The University of Hong Kong, an English medium of instruction (EMI) institution in the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, has embarked upon an ambitious program designed to strengthen the university's international profile. In support of this aim, a recent review of language education at the university recommended that measures be adopted to encourage the use of English in all courses as well as in professional and social settings (University of Hong Kong, 2004). This study investigates the challenges and prospects for promoting the participation of undergraduate learners in classroom discussion at the university. An ethnographic approach is taken as the study explores the experiences of a group of eight Economics and Finance students and two English language teachers as they participated in oral interaction within their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom. Data were collected throughout the entire EAP course via interviews, audiovisual recording of classroom discussions, classroom observation, documentary analysis, and questionnaires.
The study, grounded in Layder's (1993; 2006) theory of social domain analysis, adopts a multi-level investment perspective on participants involvement in classroom discussion. Learner and teacher investment in such discussion is therefore examined from various perspectives, including the individual, the interactional, and the institutional. The findings challenge previous research, which have portrayed Hong Kong learners as reticent to take part in classroom discussion. These conclusions lead to the development of a theoretical framework that reflects, from these different perspectives, the constraints and enablements to learner investment in oral interaction in the EAP classroom. It is argued that this framework has implications for promoting learner investment in classroom discourse beyond the language classroom. A series of pedagogical recommendations are proposed to promote investment in

In November 1998, the Hong Kong Government published the policy document entitled "Information Technology for Learning in a New Era Five-Year Strategy 1998/99 to 2002/03" and defined the goals and the scope of the development of Information Technology in education in Hong Kong. One of the goals is to encourage using Information Technology (I.T.) in education and to promote students' ability in handling information. As the role of I.T. is becoming more and more important in education, schools themselves have also implemented I.T. to various extents. The main purpose of this study is to explore the impacts of the external environment on the development of I.T. in Hong Kong primary schools and examine also the relationship between the use of I.T. in education and teaching effectiveness in Hong Kong primary schools.
This study uses a quantitative approach to achieve the above purposes. Questionnaires were sent to 823 teachers from 25 Hong Kong primary schools to solicit their views on the impact of I.T. in school education, the use of I.T. education and their perceptions of teaching effectiveness.
The School Environment Constraint Instrument developed by Lam (1989) was adopted to meet the context of Hong Kong primary schools and modified for this study. Two new factors "New Arrivals" and "Language Policy" are used to replace the original factors of 'Ethnicity' and 'Second Language'. The other two research instruments which measured "Information Technology Development" and "Teaching Effectiveness" were developed by the Researcher.
The results of the research indicate that: (1) the "Policy" factor and "Funding" factor had a high, significant correlation with the different aspects of I.T. development of Hong Kong primary schools; (2) a school with well-developed I.T. had a positive significant correlation with "Teaching Effectiveness".
Recommendations have been made for school administrators' consideration in the development of I.T. systems in primary

Collaboration in design has become a geographically distributed and culturally dispersed activity. Increasingly, design educators see the need to prepare young designers for an international market by providing students with skills not only for design but also for intercultural communication.
This thesis investigates how design patterns for facilitating intercultural design education contexts can be identified through qualitative and comparative analysis of a long-term ethnographic study of cross-cultural computer-supported collaborative design learning. The core findings of this research are based on a three-year ethnographic study of intercultural computer-supported collaboration between groups of students from Hong Kong, Korea, Austria and Taiwan. A qualitative research approach was utilized for the discovery of regularities in the observed collaborations, and a comparative research approach was employed to discover similarities and differences across cultural contexts. Data from the first year was analyzed inductively to identify reoccurring themes in design collaboration. This guided the observation of collocated activity and analysis of online conversations in the second year of this study. A map of recurring design solutions was constructed from this analysis. Eleven design patterns were written based on this analysis and presented to designers for evaluation in a pattern workshop. Based on the feedback from this workshop, in the third year of this study an in-depth analysis of computer-mediated interaction between Hong Kong and Korean students, and their local tutors, was carried out. A deductive coding scheme, informed by theories of intercultural and cross-cultural communication research, was employed to guide the analysis and articulation of design patterns for intercultural collaboration.
Within this research, an inductive and deductive methodology for identifying and articulating design patterns was developed. Therein, eleven patterns for intercultural

This study sought to identify how teachers of science in English medium secondary schools in Hong Kong make science content accessible to students through English, the students second language. The strong emphasis on language outcomes in much of the research on late immersion (of which English medium education in Hong Kong is considered an example) indicates that a study which addresses classroom processes may be timely.
The significance of language in immersion education suggested that an awareness by teachers of the part language plays in learning within the curriculum might provide a means by which qualitative differences in the teaching of content could be identified. The study, therefore, attempted to determine whether there are any differences between teachers who are strongly aware of the role of language in learning and those who are weakly aware in the ways they integrate language and content in their teaching to facilitate student learning. Further, it explored how those differences are realised.
A qualitative approach was adopted for the study. A theoretical framework was developed with which to analyse classroom data on the teaching of science through English. The framework was made up of six dimensions describing the integrated teaching of science and the English of science in an immersion context. It was developed from the literature and was further refined as a result of intensive reading and re-reading of lesson transcripts.
Six teachers of science were studied. A questionnaire was used to place each teacher on a language awareness continuum and four were thus classified as strongly language aware and two as weakly language aware. The teachers were observed and recorded teaching the same science topic. Following the lessons, the students were given a test of science which required that they express their understanding in written English. The teachers and some students were also interviewed.
The science test results revealed that students

The notion of 'balanced' bilingual development has often been used to refer to two languages which are spoken with equal proficiency during bilingual language acquisition. However, it is still not known how 'equal' the proficiencies of the two languages should be in order to achieve 'balanced' bilingualism. This case study aims to capture this notion of 'balanced' by using the following quantitative measures with respect to grammatical development: mean length of utterance (MLU), upper bound (UB) and lexical diversity (D). Direct comparison between two sets of absolute values does not reliably predict a bilingual child's language dominance due to potential typological differences two languages. The obtained values of these measures are shown to be comparable with those of monolingual children acquiring each language, and thus it is argued that bilingual children who attain such competence in each language are considered as having 'balanced' bilingual development.
This study concerns particularly two aspects of bilingual children: a) grammatical development and b) language use in terms of mixing. With regard to a), given that cross-linguistic influence is attested across studies of bilingual language development, this case study investigates the domains of null objects and wh-interrogatives to see if any cross-linguistic influence takes place. The qualitative similarities found in all Cantonese-English bilingual subjects suggest that the nature of the cross-linguistic influence is similar, whereas the quantitative differences imply that language dominance has determining effect on the phenomenon.
Concerning b), since language proficiency is often taken as one of the crucial factors predicting language mixing pattern, this present study examines the relationship of the mixing pattern in the Cantonese-English balanced bilingual child and her language proficiency. The results show that mixing occurs more frequently in Cantonese context than in English context.

This study attempts to understand how students construct their knowledge in a new learning environment guided by constructivist learning principles as well as to find out whether such environment can produce a deeper learning outcome than one that is based on existing mode of classroom teaching.
A constructivist learning environment includes such crucial elements as intentional learning, active, authentic and cooperative learning. This involves using information technology to build up learning community as well as encourage learners to obtain information for knowledge construction.
A quasi-experimental design was employed. The experimental group comprised of 16 students taking a Social Policy Issues course via an online learning environment while the comparison group comprised of 18 students attending the same course in the existing classroom teaching. All students came from the same class studying in the final year of the BSW program of the University of Hong Kong. Background information indicated that the two groi.lps of students were largely, homogeneous.
The outcome indicates that students had a positive evaluation of the online learning environment. However, the learning outcome analyzed by the SOLO Taxonomy does not show any significant difference. The students with better performance are more active in logging on the online course and post more messages on the bulletin board.
Patterns of students' participation in the bulletin board discussion were analyzed Students were enthusiastic in the beginning and the more active students tended to remain so throughout the course. Quality of postings improved with time on each discussion topic. Quite a few students reported that they preferred reading others' postings than giving their opinions. Teachers' roles were investigated. Giving encouragement, asking short and thought provoking questions and summarizing students' discussion were considered important for students' learning.
The study suggests

Chinese-English bilingual education is common practice in Hong Kong schools. In 1997, the Education Department published the paper "Strong Guidelines for Medium of Instruction" to stop the teachers use mixed languages or code-switching in secondary schools. All students entering secondary schools have to undergo the Medium of Instruction Grouping Assessment (MIGA) which is the basis of the assignment to study in Chinese or English-medium schools. The present study of bilingual memory models in local primary school students attempts to provide a theoretical framework for the planning and implementation of bilingual education. It will also contribute towards the development of effective bilingual education in Hong Kong.
For student to communicate and study effectively and efficiently in a second language, a vocabulary of a certain number of words has to be stored up. Cognitive psychologists have four basic models in describing the semantic network of bilinguals. There are namely, Separate Store Model, Common-store Model, Verbal-imagery Dual-code Model and Overlapping Distribution Model. There is no single model that isconsidered to be comprehensive enough in explaining all observed phenomena.
Generally Hong Kong primary school students showed positive attitudes to English learning and English-based teaching. They are fully aware that English is an essential commercial language and a necessary learning tool, which would definitely bring helpful for further studies or future careers. Nevertheless, students also agreed that learning in their mother tongue Chinese or in a mixed code of Chinese and English would reduce their learning difficulties. Primary school students adopted varying strategies in learning Chinese and English. In learning Chinese vocabularies, students only relied on Chinese characters or the Chinese language system without utilizing the English language system. Whereas in learning English vocabularies, students still relied on Chinese resources

The call for professionalism in kindergarten education has been an important educational issue over the past several decades in Hong Kong. Official expectations have been published to guide the services of kindergarten education and to supervise teachers' pedagogical practice. Kindergarten education services that are child centred and play based, and that practise integrated learning to nourish children's holistic and balanced development are advocated. However, Quality Assurance Inspection reports have shown that kindergarten teaching and learning is still teacher directed. Young children are passive recipients of knowledge. The services run counter to the progressive motives of the 2000 Education Reform in nurturing young children to be active and self-motivated life-long learners. Driven by the interest to study the practice-expectation gap, the present study sought to observe kindergarten teachers' classroom practice, investigate their pedagogical decision making, and reveal the complexities underpinning their pedagogical roles which, to an extent, emerged from the practice-expectation gap.
The present study, framed by in a qualitative research design, employed on-site observations and teacher interviews, together with official document analysis and training curriculum document analysis. The wealth of data and information collected revealed that a practice-expectation gap does exist.
The data analysis suggests that the teacher informants' pedagogical decision making and practice were shaped by a number of intervening forces. These forces can be categorised into (a) the personal variables of the teacher informants in terms of their personal beliefs and values towards kindergarten education, (b) the contextual variables of school management structure and administrative arrangements within which the teacher informants delivered their teaching and fostered the children's learning, (c) the societal variables of parental expectations of the kindergarten education