Over the past decade, the education systems in mainland China and Hong Kong have implemented major changes to language policy. In China, English has been introduced at Primary 3 level, while in Hong Kong the initial post-handover guidelines have been effectively reversed by the so-called “fine-tuning” of the language policy in 2009, which favours English as the Medium of Instruction. In both places, there is also huge parental demand in the Kindergarten sector for helping young children to learn English. This paper uses the triadic framework of Fagerlind and Saha (1995) that comprises political, socio-economic and educational perspectives, to understand the phenomenon of English in terms of its role and status in education in mainland China and Hong Kong, and to identify the implications of these language policies. It finds that, while the learning of English at a young age can benefit the children in preparing them for socio-economic advancement, there are issues of social equity, identity, resourcing and curriculum balance that need to be addressed. While the focus is on mainland China and Hong Kong, the findings are relevant to many education systems in the Asia Pacific region where English is a foreign language.

This paper reports on the effectiveness and practicality of abstracting essential pedagogical methods that aim to promote high level thinking among junior secondary science students. Strategies include intensive professional development programme and design of lesson materials that can be integrated into the existing science curriculum in the Hong Kong schools. The professional development workshops focus on the distinction between the “Cognitive Skills Enhancing Lessons” (CSE) and regular science lessons. Teachers were stimulated to discuss ways to get students to discuss, think about and respond to teachers’ questions, and to ask questions. Classroom implementations of the CSE teaching materials tailor-made for the Hong Kong junior secondary science curriculum were initiated for 3 secondary two classes. The paper reports on the findings from the pre and post interviews, as well as interviews during the classroom implementations with all the participating teachers and a sample of 6 students from each class. Findings report on what teachers think about the CSE method, their general feelings about using CSE, their comments on the materials, the difficulties (if any) they met, the benefits to students and the perceived feasibility of implementing CSE-infused science activities designed by the project team in local classrooms.

In this paper, I report on aspects of the Learning-oriented assessment project (LOAP) a funded three year (2002-2005) Teaching Development Grant project based in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. I begin by describing the genesis of the term learning-oriented assessment and sketching its conceptual basis. I then highlight key findings and implications form some of the main project outcomes: a questionnaire survey involving 1,740 students and 460 staff in the universities in Hong Kong; a practical sourcebook of useful practices at the interface of assessment and learning; and a special issue of the journal Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. The paper also contains a reflective account of the project processes, including both successful strategies and areas where challenges occurred. Some implications for institutional assessment change will be explored.

The Learning Study approach has been developed over ten years by a research team comprising school teachers and academics in Hong Kong. It is a systematic process of enquiry into teaching and learning, employing an action research methodology, and underpinned by the Variation Theory. Under Learning Study, teachers are expected to learn cooperatively and become reflective practitioners by practicing the theories postulated from others. Learning Study can be used to enhance teachers’ pedagogical capabilities and professional development. This paper describes how Learning Study, which initially started as a modest project to find ways to cater for individual differences in main stream schools in Hong Kong, became a powerful tool for schools in achieving these aims. Working in close collaboration with the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Learning Study developed as a major component of a mentoring system, which resulted in the creation of learning communities in schools, where the focus is on enhancing teaching and learning. Such a system benefits all teachers involved, whether novice or very experienced. Starting with only two schools in 1999, schools in the Learning Study network rapidly expanded to over 200 schools in 2010. The success of Learning Study in Hong Kong will be analyzed under the following factors: its conceptual framework, methodology, partnership with higher education institutions, positioning, reform context and culture, and dissemination strategy and the diffusion process in and across schools. Its potential for moving towards improving the status of the profession as a whole will also be discussed.

It has been suggested that students can learn with video technology (Jonassen, Howland, Moore and Marra 2003): by involving them in project-based production, they will engage in deep learning and develop a variety of thinking skills in order to complete the project (Jonassen, Carr and Yueh 1998). With the shift from an industrial to a knowledge-based society, the development of skills in, for example, problem solving, project management, collaboration, leadership and presentation is essential (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000). For the past few years, many Hong Kong primary schools have been supported by the Quality Education Fund to set up Campus TV within or beyond the curriculum. Campus TV activities may provide a platform for engaging students in video production to develop important thinking skills -- though the possibility of using such a platform for this purpose is still under development. Last summer, a three-day summer Digital Video (DV) Camp was held in a local primary school, with about 20 Primary 4 and 5 pupils producing their own topics on digital video. Participant observation and semi-structured and focus group interviews were held to find out what the students had learned during the collaborative production process. Through digital ethnography methodology (Goodman 1998), the students demonstrated unexpected creativity, showed proficiency in using technology and media language to express themselves, and explicitly expressed the importance of collaborative skills in the process of video production. These encouraging findings suggest a direction for the implementation of Campus TV for student learning and the development of important thinking skills in the Hong Kong primary school setting.

In the last two years, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been actively promoting the use of IT in schools. Virtually every school in the region is now well aware of the implications of these government initiatives and has embarked on the path toward integration of new learning technologies in the classroom. While many teachers may already be well down the track toward use of IT in teaching and learning, the impetus of government initiatives has meant that, all teachers now need to have clearer notions and directions about how to make the transition. Teachers need a strong foundation on which to build their skills toward modifying their teaching strategies to realize the potential of emerging technologies in enhancing student learning outcomes. In the Hong Kong context it would appear that several things would have to occur before schools are able to mount any meaningful use of IT and where teachers are then able to integrate use of IT in their daily teaching and learning activities. It is with this focus that this paper will address some of the broad issues related to change in schools associated with the use of IT and attempt to provide some suggestions based on research findings and worldwide experience.

The presentation describes a Learning Study conducted on Picture Description for teaching English in a Hong Kong Primary school. The research team, composed of Primary Three teachers and academic staff from a tertiary institute, designed and taught a research lesson that aimed to improve students’ speaking confidence through “look and say” activities regarding a picture shown. We will report research findings from this study, including the learning outcomes achieved and teachers’ professional development opportunities afforded, with recommendations on instruction for speaking competency.

Teachers in Hong Kong as elsewhere express deep concern about classroom discipline. This paper looks at this area and reports the findings of a qualitative study into teachers’ and students’ social constructions of classroom behavior in six Hong Kong secondary schools. From the perspectives of interactionism and social constructivism, the study investigated their constructions of good behavior and indiscipline, and those classroom rules and practices that teachers currently used to manage indiscipline incidents. The research methods of classroom observation, focused-group interviews and unstructured interviews were employed. Eighteen classrooms were observed. Sixty teachers were interviewed. Eighteen focused group interviews for sixty students were conducted. The data were categorized and contrasted with the use of method adopted for grounded theory. Main themes generated from the data illuminated the social construction of classroom discipline, and confirmed the centrality and importance of the issue not only in the classroom but also in other contexts of schooling. The key finding has suggested that the classroom behavior cannot be separated from the school context where they are performed and have a close connection with the discipline at school-wide level. Implications for the promotion of positive discipline, the development of teacher training programmes and the curriculum design and teaching strategies will also be given.