One of the key aims of formative assessment in higher education is to enable students to become self-regulated learners (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Based on Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick's (2006) framework, this exploratory study investigates which formative assessment practices proposed by them were used by one college EFL writing teacher to facilitate learner self-regulation in a Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) setting (i.e. Hong Kong) and student perceptions of these practices in relation to self-regulation. Five formative assessment practices were found to be implemented by the teacher to support learner self-regulation. The students seemed to be more positive about teacher-and-student-directed practices than student-directed ones. Suggestions have been provided to maximize the potential of these practices in facilitating learner self-regulation.

English learning is pervasive in Hong Kong kindergartens. Hong Kong children start to learn English as a school subject as early as three years old. However, the practices are diverse and there is a lack of understanding in current practices of English language teaching and its impacts on early literacy outcomes. The present paper will report the development of an observational system for English teaching in the Hong Kong classroom. The system developed by the researchers focused on evaluating the amount of code-based and meaning-based instruction provided to Hong Kong Chinese ESL children and the pedagogical strategies teachers employ in the classroom. Around 30 English lessons from 13 kindergartens located in various geographical districts in Hong Kong were coded using the observation system. The coding results provide information regarding the current practices adopted by Hong Kong kindergartens. School characteristics (e.g. SES, teachers’ qualification, teachers’ nationality) and the pedagogy and teaching content of English language teaching will be discussed. Preliminary findings of the impacts of teaching content on language and literacy skills of around 300 children from the 13 kindergartens will be presented.

This study investigates the acquisition of English word stress by ESL learners in Hong Kong, and assesses the efficacy of unlimited access to an online pronunciation tutoring programme. Twenty learners in foundation English language classes at the university level were recruited to participate in this study. Ten students were given an online programme as a supplement to a 30-hour English course, and were requested to practice on their home computers. Their development in spoken English was compared with a control group of ten students who did not use the online resource. The online programme My ET was evaluated according to Chapelle’s (2001) six criteria for CALL assessment. The learners were pre- and post-tested by two experienced raters of pronunciation. A questionnaire was then distributed to inquire into the pronunciation learning experiences and attitudes towards the online learning. Results indicate that the online pronunciation tutoring was fairly effective in improving the ESL learners’ ability to produce and perceive correctly different stress patterns in words, phrases, and sentences, and that students also had a positive attitude towards online pronunciation instruction and activities. The findings also reveal that practice with the programme was beneficial to those students who began the course with a strong foreign accent, but it was of limited value to students who began the course with better pronunciation.
[Copyright © 2012 http://www.tesoljournal.com.]

Although Hong Kong government has done a great job in various areas for active aging such as social security, residential care services, community care and support systems, the English education for elders is a weak point. This paper analyzes the current situation of English education for elders in Hong Kong from four perspectives: barriers, motivations, styles and methods of English learning for elders. Suggestions, possible solutions and necessary actions are also proposed accordingly.

香港教育局自 2003-2004 年開始推出行政長官卓越教學獎計劃，表彰教師的卓越 教學表現。這些卓越教師優質的教學經驗和思想，值得其他教師參考和借鑒。本文 利用訪談、課堂觀察和文檔分析等?究方?，探討和比較四位香港卓越英文教師的 教學模式，包括教學思想、教學目標、教學步驟、教學策略以及教學評估等領域的 教學經驗和教學思想。本研究的發現除了加深我們對香港優質英文教學實踐的認 知，也為優化英文教學實踐及改善相關教師培訓提供寶貴的啟示。
[Copyright © 2015 臺北市立大學.]

A realistic goal of pronunciation teaching in the second language context is to acquire comfortably intelligible rather than native-like pronunciation. To establish a set of teaching and learning priorities necessary for English teachers and students whose first language is Chinese, the purposes of this study are three fold: (1) Identify the pronunciation aspects that are crucial for intelligible pronunciation in actual second language (L2) Hong Kong (HK) and foreign language mainland (ML) China classrooms from in-service teachers’ points of view; (2) Investigate how teachers help their students successfully understand English classroom input through teachers’ self-reflection on which aspects of their own pronunciation they modify and adapt to make classroom discourse intelligible to students; and (3) explore the most frequently taught pronunciation aspects and the most frequently used pronunciation teaching strategies used by teachers to teach pronunciation in English classrooms. Forty-seven questionnaires were collected and analysed from in-service teachers in primary schools. Four teachers were invited to attend follow-up interviews. In order to further investigate the application of adaptation strategies and pronunciation teaching strategies in real classroom settings, eight classroom videos were collected. The data were triangulated allowing for cross checking. The findings will not only help frontline teachers become self-aware of their own pronunciation, rectify students’ recurrent difficulties in using phonological features, and improve mutual intelligibility in English language classrooms but also help explore the ways to integrate phonology courses and pronunciation teaching in second/foreign language teaching and teacher education.
[Copyright © 2016 Canadian Center of Science and Education.]