language, the validity and fairness of assessments related to those students have been widely discussed. However, such assessment issues have not received much attention in rapidly expanding bilingual education programmes, where students learn content subjects through a second/foreign/additional language (L2) and are often assessed in that language. This paper addresses this research gap by examining the mediating effect of language of testing on students’ performance in content subject assessments. 387 question items in the Biology papers of a public examination in Hong Kong were analysed according to their cognitive and linguistic demands. The performance of 480 students (half taking the test in their first language and half in their L2) on the questions with different demands was then analysed with MANOVA and multiple regression. The results show that linguistic demands, especially productive linguistic demands (e.g. writing sentences and texts), had a more significant effect on the performance of students taking the test in their L2. These results underscore the role played by language in the academic achievement of bilingual education students, which in turn illuminate valid assessment design and pedagogy in these programmes. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study aimed to identify teachers’ perceived challenges in implementing assessment-as-learning (AaL) in classrooms, and evaluate the impact of a one-year professional development programme (PDP) designed for 47 teachers in a Hong Kong primary school to promote AaL implementation. Findings showed that the PDP increased the frequency and appropriateness of AaL implementation when on-site support was also provided, otherwise changes were not substantial. It suggests that systematic supporting measures should be provided together with PDPs to address the challenges teachers encountered in implementing AaL. Copyright © 2021 International Review of Finance Ltd.

This paper examines the influence of professional learning communities (PLCs) on informal teacher leadership in Hong Kong schools to overcome issues reported in the literature on the challenges to teacher leadership posed by Chinese hierarchical school contexts. We test the relations among PLC, informal teacher leadership, teacher focus on improving student learning, principal instructional leadership, and middle leadership (e.g., subject heads) with structural equation modeling of survey responses from 638 teachers of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. The results show an overall positive influence among all factors in the study. PLCs have the highest positive influence among the factors considered in this study. PLCs are highly influential in promoting informal teacher leadership, which in turn has a high positive linkage to teachers’ focus on improving student learning. In addition, principal instructional leadership has a high positive influence on PLCs, while middle leadership has a moderate positive influence on PLCs. To further enhance teacher leadership capabilities that promote teachers’ focus on improving student learning, we provide recommendations to boost PLC and middle leadership capacities in schools. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s).