This paper examines the out-of-class English language learning activities of student teachers in Hong Kong, using questionnaires, interviews and learner diaries. The study Found that while many of the students devoted considerable time to studying and practising English outside the classroom, much of this time was spent on more receptive activities such as Listening and reading, rather than speaking. Students had a tendency to locus on private rather than public activities which did not involve face-to-face contact. Two students' out-of-class learning activities and their feelings towards using in English are examined in more detail. It is suggested that the reasons for their avoidance involved both individual and social/political factors, principally the implications attached to using English and the fear of negative judgement. However, it is pointed out that despite their negative feelings about using English in public, these were successful English learners who actively sought opportunities to use English in their private domain. It is suggested that the private domain may be a valuable setting for out-of-class language learning, since it is both less threatening to identity and is also easier for the student to control.
[Copyright of Language Awareness is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658410408667094 ]

This paper describes a series of awareness-raising activities for English language secondary school teachers-in-training - with a view to evaluating future, that is, 'intelligent', CALL for English language teaching. The paper first puts the development of CALL applications into perspective (after Atwell, 1999; Warschauer and Healey, 1998) in terms of its impact on ESL teachers. The paper then describes a series of activities intended to raise English language teachers' awareness and to enable them to evaluate advances in IT technology - as these will affect ESL teaching and learning. In order to achieve this future perspective, the activities described centre around language engineering software that than current CALL software per se. The paper makes reference to the secondary education system in Hong Kong, where there has been a strong push by the government for IT to support the classroom teaching of all subjects by at least 25%. For such a policy to even begin to be achieved, and for the classroom use of IT to be appropriate and effective, two conditions need to be in place. Firstly, teachers need to be familiar with and comfortable in the use of IT - specifically, the widening range of language engineering software. Secondly, they need to be able to evaluate the possibilities that IT offers. It is only if these two conditions are met that there is a greater chance that future use of CALL will be integrated into teaching in a worthwhile manner.
[Copyright of Computer Assisted Language Learning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0958822042000334226]

This paper provides a case study of the use of language objectives within a newly developed English language teacher education programme in Hong Kong. The programme development team decided to adopt a content-based language teaching approach to support students' second language development through content learning. The teacher education programme (the content) prepares Chinese-speaking students to become secondary level English teachers. Because of students' level of English language proficiency upon entry, the programme must provide substantial support for students' English language development in addition to their learning of subject content knowledge and ELT pedagogy. There is also a government-stipulated proficiency level for all qualified English language teachers, which essentially becomes the language syllabus for the programme. The language objectives serve as a medium for mapping the language syllabus on the content curriculum. There are reasons to believe that the approach adopted has been successful in supporting students' language and content learning. This paper describes the programme development and implementation process and the problems and constraints met. The paper also shares the lessons learnt from the curriculum development and implementation process.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/le771.0]

This paper investigates L2 English learners' reactions to mixed personality in a pedagogic grammar. Personality refers to how authors represent themselves in a text and interact with their readers (e.g. personally via the use of personal pronouns or impersonally via the use of the passive, etc.); mixed personality occurs when an author switches from one option to another. In an experiment, 195 students from Hong Kong and Poland were asked to read a text in which the author switched from we to you. The expectation that this mixing would cause we to be interpreted as exclusive was not borne out; however, some students did attach negative attributes to you as a result of its proximity to we. Another finding was that awareness of the generic reference of we was higher than that for you. Writers of pedagogic grammars are encouraged to be more aware of the referential complexities of personal pronouns.
[Copyright of Language Awareness is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585170902763973]