Within the context of the broad application of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this chapter aims to explore two questions: What are the well-being challenges for Hong Kong university students in online learning during the pandemic? And what are university students’ responses to these challenges? This chapter is based on a quantitative analysis of the well-being-related survey data collected from 1227 Hong Kong university students. From the perspective of well-being, this chapter finds that the sudden transformation to online learning has brought many issues related to Hong Kong university students’ physical (like eye fatigue) and psychological (like increased stress) status. These issues have been augmented by the compact living situation of some university students from low-income families in Hong Kong. This chapter proposes that higher education institutions and instructors should ensure students’ physical and psychological well-being through course restructuring (e.g., scheduling frequent breaks and applying interactive tools to increase student engagement) and relevant professional development programs for instructors (e.g., online platform training and online course design and delivery). Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

跨文化敏感度指在跨文化交際中應對文化差異的情感能力。提高國際漢語教育專業學生的跨文化敏感度對於他們未來有效教授多元文化背景的學生至關重要。本研究以針對國際漢語教育專業碩士生（准教師）的修訂版跨文化敏感度量表（ISS）為研究工具，調查了132位就讀於香港、北京、珠海三所大學的國際漢語教育碩士生的跨文化敏感度及其影響因素。結果表明：參與研究的國際漢語教育專業碩士生跨文化敏感度整體處於中高水平。香港地區被試跨文化敏感度顯著高於北京、珠海兩地。年齡、過往跨文化培訓經驗、國際漢語教師教齡、學生國籍、境外旅行次數與國外生活時長、外國朋友數量與聯繫頻率對跨文化敏感度有顯著影響。 Copyright © 2023 香港教育大學.

中文寫作一直是二語學習者的重點和難點，特別是小學階段，如何讓二語學童對中文寫作產生興趣並更願意動筆寫作是很多中文教育工作者不斷探討的話題。同時，在科技資訊發達的今天，各種軟件和在線平台越來越廣泛地使用在中文二語學習當中。因此，基於長期的實踐和教學經驗，本文就二語學生的中文寫作學習提出一個可行性的教學方案 —基於過程導向的寫作框架，將資訊科技融入中文寫作前、中和後的階段中，從而幫助二語學習者增加背景知識和相關詞彙句型，延長寫作的計劃時間，提高中文寫作的動機和效果，培養學生的自主學習與寫作的能力。本研究以香港一間國際學校二十位小四學生為研究對象，通過教學實踐，了解資訊科技融入跨學科的中文寫作教學成效，希望探討資訊科技與中文寫作學習的關係。 Copyright © 2023 香港教育大學.

This paper studies the identity dilemmas of a teacher negotiating the tensions underpinning the transformations in the language profile of a Hong Kong primary school. Using a rigorous triangulation of written journals and in-depth interviews, the study reconstructs a case narrative personified as “Lily”, an English language teacher at “Lexis Elementary”, a school that previously struggled with low student enrolments. As a solution, the school now enrols students from Mainland China, where the spoken language is Mandarin rather than Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong. Resulting tensions arose because of transformations in the school’s language profile. Lily constructs the language terrain she negotiates in her interactions with cross-border Mainland Chinese and local Hong Kong parents and students, and her responses to interactions among students. This paper provides original conceptual tools to explain complex “born-again” sentiments that trigger people to act in reverse against the stipulated conditions of the powerful. The concept of “born-again reversals” connects to global literature on resistance against “language learning for economic benefits”. Insights from this study reconcile theoretical debates on using economic power as soft power, providing teachers with the conceptual tools to understand the identity dilemmas they experience with language planning initiatives worldwide. Copyright © 2023 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

本文對大灣區國際中文師資培訓課程概況進行介紹，並且通過線上問卷，對來自粵、港、澳三地的112位國際中文師資課程在讀學生（或稱準教師，包括本科生、碩士生和博士生）進行調查，瞭解他們的基本背景、對專業和科目的看法、對畢業後去向的想法、對課程和專業前景的看法等。通過量化的數據分析，我們可以看到粵港澳大灣區中文師資課程的一些共性，也可以看到不同學位等級（本、碩、博）和不同地區（粵、港、澳）的一些特點。我們再從二語師資教育框架，國際中文教育中的“三教”、“三基”和“三化”，以及粵港澳大灣區背景的機遇和挑戰等角度進行討論，反思這些師資課程未來的發展路向和改善舉措。 Copyright © 2023 香港教育大學.

We presented a design-based study within the context of a four-session Scratch programming activity among 23 fourth-grade students in Hong Kong. Inspired by the computational thinking (CT) strategies and the 5E instructional model, we investigated students’ mathematical learning of fractions in a Scratch (block-based programming) environment. Students developed CT concepts, practices, and perspectives by building a “fraction magic calculator” in groups. This study analyzed the lesson design, students’ drawings, interviews, and work expressing their mathematical understanding of fractions in Scratch applications. The learning tasks were designed to support the students’ fraction learning and utilized computational abstractions in the form of variables, functions, and iterations to formulate mathematical models in a programming context. Students’ artifacts and feedback showed they were interested in learning fractions in a programming learning context, contributing to exercising and improving their fraction concepts and CT. Ultimately, we emphasized the benefits of CT integrated into mathematics education, promoting students’ understanding of fraction concepts, a set of CT abilities (concepts, practices, perspectives), and learning motivation. Moreover, we suggested a set of non-cognitive skills (e.g., socializing, expressing) to enrich the CT perspectives in the framework and show the importance of developing coding communities to co-create digital artifacts among learners. Overall, we highlighted that mathematics teachers should apply and create learning tasks that promote computational thinking to forge mathematical ideas and thinking. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s).

Over the recent decades, the topic of spirituality and health has attracted increasing research interest. Teaching has been recognized as a multi-faceted demanding profession. Particularly, spiritual well-being plays a vital role in cultivating quality of life; yet there is limited research investigating the impacts of spiritual well-being on teachers' quality of life. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between teachers' spiritual well-being and subjective quality of life in the Hong Kong context. Based on previous research, there is no universal standard to determine an "average" degree of spiritual well-being. Therefore, individual spiritual well-being can be better reflected through both the "ideals" and the "lived experience." In this cross-sectional study, the sample consisted of 671 teachers from 22 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. Participants were asked about their ideals of spiritual well-being as measured by Life Orientation Measure and their lived experiences of spiritual well-being as measured by Spiritual Health Measure. The results of structural equation modeling suggested a difference between Life Orientation and Spiritual Health in the pattern of predicting psychological and social aspects of quality of life. This study further explored the associations between spiritual well-being and subjective quality of life by investigating the effects of discrepancies between Life Orientation and Spiritual Health in three domains, namely personal and communal, environmental, and transcendental. The results of the path analysis suggested that the discrepancies in the three domains significantly predicted the psychological and the social aspects of quality of life among teachers. Copyright © 2023 The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The shift from face-to-face teaching to emergency remote teaching has become the new normal due to the pandemic in 2020. However, little research has been conducted in Hong Kong to investigate pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the immediate adoption and delivery of online face-to-face teaching. In response to this call, the present research conducted a questionnaire survey with 48 pre-service teachers at a Hong Kong university to examine their perceptions of Zoom as a viable alternative to the suspended traditional face-to-face delivery mode of instruction. It also discussed key factors that lead to better online learning outcomes. The results showed that the participants had overall positive perceptions of Zoom-supported synchronous online education. The Zoom feature that most students considered useful was screen sharing on computers. Zoom-supported synchronous online learning benefited students by helping them to attend class meetings remotely, study course materials and content, communicate and collaborate with their instructors and classmates, and develop a sense of community and social presence. Four main factors may influence learners’ perceptions of synchronous online learning: the quality of online communication and collaboration, learning efficiency, learner autonomy and the usability of technology. Copyright © 2023 Laboratory for Knowledge Management & E-Learning, The University of Hong Kong.

Teachers’ emotions and well-being are critical not only for their personal and professional development but also for facilitating holistic development of students. With increasing risks and uncertainties from sociopolitical changes and the global pandemic, teachers are facing tremendous stress which has affected their self-efficacy. This cross-sectional study of 1614 teachers from 50 primary schools in Hong Kong investigates how teachers’ perception of emotional competences and their emotional labour strategies relate to their self-efficacy in moral and character education via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The results reveal that both teachers’ emotional competences and teachers’ emotional labour strategies are positively associated with teachers’ self-efficacy in moral and character education. Understanding the relationships among emotional competences, emotional labour strategies and teachers' self-efficacy may be the first step in intervention implementation and effective policy development that could improve teachers’ self-efficacy in their provision of moral and character education. Copyright © 2023 Intellect Ltd.

This study explores the readiness of pre-service primary school teachers in Hong Kong to develop future-ready learners. Societal advances require the education sector to continuously update curricula to prepare young people for the future. Schools must equip students with the flexibility to use technologies that have not yet been invented and solve unanticipated problems. In this qualitative study, we analysed the perceptions of 15 pre-service primary school English language teachers at a university in Hong Kong. The study focused on the knowledge and learning environment necessary for developing future-ready learners. Via semi-structured interviews, the findings revealed that the participants believed it is essential to integrate technology into classrooms to address future digital literacy needs. They also noted that students must develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and soft skills to succeed in the future. The findings also suggest that teachers need to be innovative and adaptable in their pedagogical approaches as the existing primary school curriculum is not cultivating learners’ future-readiness. Copyright © 2023 National Institute of Education, Singapore.