The pedagogical approach-Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)-has been widely adopted around the globe with its dual aims of developing students' second language (L2) proficiency and mastering content knowledge simultaneously. However, its effectiveness remains inconsistent. This inconsistency has led researchers to call for an investigation into the perspectives of CLIL students to understand the factors behind the success and failure of CLIL implementation. To address this gap, this study explores CLIL students' perspectives through the lens of self-regulation and examines the relationships between CLIL students' self-regulation levels, linguistic challenges, and learning outcomes. Involving 167 junior secondary students from three schools in Hong Kong that adopted different CLIL models in Hong Kong, the study revealed moderate self-regulation levels and varying linguistic challenges among CLIL students, with listening being identified as the most difficult skill. A significant, moderately positive correlation was found between self-regulation levels and perceived linguistic challenges. Multiple regression analysis also found that motivation was a key predictor of both L2 proficiency and content subject achievement, while other self-regulation constructs (self-preparation, self-monitoring, and self-reflection) showed non-significant predictive values. Pedagogical implications are provided to develop students' self-regulation skills and address perceived linguistic challenges, ultimately enhancing the learning experience and outcomes for CLIL students of diverse abilities. Copyright © 2025 Taylor and Francis Ltd.

Translanguaging has been empirically proven to have constructive and even transformative effects, as it provides linguistic minority learners with access to various educational and linguistic resources. Nevertheless, there is limited research on its use in the context of Chinese writing as a second language and, more specifically, on how it supports the co-construction of knowledge between Chinese teachers and non-Cantonese-speaking (NCS) students. This study examines NCS students' perceptions of and experiences with translanguaging in Chinese writing classrooms while illuminating the role that translanguaging plays in Chinese as a second language (CSL) writing classes in Hong Kong secondary schools. The findings of this ethnographic study indicate that NCS students' attitudes toward and experiences with translanguaging are largely positive, particularly in terms of cognitive and emotional scaffolding. They reveal that NCS students developed more complex thinking skills, metalinguistic awareness and criticality through the translanguaging space that they co-constructed in the classroom. This study also discusses the roles played by both spontaneous and planned translanguaging in NCS students' speech and writing development. Copyright © 2024 Wiley.

Questions asked by teachers are vital to maintaining and sustaining learner engagement. In Hong Kong secondary classrooms where English is used as the medium of instruction (EMI), productive teacher questioning is key to promoting both language and content learning. Drawing on classroom observations and in-depth interviews, this study investigated the questioning practices of two teachers from EMI schools in Hong Kong. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data revealed that the teachers adopted different approaches to questioning. Their questioning practices can be captured by a dynamic model of two intersecting dimensions: cognitive demand (lower- and higher-order questions) and interactional orientation (authoritative and dialogic discourses). The findings of this study support the notion of teacher questioning as pedagogy and demonstrate how productive teacher questioning can mediate learner engagement. A guiding framework is proposed for productive teacher questioning that relies on the synergistic combination of cognitive demand and interactional orientation. Copyright © 2024 Springer.

From an ecolinguistic perspective, this paper investigates the connection between multilingual environments and Cantonese English identity in the Greater Bay Area through questionnaires and interviews. The findings reveal the following: (1) Affective and behavioural indicators of self-identity varied significantly among different majors, as well as among different environmental groups; (2) Students' social identity remained unaffected by their majors but exhibited significant differences among groups; (3) Cantonese English self-identity and social identity of the students (except for Hong Kong and Macau students) with multilingual backgrounds demonstrated a high correlation. In brief, the identity ratios were as follows: English majors > non-English majors; Hong Kong-Macao students > Pearl River Delta students > New Arrivals. These results suggest and confirm the symbiotic and coordinative interaction between language and environment. Different environments impact learners' cognitive psychology, leading to varying degrees of self-identity in Cantonese English. In other words, the environment determines language, and conversely, language, together with its intralingual environment, imbued with historical and cultural values, emotions, and identity, plays a behavioural role in influencing cognitive psychology, society, and even nature. Copyright © 2024 Routledge.

Teaching science in English is increasingly common worldwide. This study explores the role of language in science meaning-making during classroom interactions by drawing on video-recorded classroom observations of four biology lessons in secondary English medium instruction (EMI) settings in Hong Kong. Informed by systemic functional linguistics (SFL), we integrate classroom interaction analysis with Lemke's approach to thematic analysis. The results reveal similar interactional patterns across full- and partial-EMI science classrooms, characterised by a lack of interactivity and authoritative teacher behaviour in selecting student responses to engage with. During extended initiation-response-feedback exchanges, teachers' feedback on students' responses appears to underscore the importance of teachers' modified input - specifically input emphasising semantic relations within the field of biology - in developing students' content knowledge and language skills. The implications of the findings for applying SFL pedagogies in EMI science classrooms to improve teacher-student interaction are discussed. Copyright © 2025 De Gruyter .

Asia as Method, in decolonial thinking, endorses the value of local knowledge while concurrently recognizing colonial and global knowledges' ongoing influence and potential value in knowledge production. The author takes such a decolonial approach to examine how actors interact in translating the Fine-tuning Medium of Instruction Policy in a Hong Kong school. To grasp the nuances of actor interaction, the Cantonese term mohap (wearing in) is employed. Three concepts from distinct traditions are used to explain mohap: meritocracy, harmony and agency. This study examines actors' mohap process through three stages: How actors perceive the government guidelines, form the school-based policy, and develop the school-based policy. The findings show that actors' mohap in the local context entails the meritocracy ideology, sought-after harmony, and actor agency. It reveals the need and the potential of localised approaches to educational policy studies in the Global South. Copyright © 2024 Taylor & Francis.

Emotions have received widespread attention in the education field globally thanks to the greater emphasis on well-being in recent times. Against this backdrop and the fact that foreign language (FL) education is increasingly common from a young age, this study set out to investigate what FL classroom activities children find most enjoyable and most boring, and why. Ninety-eight Grade-5 English-as-a-FL learners in Hong Kong participated in this study. The participants put forward 18 activities that they thought were most enjoyable, especially games and videos (together making up about 49% of the responses) . Fifteen activities were deemed most boring, especially writing and dictation (together 45% of the responses). Fun , knowledge-gaining , and opportunities for interaction were among the most common reasons given for activities being enjoyable, while difficult , troublesome , and tiring were the main descriptors of the activities they thought were boring. Copyright ©2024 Springer.

This paper contributes to our conceptualization of linguistic identities in English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication by analyzing a group of multilingual international students' narrativized accounts of their ELF communication experiences in an international university in Hong Kong. The findings of the study indicate that despite their status as L2 speakers, the participants considered themselves as legitimate speakers of English when interacting with others through ELF. Moreover, they oriented to their national cultural identities and personal identities indexed through their accents in ELF communication. Their frequent use of ELF with other students from diverse linguacultural backgrounds also prompted them to identify positively with a local ELF-using community and envision their imagined identities as members of a global ELF-using community. The findings further reveal that the participants' ELF communication experiences opened up a space for them to take on new and alternative L2-speaking personal identities which they perceived to be markedly different from and more desirable than their L1-based selves. Overall, the analysis provides empirical support for applying a tripartite model of linguistic identity for understanding ELF communication experiences and calls attention to the multidimensional nature of linguistic identities and the interrelatedness between different dimensions of linguistic identities in ELF communication. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

Most speakers' first language (L1) in Hong Kong and Guangdong China is Cantonese. Even though the L1 of both Guangdong Cantonese speakers and Hong Kong Cantonese speakers is the same, their second languages (L2) belong to different language families. Previous studies have pointed out that L2 status in third language (L3) acquisition is a salient factor. This study aimed to: (1) examine Guangdong Cantonese speakers' pronunciation error patterns in their L2 Mandarin and L3 English and explore the language interaction patterns among these three languages; (2) compare the findings with those of Hong Kong Cantonese speakers whose L2 is English and L3 Mandarin in Chen and Han (2019. L3 phonology: contributions of L1 and L2 to L3 pronunciation learning by Hong Kong speakers. International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(4), 492-512. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2019.1573901) to identify the roles of L1 and L2 in L3 acquisition. Results of the reading aloud tasks, a questionnaire survey and interview data show that the language interaction patterns among L1, L2 and L3 are influenced by learners' language proficiency. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

The expansion of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has generated significant scholarly interest, resulting in an increasing body of research across different contexts. This bibliometric study examines 1522 publications in the Scopus database to explore the intellectual, conceptual, and social structure of the EMI literature in higher education. Findings revealed substantial growth in publications and citations between 1974 and 2024, showing a notable increase in productivity after 2018. Most cited authors focus on EMI within their affiliated country, but some affiliated with British universities have made global contributions. The field exhibits global coverage, albeit with strong dominance by China, Spain, the UK, Australia, and Hong Kong, as well as limited representation from African nations, barring South Africa. EMI networks are primarily driven by authors’ current and past institutional affiliations as well as geographical proximity, with the UK, Spain, and China emerging as leaders in these networks. The most productive journals focus on multilingualism, bilingualism, language policy, teaching, and learning while also encompassing higher education and multidisciplinary areas. Key topics signal a shift towards translanguaging and classroom interaction. Under-researched areas include (post)colonialism and EMI implementation. These findings provide a comprehensive insight into the evolving landscape of EMI research and potential future directions. Copyright ©2024 MDPI.