The COVID-19 pandemic complicates ingrained educational inequalities around the globe and foregrounds the pertaining challenges that teachers have encountered due to school closures and the shift to distance learning. This cross-border teacher education project intended to examine how academics and pre-service teachers in different geographic locales could collaboratively explore equitable learning opportunities for diverse learners through the use of critical media literacies to respond to interconnected global crises. In this six-week cross-border teacher education project, we recruited four Mandarin and English literacy teacher candidates in Hong Kong to interact with one another and one Canadian professor as part of the teacher preparation phase of a larger-scale cross-border research project that connects youth from Hong Kong and Canada in a social networking space. For the purposes of teacher professional development, the Hong Kong teacher candidates and Canadian researchers engaged in collective exploration of how instructional designs in literacy education could promote equitable learning opportunities for diverse learners. Findings show that the cross-border teacher education project supported teacher candidates’ development of pedagogical skills and espoused their agency in promoting educational equity and collective problem-solving through critical media literacies. Findings relate the teacher candidates’ shifted perspectives from focusing on students’ decontextualized language skills to nurturing critical media skills. Changing from a deficit-oriented view about what literacy learners could not do, the teacher candidates also adopted an asset-oriented view about the linguistic and cultural repertoires that diverse learners could bring to literacy classrooms. © 2023 by the authors.

This study investigated instruction in vocabulary consolidation strategies over eight months and vocabulary learning among a group of secondary students in Hong Kong. Two vocabulary tests and one vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) questionnaire survey were administered near the end of the school year. The data were analysed using t-tests and correlation coefficients. The results show that the eight-month VLSs instruction was significantly correlated with students' vocabulary knowledge. It was also found that: (1) students favoured cognitive strategies and word analysis strategies to other VLSs; (2) more successful learners employed a wider variety of VLSs than less successful learners, with significant, positive correlations found between the repertoire of strategies and vocabulary performance; and (3) the strategies taught were effective for students' vocabulary learning and were significant predictors of more successful students. Students' responses from group discussions revealed their positive experiences with learning VLSs through explicit instruction, supporting the effectiveness of consolidation strategies. This study adds to the limited research literature on the role of VLSs instruction for EFL secondary learners. Strategies conducive to vocabulary learning and the implications of this study are discussed. Copyright © 2023 Routledge.

Previous research on comprehensive/focused written corrective feedback (WCF) has been dominated by the experimental/quasi-experimental tradition, with low ecological validity and limited pedagogical relevance, and without sufficiently recognizing the complex issues that influence teacher WCF practices in authentic classrooms. To fill this gap, this study adopts an ecological approach informed by a complexity perspective to investigate two secondary teachers’ attempts at focused WCF in the Hong Kong EFL writing context. Data were gathered for one academic year from interviews with teachers and students, classroom observations, students’ writing, as well as pre-and post-writing tests. The findings suggest that focused WCF is feasible in authentic classrooms when it is aligned with writing instruction and provided on preselected error types and selective errors based on individual students’ needs, providing an impetus for teachers to strengthen their writing pedagogy and freeing them up to enhance feedback on other areas of student writing. The study points to the potential of focused, student-specific WCF in enhancing written accuracy as well as students’ engagement with revision, and concludes with implications for the pedagogy of WCF in similar contexts. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This study attempts to address the "teacher expertise gap" in L2 writing research, using "adaptive expertise" as a specific tool for understanding the notion of writing teacher expertise. Drawing upon language teacher education research and L2 writing research, and using teacher interviews and classroom observation as data sources, the study explores the expertise of three writing teachers from different schools in Hong Kong, as well as the factors that may have contributed to their expertise. The findings of the study show six key components of teacher expertise as demonstrated in the participating teachers, comprising integrated knowledge base about writing and teaching writing; student-centred pedagogy focusing on learner motivation and confidence building; professional visions, self-agency, and reflectivity; leadership in writing innovations; passion as teachers of writing and as writers; and ongoing teacher learning and progressive problem solving as pivotal to writing teacher expertise. The study suggests the rich, dynamic, and contextual nature of writing teacher expertise, which is influenced by teachers' cognitive engagements, social interactions, and affective experiences in their situated contexts. The paper concludes with implications for the teaching of writing and writing teacher education. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessment as learning (AaL) puts students at the centre of learning and is considered a powerful alternative assessment approach that can maximize student learning. How it can be applied as a pedagogical and assessment tool in writing classrooms, however, is not clearly understood. Research on the implementation of AaL as a unitary concept in L2 writing classrooms is scant, particularly at the primary level. To fill these gaps, the study investigates the implementation of AaL in two Hong Kong primary writing classrooms from teachers' and students' perspectives, focusing specifically on the perceived benefits and problems. Using data gathered from interviews with two participating teachers and six selected students, as well as classroom observations, the findings show that the teachers' very first attempt to put AaL into practice reaped benefits for themselves and the students, but a few problems were noted too, which provide useful implications for practice and further research. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper reports a study that investigated the motivations towards teaching of six pre-service English teachers enrolled on a teacher education course in Hong Kong. A qualitative case study approach was adopted, using data gathered from pre- and post-course interviews with individual participants, their dialogue journals with the teacher educator as well as their post-course reflection papers. Drawing on existing research on motivation in teacher education and educational psychology, the findings show that while some pre-service teachers developed their motivations towards teaching in the course, some others showed little change. The study suggests that pre-service teachers' previous experience and personal beliefs as well as the course content and design could play an important role in changing their motivations. The paper concludes with some implications for language teacher education regarding ways to promote and sustain student teachers' motivations towards teaching.
[Copyright of Language Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2014.890211]