Despite school middle leaders are growing in their importance in the school in recent years, the understanding of their leadership roles and practices are unclear. In addition, the changing expectations of middle leadership lead them into confusion of roles and an unknown space of practice. This paper intends to portrait the conception of middle leadership in schools in light of the teachers' perception and expectation of middle leadership. Data were collected from interviews of four subject department heads/coordinators and five subject teachers who worked with the middle leaders closely in three special schools in Hong Kong. Initial findings show that the middle leaders were struggling with role ambiguity – unclear positioning of work, which led to overloading and frustration in work as they often developed a symptom of doing this and that. Although both the middle leaders and teachers often had high and broad expectations for middle leaders, i.e. excellency in both professional and management duties, it is found that the middle leaders were usually ill-prepared for the multiple roles. The paper concludes that middle leaders have to understand the breadth, depth and substances of middle leadership in school so that they can be prepared well for performing their roles and responsibilities.

This article examines language teachers’ attitudes towards use of the first language (L1) in second language (L2) learning and teaching from the perspective of teacher identity. Drawing on a theory of identity as both experiential and relational, in-depth interviews are used to explore the perspectives of six pre-service English language teachers in Hong Kong who had recent experiences of medium of instruction (MOI) policies and their implementation within Hong Kong secondary schools during an eight-week teaching practicum. The results suggest that MOI issues presented significant challenges to the participants as they struggled with multiple identities at the institutional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels. Implications for language teacher education, the formation and implementation of policies towards use of the L1 in L2 teaching and learning, and future research are discussed.
[Copyright © 2013 Asian EFL Journal.]

The paper introduces a research study which is encapsulated within a broader understanding of knowledge and action, theory and practice as well as policy and research. The inquiry of teacher curriculum decision-making is represented by the introduction of the Target-Oriented Curriculum (TOC) within a context of curriculum change in Hong Kong. The research question is framed by the problem emerging from a new challenge resulting from a curriculum change. The implementation of the TOC may be perceived as a platform for ongoing critique and reconstruction of a dynamic mix of curriculum theory, policy, research and practice. A collaborative journey of reflection and empowerment is ongoing in the research study. This collaborative journey which is an Action Research study (Koo, 1999) is navigated by a researcher from a teacher education institute to work with the participants, who are a selection of primary school teachers and principals. The Action Research has four Action Steps which have separate main activities and strategies. The initial action steps established a platform for ongoing thinking and reconstructive action. Action Step One was collaborative and a generating phase. The overarching theme was to “think about the context of my own curriculum practice”. It linked the conceptual framework with the initial and ongoing conversations. It was the beginning for the researcher of keeping detailed records of the narratives, conversations as well as her reflections as a researcher. All of the researcher’s strategies are linked with ethical considerations and trustworthiness. Action Step Two was a continuing process of engaging the research participants in a critical community for ongoing critique and improvement in curriculum practice. It comprised three individual semi-focused interviews which were spread out over three to five months. The individual in-depth interviews were different from the sharing meetings of Action Steps 1, 3 and 4 in which teachers told personal

Reflection is at the heart of continued professional development (Moore, 2002). Many educators view that reflective abilities are desirable characteristics of teachers (Gore and Zeichner, 1991; Herrmann and Sarracino, 1993). Killon and Todnem (1991) indicate in their study of in-service teachers that reflective thinking can be a tool for continued personal and professional development. My previous study (Tsui, 2004) corroborates their viewpoint. Empirical work on reflection in early childhood teachers in-service is seriously underplayed. The purposes of this study were to explore the elements of early childhood teachers' pedagogical reflection as well as factors affecting the development of reflective thinking among early childhood teachers in the authentic settings. Two beginning and two experienced early childhood teachers were recruited from four preschools in Hong Kong. All participants attended an intervention exercise within ten months. The interventions took the form of interviews, workshops and documents. Findings were emerged in the form of themes and categories: on reflective thinking, on children learning, interaction with children, teachers' teaching, curriculum issues, school context and personal characteristics. Several school factors as well as the mechanism of how these factors affecting reflective thinking and its development were identified in this study. We need to probe deeper into the factors, both school workplace conditions and personal factors.