A central issue in language testing is the choice of norms, and the need to reconcile notions of "standard" English with local language norms and features. Data from studies of international intelligibility indicate that some features of "standard" language descriptions, based on native-speaker language use, are not essential for successful communication. A specific question in test design is thus the extent to which descriptors and rater decisions reflect native-speaker, as opposed to local, language norms. This article takes a case study approach by focusing on a speaking test used in Hong Kong. It analyses published examiner comments from 12 examination sessions between 2003 and 2011 and compares them with criteria for international intelligibility. It also analyses the distribution of the comments among various segmental and suprasegmental phonological categories and relates this to intelligibility research and to theoretical considerations. The study critically evaluates the concept of "intelligibility" and considers its relevance for language testing, and revisits certain aspects of the "local norms" debate. The findings of the study suggest that what examiners notice is generally also what is important for international intelligibility, although the importance of certain suprasegmental features is questionable from an intelligibility standpoint.
[Copyright of Language Assessment Quarterly is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15434303.2013.824974]

This paper proposes a personalised instructional strategy, student-selected vocabulary, to facilitate secondary school students' vocabulary building. It then reports how this personalised instructional strategy was implemented and evaluated through a teacher-led intervention study of 57 low-achieving Hong Kong secondary school students. Data were collected with multiple measures: student-made vocabulary cards, paper questionnaires, and personalised vocabulary tests. The findings show that these low-achieving students selected words to learn in a responsible way to meet with their academic needs and achieved good retention rates of their personalised curriculum. Evidence also shows that learner differences were catered for and well addressed in this innovative personalised vocabulary pedagogy.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2014.942318]

This study, conducted over a one-year period, examined the collaboration practices in a large-scale school-university capacity-building collaborative action research project that was designed to help English language teachers develop the skills needed to deal with the reforms to assessment practices in Hong Kong's school curriculum. The study theorized collaboration as a complex construction that must be understood in the context of the prevailing ideologies shaping professional development practices for teachers. Online data generated from the collaborative action research project were analysed to explore the discursive construction of interpersonal relationships. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine the discursive strategies that were used in the emails of two university researchers and two school teachers to negotiate and manage collaboration practices. It examined the complexities of negotiating collaboration as a social practice in institutional cultures in a non-Western sociocultural setting. The implications of the findings for policy, professional development and future research are discussed.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2014.906386]

The aims of this study were to examine changes in students' English and math self-concepts and to investigate the effects of gender and school ability level on these changes. Self-concept in English and math were measured thrice across three years among a sample of 2618 secondary school students from Hong Kong. Gender and school ability level were included as time-invariant predictors. Results indicated that students' English self-concept slightly increased across time, while math self-concept marginally declined. Gender influenced both the initial levels and rates of change for English and math self-concepts, while school ability level predicted initial levels of self-concept. Implications are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2014.909009]

In recent years, school-based assessment (SBA) has been incorporated into the English Language subject of a traditional high-stakes public examination, the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. As reactions from various stakeholder groups have been mixed, it was necessary to review this new practice. This paper reports on a study of 33 English language teachers who have been frontline SBA assessors. The study aimed to better understand (1) teacher-assessors' perceptions of the English SBA, (2) their professional development needs in relation to implementing SBA, (3) their perceptions of how students could benefit from SBA and (4) the pressing issues arising from the SBA implementation. The study found that, while many participants agreed that SBA could be beneficial to students' English learning, there was much room for improvement in all four aspects investigated. In particular, some problems identified at the very beginning of the implementation of the English SBA have still persisted.
[Copyright of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2014.915207]

This study examined the influence of classroom pedagogic reading practices and out-of-school practices in explaining why the reading attainment of Hong Kong Grade 4 students was superior to that of their counterparts in Taiwan in the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Analyses of scores from 9301 students (4712 from Hong Kong and 4589 from Taiwan) revealed that independent reading in school made a distinctive contribution to the reading performance of Hong Kong and Taiwan students after controlling for the effects of students' and parents' reading attitudes, the availability of supportive home educational resources and student engagement in a range of reading practices. Out-of-school informational reading was found to be negatively associated with students' reading attainment for both Hong Kong and Taiwan students. There was evidence that reading aloud in class in Taiwan classrooms significantly contributed to the Taiwan students' poor reading performance.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2014.927732]

This paper reports on a qualitative multiple case study that examined the implementation of innovations in English language education by three teachers in Hong Kong. Grounded in an analytical framework of teacher identity, in-depth interviews over an entire year provide a longitudinal understanding of the participants' experiences of simultaneously negotiating identity and implementing innovation in language teaching and learning within different schools in Hong Kong. Results point to a mutually constitutive relationship between identity and the implementation of these innovations. It is argued that the implementation of innovation underpinned the capacity of participants to both position themselves, as well as to be positioned by others, as particular types of teachers. The results also suggest that being afforded scope to explore their preferred professional identities, both discursively and experientially, is essential to the implementation of innovation. The analysis highlights that the implementation of innovation can be blocked or restricted if scope for the exploration of particular identities is denied to teachers, and that this may result in the marginalization of the identities teachers are seeking to construct. Implications for schools wishing to foster the implementation of innovation in language teaching and learning are discussed and suggestions for future research considered.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2012.750664]

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two types of cooperative learning groups used in reciprocal teaching (RT) classes (i.e. high-structured vs. low-structured groups) for enhancing students' reading comprehension. The participants were 235 Hong Kong Chinese Grade 6 students in nine classes. Reading comprehension tests and questionnaires were used to investigate students' reading comprehension, teachers' cognitive support and perceptions of cooperative learning. The findings indicate that high achievers from the low-structured RT group significantly outperformed high achievers from the high-structured RT group in post-test reading comprehension, whereas low achievers from the high-structured RT group significantly outperformed low achievers from the low-structured RT group in follow-up reading comprehension. Students from the high-structured RT group reported higher scores for their perceptions of cooperative learning than students from the low-structured RT group.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.860216]