With the increasing demand for communicatively competent citizens with global perspectives, culture learning has become an important component in the English language curricula in Hong Kong and mainland China in recent years. This paper will examine how culture is represented in two series of textbooks for junior secondary students in Hong Kong and Shanghai, both published by the same popular publisher. The study adopted Moran’s framework (persons, products, practices, perspectives and communities) and Kachru’s three concentric circles (inner circle, outer circle and expanding circle) to investigate how the authors managed the breadth and depth of cultural presentation. Unlike many previous studies which merely relied on manual analysis, this study combined both manual analysis and corpus linguistic tools to conduct a more comprehensive and objective study. The results show that the Hong Kong series outperformed the Shanghai series in terms of the breadth of the local and foreign cultures represented, as well as in terms of Moran’s cultural dimensions. Nevertheless, both series showed an imbalance in terms of Moran’s cultural aspects, with products (e.g., food, sightseeing places) being the most frequently depicted cultural element, and perspectives the least. This reveals a ‘tourist’s perspective’ and a lack of depth in cultural materials, which may not favour learners’ intercultural communicative competence development. Copyright © 2021 IAFOR.

This article reports on an exploratory study on developing and adopting a ‘Virtual Go Mode’ feature embedded in a mobile vocabulary learning app, VocabGo, to enhance students’ vocabulary learning engagement. Distinguished from other virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) applications, the Virtual Go Mode is designed for students to practice and consolidate their newly learned words via virtual location-based tasks with 360° Google Street View or pre-photographed panoramas. Google Cloud Vision, using an AI model, is embedded to identify objects and their corresponding tasks for students. A total of 15 primary students in Hong Kong participated in this exploratory study for one week. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. The results showed that students’ vocabulary learning engagement was high when using the Virtual Go Mode. It is suggested that future research focus on empirical studies when designing and implementing virtual location-based tasks supported by VR technologies in class to provide opportunities for students to practice and consolidate newly learned words and enhance their learning engagement after the COVID-19 pandemic. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The recent decades have seen enthusiastic calls for reconceptualizing English as a foreign language (EFL) education, taking into account the current socio-lingual status of English and how it is used genuinely for communication interculturally and internationally. However, a wide gap still exists between promulgation such as intelligibility over nativelikeness in pronunciation instruction and realities in the EFL classroom. The study investigated pre- and in-service teachers' cognition about accents and the incorporation of different accents in their classrooms. One hundred and sixty-six EFL teachers (89 pre-service and 77 in-service) from Hong Kong and Guangdong (a province in China) completed a questionnaire. Contrary to expectations, the teachers' overall attitude was neutral rather than positive towards General American (GA) / Received Pronunciation (RP)(1) associated with EFL teachers' accents and EFL education. Only two thirds of the teachers were certain about which accents to use and to teach in listening and pronunciation lessons (i.e. as many as one third were uncertain). Also, the participants were neutral about incorporating non-GA/RP accents into EFL lessons, with around one third objecting to doing so. Although no differences were found between pre- and in-service teachers' cognition, additional analysis revealed that teachers' individual background variables, namely teaching experience, self-rated language proficiency, and knowledge of sound systems (IPA for English; pinyin for Mandarin), have significant correlations with their cognition. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

With growing attention attached to young students' social and emotional well-being besides their cognitive development, social and emotional learning (SEL) has been increasingly researched in general school education over the past decades with its positive effects on academic performance reported. However, SEL research has not emerged in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning contexts. To bridge the void, the current research aimed to profile Hong Kong secondary school students' SEL competence level and examine the intricate relationships among the four SEL competence clusters (i.e. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social management) and English learning achievements. The results indicated an overall medium level of SEL competence among 315 secondary school grade level 3 students and suggested a gap between the students' high level of awareness skills and their medium level of management skills. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses confirmed two mediation paths, thus highlighting the seminal mediating role of self-management skills in enhancing the effects of self-awareness and social awareness skills on English learning achievements. Important implications are discussed. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

This multiple-case study investigated the experience of three preservice teachers who attempted formative assessment (FA) strategies in their English as a second language writing class during their teaching practicum in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Based on data from 17 lesson observations and 24 interviews, the study examined the three teachers' implementation of FA strategies during cycles of pre-, while- and post-writing stages. Also analyzed are the teachers' reflections on and their mentors' and students' evaluation of their FA implementation. The study found the teachers could translate their understanding of FA principles into teaching and assessment strategies appropriately, but the school's accountability culture worked against their innovation. School mentors' open-mindedness and support to their FA attempts were found to be crucial. The findings are discussed centering on key issues in the relational, developmental and contextual dimensions of the teaching practicum and their impact on preservice teachers' practice and attitude. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier.

Understanding the language demands made on students can help teachers provide pedagogical support during critical transition periods, in turn helping English learners make a smooth transition to the next stage in their education. Through multi-stratal analysis of English textbooks in Hong Kong, this paper elucidated the differences in language demands made of students in different grades, particularly in terms of scope and complexity of choices in register and lexico-grammar. The analysis revealed two critical transition periods: the move from primary to junior secondary school and from junior secondary to senior secondary school. Different linguistic demands during these two transition periods require additional pedagogical support. Furthermore, this paper found a close correlation between the registerial progression indicated by the analysed texts and the learning targets for grades in the mandated English language curriculum. The lexico-grammatical progression revealed contributes to understanding the meaning of more complex stressed in the mandated curriculum. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier.

There has been an increasing concern on teachers’ adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in their teaching practices. However, little has been explored about English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ ICT adoption. This study synthesizes the technology acceptance model (TAM), the value-expectancy theory, and a learning perspective to propose a model -for investigating ESL teachers’ continuance intention to use ICT in teaching. In the proposed model, motivational beliefs, ICT learning behaviors, facilitating conditions, and perceptions towards ICT use were put together to see how they worked together to influence continuance intention. Participants were 156 primary school ESL teachers in Hong Kong, who attended a teacher professional development program. Structural equation modeling showed that ICT self-efficacy and facilitating conditions were positively associated with continuance intention through perceptions (i.e. perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness). ICT anxiety had a negative effect, whereas interest had a positive effect on continuance intention. Growth mindset had a positive effect on continuance intention through learning of ICT (i.e. adaptive help seeking). Implications for teachers’ professional development programs are discussed. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

This study was to examine the individual differences in primary school students’ motivation (i.e. growth mindset, self-efficacy, and interest), self-regulated learning strategy use in English writing and the relationships between motivation, strategy use and English writing competence. Participants were 523 4th grade primary school students in Hong Kong. Although the findings showed a general pattern that the high achievers reported higher levels of motivation (i.e. growth mindset, self-efficacy, and interest) and self-regulated learning (SRL) strategy use than the average achievers, who in turn outperformed the low achievers, all the students showed quite a low level of interest in English writing. Interestingly, motivation impacted SRL strategy use very differently for students of different writing competence groups on the whole. Three-group Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) suggested that growth mindset had the strongest and most significant correlations with all students’ use of SRL strategies. However, interest and self-efficacy had different relationship patterns with SRL strategy use among the high, average and low achievers. Interest had no significant relations with the high achievers’ SRL strategy use, while self-efficacy had no significant relations with the low achievers’ SRL strategy use. Implications for English teachers to improve differentiated instruction are discussed. Copyright © 2021 Sage Publications Ltd.

Hong Kong was one of the first public school systems in the world to shift to online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Primary and secondary school language teachers had to adapt instruction to cater to their students' diverse linguistic and educational needs. Drawing from the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DCE), the current study examines the experiences of primary and secondary school English language teachers' digital competence as they navigated digital resources, teaching and learning, assessment, and empowering learners in an emergency remote teaching context. Using a two-stage design, this study drew from qualitative survey data (N = 73) and follow-up interviews (N = 10). Findings illuminate how language teachers responded to their students' educational and linguistic needs in online environments. Notably, educators adapted their virtual instruction to cater to students with varying English language proficiency levels and leveraged both synchronous and asynchronous platforms to best support student learning. Moreover, the current study sheds light on how the DCE framework might be used as a tool to assess the digital competencies of educators and better prepare them for virtual teaching. It concludes with a call for more research on emergency remote teaching, particularly within primary and secondary language classrooms. • The current study examines the digital competence of primary and secondary school language teachers in Hong Kong. • The study uses a Digital Competencies Framework to understand digital resources, pedagogy, assessments and learners online. • Teachers engaged in strategic decision-making about synchronous and asynchronous technologies for instruction. • Teachers also reconsidered the purpose and process of lesson preparation, student engagement and assessments. • Implications for equipping teachers with digital competence through teacher training and ongoing development are discussed. Copyright © 2021