The focus of teacher education research in recent years has shifted from a behavioural research paradigm (Beatie, 1995), which examines how teacher behaviour influences student learning, to one which studies teacher cognition, and its relationship with professional actions (Watkins and Biggs, 2001). Such a shift is premised on the belief that what teachers do is directed by what they think (Clark & Peterson, 1986), and that teachers' implicit theories which impact their behaviours are guided by a personally held system of beliefs, values and principles (Zeichner, and Liston, 1987). This paper explores the practicum experiences of a group of Chinese student teachers learning to teach English in Hong Kong. Data were collected through interviews, journal entries and field notes based on practicum teaching observations. Major themes emerging from the data reveal the interplay between the student teachers' conceptions of teaching and argue for a shift away from a didactic approach in teacher education towards a dialectic and reflextive approach in foreign language teacher education.

Based on qualitative data obtained from 15 South Asian (SA) B.Ed. (EL) (Bachelor of Education in English Language) students, this study reports on SA students' difficulty in mastering Mandarin-based written Chinese and the vernacular Cantonese in Hong Kong. For convenience, SA here also refers to students whose homeland is the Philippines. Since Britain's return of sovereignty to China on 1 July 1997, the language policy of post-colonial Hong Kong is characterised by biliteracy and trilingualism (兩文三語): the ability to read and write Chinese and English and to speak Cantonese, English and Putonghua/Mandarin. Unlike during the colonial era, much greater significance is now accorded to Chinese literacy, but SA students' poor performance in written Chinese and Cantonese defies such social expectations. A lack of Chinese literacy is a major stumbling block towards gaining access to educational and career opportunities. This raises two ethical issues: social inequality resulting from a lack of a level-playing field and denial of opportunities for social mobility through education. Implications of our empirical findings will be briefly discussed in light of Cummins' interdependency hypothesis on the development of basic interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency in Chinese.
[Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis.]

This paper reports and discusses on the initial stage of a study aiming to explore the relationship between students’ learning styles and their acceptance of using Second Life (SL) for learning. Par- ticipants in this study involved a small group of undergraduate students (N = 17) taking a Visual Arts course called ‘Digital Imaging’ at a university in Hong Kong. They were asked to create and showcase their own digital artwork in SL. Furthermore, they were also required to present their work and critique peers’ work in SL. Their learning styles were measured by the Index of Learning Styles (ILS), whereas their acceptance of Second Life for learning was evaluated by a questionnaire designed by the author. Preliminary findings of this study reveal that most participants were identified as visual learners (i.e. the ones who prefer to see in graphical/video representation). However, active learners (i.e. the ones who prefer to try something out to see how it works) were found more likely to accept the educational use of SL.
[Copyright © 2012 SciRes.]

自清末語文設科以來，語文課中文言教學佔有一席位置，已有百多年的歷史。 五四運動後，文言的地位並不如白話，但這並不意味着語文課程不需要教文言。現在 大多數學生認為文言寫的是古人古事，現代社會已不需要（張偉 2010），所以他們沒 有興趣學習。其實中國文化博大精深，文言是重要的文化遺產，是需要承傳的。香港 中國語文科中文言是學生學習語文的一環，但卻是他們學習的一個難點。最近 2012 年 中學文憑試（Diploma for Secondary Education）中國語文科的成績僅有五成學生及格， 是中文、英文、數學和通識科四科成績中學生表現最差的，中文科閱讀理解試卷中， 學生表現最不理想的是閱讀文言的部分。其實香港教師是很用心教學，但文言教學效 能卻是差強人意。筆者任教教師培訓課程十多年，有機會到訪不同的學校，觀察教師 上課的情況，本文就觀察所得，與教師分享和討論文言教學的現況與對策，希望加強 教師對文言教學的信心。
[Copyright © 2015香港中文大學中國文化研究所吳多泰中國語文研究中心.]

This study is an extension of a previous methodologically exploratory study which established several multilevel value-added models to identify how different student and school factors influenced student English reading attainment in the nested school structure. The present study moved a step further to compare effectiveness of the models and determined the one most efficient at estimating school effects on adding value to their students' English reading ability from Secondary 1 to Secondary 6. Effectiveness of the most parsimonious model at presenting and interpreting the substantive findings was further tested using the same set of data. The data was collected from 3,993 students of 66 Hong Kong secondary schools in 2006. Students' English ability was tested at Form 1 intake and tested again at Form 6. The background information, such as student and school demographic and contextual factual data, was also collected. Partialing out influence from student and school level background factors, the relative progress made by students from different schools was compared. Specific findings on value-added effects of the schools are plotted thus providing distinctive graphic information. The findings will provide some insightful indications to the authorities and educational practitioners for student improvement and school effectiveness.