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

Legitimate teacher authority is fundamental to effective teaching, but is often a thorny issue that teachers need to grapple with when teaching in cross-cultural teaching contexts. By interviewing 18 pre-service Chinese language teachers on their understanding of legitimate teacher authority throughout teaching practicum at international schools in Hong Kong, this study revealed that the teachers changed their perception about the essentiality and the nature of the pedagogical and interpersonal components of legitimate teacher authority. They developed a more nuanced and balanced understanding about legitimate teacher authority over time. However, their abilities in reaching the balance were constrained by their cultural knowledge and skills in achieving positive interpersonal dynamics when implementing student-centred pedagogies.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2015.1081717]

The Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment inventory has been used in studies with primary and secondary school teachers in New Zealand and Queensland. It has been translated and used in two studies in Chinese contexts (i.e., Hong Kong and China). The Western studies consistently support the existence of four inter-correlated conceptions (i.e., assessment makes schools accountable, assessment makes students accountable, assessment improves teaching and learning, assessment is irrelevant). While similar factors have been found in the two Chinese studies, it was apparent that the factor inter-correlations were quite different. This was especially noted around the relationship of improvement and student accountability factors which were highly correlated in Chinese studies but weakly correlated in Western studies. This suggests that while the British assessment for learning policy is being advocated around the world, there may significant factors in how assessment is understood and used in Chinese contexts that require an alternative policy development. To that end, two studies have been conducted to extend our understanding of what assessment means to teachers in Chinese contexts.

Many school subjects in Hong Kong now have a component of school-based assessment (SBA) to enable a better judgment of students' performance. However, how SBA could be used at classroom level is often a concern to many teachers. Using three core school subjects, namely, Chinese Language, English Language, and Maths as the context, this paper discusses how school-based assessment could be implemented successfully in the classroom.

In the past ten years, Hong Kong Government has promoted the concept of biliteracy (Chinese and English) and trilingualism (Cantonese, Putonghua and English) in education. Putonghua has become an important issue in the school curriculum. Educators debate how and when Putonghua should be taught. In the preschool context, whether Putonghua should be taught as a formal subject or informally through fun and games has been debated. Another critical issue is how parents could help children to learn better outside schools. This paper presents findings on the learning and teaching of Putonghua from interviews with parents and school teachers and principals.