Choral singing in Hong Kong schools has been developing for over four decades. Nowadays most of the schools own their choirs for performances and competitions. However, the teaching methods of choral conducting in Hong Kong are in lack of formal research and documentation. Many music teachers tend to work on their own without seeking for improvement through research, workshops, seminars and conferences at a large extent. Meanwhile, applying kinesthetic movement and gesture (KMG) has been advocated in other overseas countries for a period of time and significant teaching effectiveness has been noticed. After reviewing the relevant literature as a background, this study therefore aims at investigating the present situation of applying KMG in Hong Kong schools by a questionnaire survey. In addition, three semi-structured interviews were conducted to seek the opinions and personal experiences of three pioneer music teachers who have been applying KMG for 10 to 24 years. Findings from the questionnaire survey reveal that those music teachers who apply KMG in their choral teaching admitted that they found KMG very effective in various ways such as relaxation while singing. Furthermore, the three interviewees have provided a number of concrete examples of applying KMG in teaching children to understand musical elements, and developing their vocal skills and choral skills. These findings provide implications on how music teachers should teach in their choral activities.

The fast growth of digital technology, transportation system, and wireless communication networks in recent years has dramatically increased the contact of people from different countries and regions. Accompanying this is the need to have better understanding of different cultures to attain harmony among all walks of life for a concerted effort to develop the earth. As an important part of culture, music facilitates the multi-faceted understanding and knowledge of countries and regions. Western classics, which have long taken an important portion of the music curriculum, gradually got more companies from local traditional music and popular music as can be seen from the music curriculum of many places. Excluding these, to what extent music from other parts of the world is included in the music, educational, and cultural policies of china is worth investigation. This paper will focus on cultural inclusivity in the music curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong and Nanjing. Curriculum documents for various stages of learning from lower primary through senior high school levels would be investigated and compared. It will see how much cultural understanding may be brought about by the music curriculum. The depth and breadth of this cultural understanding would be analyzed and the transparency of purpose checked. There would be a review of the literature in an attempt to establish the basis for analysis of the curriculum documents. The inclusion of music from different parts of the world appears to be covered in relation to the domains of appreciation, performing, and creating, as well as cultural specific areas such as aesthetic sense, philosophical aspirations, and functionalities (context of the music). Implications for music education, teacher education, and policy-making regarding cultural inclusiveness would be deliberated to inform concerned music educators.

Similar to many other countries, creativity has been included in the arts education curriculum in schools of Hong Kong since 2003. in order to prepare preservice music teachers to cope with the requirement of the curriculum, a specific course titled “Creativity in Music” has been introduced to a B.Ed program at a major teacher education institution in Hong Kong. The course was designed with an outcome-based learning approach in which the learning outcomes of the students are clearly defined and assessed formatively and summatively. This presentation introduces the specific aims, content and assessment method of the course. A number of 30 final year music majors took part in the course from September to October 2011 and afterwards they participated in a field experience for their teaching practice in schools for eight weeks. They were required to employ collaborative creative music-making activities in their teaching practice. Semi-structured interviews with observation of video recordings were used to collect qualitative data in order to examine these research questions: to what extent the course could nurture the student teachers in teaching musical creativity effectively? And, what and how should the course be improved to further enhance the learning effectiveness in schools? The findings of this study would shed light on how pre-service teachers respond to an existing course in teacher education program and provide evidence on the effectiveness of such course. Implications for other countries’ references are to be made.

The most updated ICT in education policies in Hong Kong music curriculum are the music curriculum guide and the music curriculum and assessment guide implemented in 2006 and 2009 for primary and secondary school. Both curriculum guides emphasis the importance of the role of technology in the music curriculum. This paper focuses on the music software design from the perspective of Hong Kong music teachers’ pedagogical considerations. Most music software used by teachers today in their teaching is originally designed for professional or commercial usage, and little pedagogical considerations have been taken. While technology is gradually and increasingly integrated into music education, the absence of pedagogical considerations in the software design is an emerging problem. In order to understand the music teachers’ needs and expectations from music software, the purpose of this study was to investigate the most useful and desired features of commonly used music software from the perspective of music teachers’ pedagogical concerns. A simple questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were conducted with 15 purposefully chosen primary or secondary school music teachers in Hong Kong. Those teachers were chosen to included both primary and secondary schools, and both mainstream local curriculum and international baccalaureate (IB) program. Teachers recently graduated were particularly chosen as they have experienced the most recent pre-service music teacher training which incorporated the considerations of ICT in education. Results show that music notation software is the most popular software used for music teaching, followed by audio editing software and mobile apps. Choice of particular music software brand is up to the availability and personal preference from the music teachers. The main use of music software by teachers is for preparing teaching materials. Software mostly used during the music classes is mobile apps for the purpose of demonstration. Some of the desired

Since the reunion of Hong Kong and china in 1997, Hong Kong has changed its national anthem, education and language policy accordingly. This sovereignty transfer has manifestly brought changes at every aspect of local society, which undoubtedly reflects on the content and design of school curricula. As Putonghua, i.e. The official language in mainland china, has been taught in schools for sixteen years as an important measure to enhance the appreciation and understanding of Chinese cultural heritage and to endorse national identity, Putonghua songs ranging from the Chinese folk songs and the national anthem, to the popular song, Chinghuatze (written by the Taiwanese singer songwriter, Jay Chou), have become an indispensable music learning experience for many Hong Kong students. Integrating Putonghua songs into the general music curricula is part of the education and language policy in Hong Kong schools, how to construct and deliver an innovative and feasible Putonghua music curriculum to be enjoyed by music educators and learners becomes a major challenge and necessary undertaking. This project investigated the phenomenon of the learning and teaching of Putonghua songs in Hong Kong schools since the change of sovereignty in 1997. the principal investigator intended to study the current perception and impact of using Putonghua songs as part of the music curricula in facilitating the understanding and appreciation of Chinese cultural traditions by surveying 400 undergraduate and postgraduate music students (i.e. Potential future music educators in Hong Kong) followed by semi-guided interview sessions with some of those subjects. The perception and viewpoints of future music educators towards Putonghua songs were carefully examined and discussed in order to understand the challenges of the learning and teaching of Putonghua songs in the context of enhancing Chinese cultural exposure, values education and national identity in light of post-colonisation in current Hong

Since the reunion of Hong Kong and China in 1997, Hong Kong has changed its national anthem from god save the queen to march of the volunteers. Such political transform has manifestly aggravated significant changes in society, which undoubtedly influence the content and design of school curriculum (Curriculum Development Council, 2002). As Putonghua (i.e. The official language of mainland China) has been taught in Hong Kong schools as language and education policy for seventeen years, measurable outcomes and impact on music curriculum would be an important measure to strengthen national identity (Brand & Ho, 1999). However, Cantonese remains to be the most widely used language in hung Kong (Leung & Lee, 2006). As indicated by previous research (Law, 1997), the current phenomena of the learning and teaching of Putonghua music curriculum and its effectiveness in terms of execution is unclear and inconclusive. Hence, there is a great need to investigate Putonghua songs in the context of education, history, culture, politics, and sociology. This project aims to study student teachers’ perception (as future music teachers) towards the learning and teaching of Putonghua songs in view of enhancing nationalisation, Chinese cultural heritage and values education during post colonial period. The preliminary findings will be discussed based on the context of neocolonization in Hong Kong, i.e. Music teachers’ awareness and resistance towards Putonghua songs and national anthem, how such political, cultural, social and educational shift change the development and delivery of local music curriculum, national identity and national education, multiculturalism, and academic research.

Information Technology (IT) has been infiltrating in every aspects of life, revolutionizing different modes of life, and making it inevitable to be incorporated in education. With a vision that it will help to change the future of mankind for good, policies have been set up by governments, institutions including schools to encourage, support, and monitor the applications of it. Viewing the escalating development of mobile technology and the fascination it has in attracting almost everyone to own a computer, a smart phone, and social networking device such as the whatsapp, face book, it is unimaginable to do without this technology in education. The modes of teaching and learning in music education, with its long history of association with different kinds of technology/instruments again have significantly found to be facilitated by the new digital technology. This study explicates how the technology policy in education has been implemented by the new generation pre-service music teachers who have been widely submerged in the sea of the ever changing technology. A total of 40 music lessons delivered by 20 pre-service music teachers, 10 each from hong kong and nanjing are to be observed. An observation form with closed-ended and opened-ended questions related to how the teaching practices of these pre-service teachers have incorporated technologies in their lessons is designed to collect data for analysis. The kinds of technologies used and the effectiveness in facilitating learning are examined. The practices are triangulated with the technology policy of government, regions, and schools in connection to identify issues confronting pre-service music teachers. The aspects which excel in the application of technology by pre-service music teaching practice recognized to include domains in music creating, listening, and performance, as well as assessment would be discussed. The increase in the use of music e-books in primary schools provided by publishers, the incorporation

It has been a decade since the implementation of Hong Kong's policy of inclusion, that mainstream schools should admit students with special educational needs (SEN). This study reports on music teachers' experiences of teaching SEN students in inclusive music classrooms. Data were derived from a qualitative multiple case study comprising10 government-funded primary school music teachers. These music teachers lack knowledge of ways to support the musical development of pupils with SEN and reported learned helplessness and effective exclusion of SEN students. The major barrier to effective inclusive music teaching evidenced is the absence of in-service training in inclusive music education.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2015.1044509]