Teachers are important social agents who affect students' cognitive and social behaviors, including students' self-directed use of technology for language learning outside the classroom. However, how teachers influence student behaviors may vary across cultures, and understanding how teacher influences vary across different cultures is critical to developing culturally adaptive approaches to enhance students' self-directed use of technology for learning outside the classroom. This study surveyed 418 undergraduate foreign language learners (190 from Hong Kong and 228 from the U.S.) on their intention to use technology for language learning outside the classroom, teacher influence and other psychosocial factors that may affect their technology use intentions. Structural equation modeling analyses of the survey responses indicated that teacher capacity support was consistently the most influential teacher practice affecting students' self-directed technology use across the two cultures, whereas teacher affective support and teacher behavior support were significant predictors for Hong Kong students but not for U.S. students.
[Copyright of Educational Technology Research and Development is the property of Springer New York LLC.]

Teachers' instructional practices surrounding written assignments have been little researched, despite writing remaining the primary means of assessment in higher education, including postgraduate professional development programmes. In this paper, we report a study that explored what a sample of lecturers in a Master of Education programme at an English-medium university in Hong Kong did to support students' assignment writing. We integrate perspectives provided by the relevant higher education literature, the academic literacies approach and North American rhetorical genre studies to shed light on the findings derived from our analyses of interview and documentary data. We showed that our lecturer participants both engaged in direct instruction on assignment writing and provided indirect support. Our study contributed to the existing literature and raised questions for future research.
[Copyright of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is the property of Routledge.]

Research conducted in the late twentieth century pointed to a gulf in Hong Kong's universities between institutional medium-of-instruction policy, which stipulated the use of English, and lecturers' classroom practices, which often involved the use of Cantonese to present and explain the content of English-language textbooks and teaching materials. This article examines the findings of a study which sought to determine whether the policy-practice divide had widened or narrowed in the past two decades under the pressure of two potentially competing forces: globalisation and decolonisation. The evidence suggests that the policy-practice disjunction may have narrowed significantly in recent years, with most of the participants' teachers evidently making a determined effort to instruct and interact with their students in English in lectures and seminars.
[Copyright of World Englishes is the property of Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd..]

The landscape of tertiary education has significantly changed in recent years with increasing pressure on universities to "globalize" and expand their reach internationally. In this context, there are a range of pedagogical and cultural issues to consider when designing curriculum to address the needs of students taking courses in different geographical locations. In addition to ensuring equivalence and quality, developing context-specific learning resources is a critical part of international delivery. Providing flexibility and autonomy to meet specific geocultural teaching and learning needs is vital. Programs and courses benefit from collaboration and connectivity between students and staff in all locations to ensure meaningful global learning environments. This paper focuses on a case study from an Australian University and examines how curriculum and delivery modes can be adapted to address the changing needs of transnational education a global context. The case study involves the renewal of a core undergraduate art history and theory subject that is offered in art and design programs across three different locations (Melbourne, Hong Kong and Vietnam). A series of learning materials and assessment tasks were designed to maximize a blended learning environment comprising face-to-face workshops, lectures, and online components. The result is a technology-enabled, common curriculum framework designed to allow for content to be adapted for local delivery.
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This paper reports on a narrative inquiry of a Hong Kong female undergraduate student's second language (L2) learning experiences in an English-medium university in Hong Kong, with a focus on her participation in classroom oral activities and identity negotiation. Using ideas from situated learning theory and Norton's (2000) notions of identity and investment, the paper analyzes how the student negotiated her classroom participation and identities over the course of her studies in the university. Findings suggest that the student's classroom participation in the English-medium university appeared to be a complex and dynamic process which involved ongoing negotiations of identities, competence and membership in the classroom in response to the challenges she faced. It was found that the student's participation and identity (re)construction in the classroom were mediated by the contextual complexities in specific classroom communities and were contingent upon the agentive choices made by the student in investing in different classroom activities. Findings also indicate that the student's participation evolved over time alongside a changing sense of competence and showed signs of gradual yet non-linear progression from peripheral to full participation in the classroom.
[Copyright of Applied Linguistics Review is the property of Walter de Gruyter GmbH]

This study examines the development of education and the curriculum for children with mental handicap in Hong Kong, the influence of the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC) reform on the development of the curriculum for these children and its implementation in a special school over a period of two years. Three research strategies were used: historiography, naturalistic evaluation and a case study. Data was gathered by means of document collection, interviewing and observation, and analysed by the method of constant comparison. The findings are considered in the light of political, technological and cultural factors in the developments of education and curriculum for children with mental handicap, in the introduction of the TOC to these children, and in the school personnel's interpretation and views towards its implementation. The extent of implementation of the TOC in the case study school was examined with regards to changing practices in materials, teaching approaches and teachers' beliefs. Five key themes emerged from the study: the extent of TOC implementation at school and classroom levels, the Education Department's commitment towards the education of children with mental handicap, whether curriculum reform was truly considered necessary, the ethos of teaching and the culture of special education/schools. It was concluded that the implementation of the TOC for children with mental handicap was a poor example of effective change, given the problematic nature of the reform, in particular the inadequate management of the change process. It was also evident that this reform repeated many past failures, making long term success of the TOC in special schools somewhat doubtful.

Self-efficacy beliefs regarding the teaching of English language in reading, writing, listening, and speaking were assessed in a sample of 55 prospective Chinese teachers who were trained to teach English as a second language in Hong Kong. These teachers reported that their sense of self-efficacy in teaching speaking and writing seemed to go together, whereas their sense of self-efficacy in teaching reading emerged as relatively distinct. Prospective teachers with teaching-practice experience did report significantly higher scores on self-efficacy in teaching speaking-writing than those without teachingpractice experience. Implications of the findings for efforts to enhance teaching performance through enhancing teaching self-efficacy are discussed. The use of information technology such as blog-based teaching portfolio is suggested to provide an avenue through which prospective teachers' self-efficacy beliefs could be closely examined to provide insights into the changes of self-efficacy in relation to teaching effectiveness. Copyright © 2010 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

「用普通話教中文」（普教中）是香港近年基礎教育的中國語文教學新趨勢，課堂的教學媒介語由粵方言（香港人的母語）轉為普通話，同時尚有獨立的普通話科教學，且並不視為母語教學，給判別為第二語言或介於第一二語言間的語言教學。 「普教中」既構成了多方面的困境，也出現了教與學發展的契機。學生、教師由早期對「普教中」的抗拒、不適應，至近年的接受並在教與學方面的素質不斷提升，實超出教育當局、語文教育工作者的預期。多年來，先導者在「普教中」園地裏的開墾和建設，不同層次和角色的語文教育工作者所開展的各類教學和研究的探索，皆以期提升「普教中」這新語境中的語文教學效能。各方先導者積極開發的元素，由實證行動而來的經驗總結，可提供予開始了或仍未開始「普教中」的學校和教師參照和啟示。 「促進評估的學習」是20世紀80年代以後基礎教育改革的世界性取向，在教學實踐中，課堂上的提問、回饋是重要且有效促進學生學習的評估策略。本研究通過觀察及分析一位教師同時任教同一級「用普通話教中文」及「用廣州話教中文」兩班學生的課堂實踐，比較分析教師在「普教中」和「廣教中」不同教學媒介語的影響下，語文課堂的提問和回饋策略的異同，以檢視及提煉「普教中」的有效提問和回饋策略。
[Copyright © 2017 中華書局(香港)有限公司.]

隨著97回歸，普通話科成為香港中小學核心科目。世紀之交，語文課程重組，中、普兩科同被納入「中國語文教育學習領域」，「普通話教中文」更訂為語文課程的長遠發展目標。在「普教中」情境下，中、普兩科內容的重合更形突顯。除了聽、說範疇的教學目標和重點相若，兩科的朗讀訓練及拼音學習也難以明確分工和配合。本文從語文課程發展和規劃的層面出發，探討普通話科在這過渡期間，可以如何回應教學形勢的需要，在新階段的語文課程中有效蛻變和重生。
[Copyright © 2017 中華書局(香港)有限公司.]

中國語文科課程改革後，香港的中國語文教學法亦從傳統的直接講授，變得多樣化，其中影視教學因未曾為教師充分掌握，難以發揮最大的教學效益。本文嘗試探討影視的語文教學功能和利用影視進行語文教學的策略，並就中國語文科的九大學習範疇，分別舉出結合影視的語文教學設計，期望能令教師更有效地利用影視進行中國語文教學。
[Copyright © 2017 中華書局(香港)有限公司.]