As part of a package of measures designed to enrich the English language learning environment in Hong Kong schools, the government has recruited up to 700 native-speaking teachers of English (NETs) to join the predominantly non-native speaking Chinese staff teaching English in the local secondary schools. To get an accurate assessment of the operation of the NET scheme, an evaluation project entitled The Monitoring and Evaluation of the Native-speaking English Teacher Scheme (MENETS) was commissioned by a language and research funding body of the government. This large scale research project, involving some 100 schools, employs three major methods to achieve its investigative purposes: assessments, questionnaires, and case studies. In this paper, the presenter will focus on the quantitative measurement of the ESL learners' spoken & written language production before and after increased exposure to a native speaker model.

Situated at the turn of the century, which signifies the upcoming of the information age, it is envisaged that drastic change in education is going to take place, as a result of the introduction of information technology to schools in Hong Kong. Reforms in education will penetrate all areas, including school management, curriculum planning, classroom practices, teachers' professional development and school-community collaboration. The new technology will not only change the teaching and learning patterns in the classroom, it is going to make a fundamental difference to children's school life and produce a new kind of people. While information technology opens up new possibilities for children's learning, does it guarantee success for every child? How about developing other valuable human qualities? This paper argues for the need of human touch (HT) in children's school education in the information technology (IT) era for achieving desirable aims of education.

Computer education in Hong Kong secondary schools has a short history. The histories of Computer and Information Technology education in junior secondary and primary schools are even shorter. This report is part of the comprehensive review of the development of teacher education of Computer and Information Technology in Hong Kong. It focuses mainly on computer courses for teachers, especially those developed in the colleges of education and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. There are three different stages: (1) before the implementation of the Certificate-Level Computer Studies; (2) from the implementation of the Computer Studies subject to the formation of the Hong Kong Institute of Education; and (3) after the establishment of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Implications of the development in computer teacher education will be discussed.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

As a major reflection on the horizontal and vertical integration of the content of the curriculum, textbooks are the main resource of teachers. The aim of this study was to analyze the content of selected series of primary music textbooks in Hong Kong. An analysis framework was designed. Data obtained from the analysis were subjected to basic descriptive statistics. Demographics including frequency and percentage distributions of the listed features were studied. The analysis was done on the micro level as well as the macro level. The intra and inter relationships of the content of the textbook series were revealed. It could be seen that the music elements and music knowledge were presented in quite a balanced proportion. The performing of music in various forms was a dominant classroom activity while the proportion of creating music is still small and that on the listening to music was acceptable. Assessment activity was minimal. Other significant result included that the number of songs of foreign origins outnumbered that of Chinese and local origins though the language used was mostly Cantonese. Since textbook is a kind of operational curriculum, it is recommended that a more balanced content should be included and designed for a more comprehensive and effective music teaching and learning.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

The emphasis on all round development and life-wide learning as proposed in the recent Education Reform in Hong Kong suggests that students should be exposed to a broader experience to help them understand their abilities and aptitudes. Developing school-based curriculum materials is one means to support the learning and teaching in schools. This paper reports on the collaborative work between the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) and some secondary schools in developing school-based curriculum materials in technology education. Initial ideas on the curriculum topics for implementation were first discussed with teachers during school visits by Institute staff. These ideas were further developed during the period of school teachers’ attachment in the Institute. The materials were piloted in the schools concerned and student feedbacks were solicited on their attitudes towards the teaching and learning materials. The general responses from the students were encouraging and they favoured the use of modern technology that helped facilitate their understanding of the subject matters.

Using IT for teaching and learning at schools is not only a hot issue nowadays, but it is also a threatening demand of all the school teachers in Hong Kong. The most common way is to present the lessons using presentation software. Under the limitations of the functions available in common presentation software, and the average IT competence level of school teachers, the majority of the products are no more that reproducing the content of textbooks using those presentation software. Not too long ago, expecting an IT amateur, such as a primary teacher, to produce full multimedia teaching materials with attractive animation was generally considered as unrealistic, if not impossible. For most school teachers, reproducing the content of textbooks using presentation software is already a daunting task. Most recently, more and more software tools which are powerful, yet very user-friendly, are available in the market. With those tools, an average IT competent school teacher, with reasonably short period of training, can produce innovative multimedia teaching materials with attention-drawing animation. This paper demonstrates how this kind of tools can be applied innovatively in teaching Chinese Language in primary classrooms. Since this paper is not a tutorial note, it does not teach how to use a specific software. Rather, it suggests various ways the elements of the subject can be taught in the teaching materials, making use of the powerful functions of the software tool.