This paper reports on the investigation of 15 pre-service teachers' information and communication technology (ICT) adoption during teaching practicums at seven preschool settings. Surveys, classroom observations, interviews, and teaching resources were analyzed to examine the extent to which technologies were applied. In addition to defining eight specific categories of ICT-related pedagogical strategies, this study provides evidence that pre-service teachers generally use ICT more for teacher-directed activity than for teacher-guided or children-initiated activities. Pre-service teachers working within preschools that allocated higher levels of teacher authority in the curriculum decision-making process and provided a rich ICT environment reported using ICT more often in classroom learning activities.
[Copyright © 2014 AACE]

In accordance with the Education Commission's consultation paper "Learning for Life", life-long learning is the hinge of HKSAR's educational development in the new millenium. In the ever-changing world life-long learning is essential to keeping oneself competitive and employable. Teachers need to exemplify and cultivate the ethos of life-long learning among the students. Continuous teacher education is important as it helps reorientate Hong Kong's teachers to embrace a life-long learning attitude. In schools, adjustments and arrangements need to be worked out for continuous teacher education to be fruitful.

The background of this paper is the development of field experience in the new Certificated in Secondary Education Course of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. As will be shown, this aims to introduce student teachers to schools and classroom teaching in a gradual and progressive manner. The focus of the paper will be the implementation of the second phase of the field experience – the Supporting Teaching Practice. This involved 199 students from the Chinese Stream and 6.05B student teachers from the English stream being placed in 56 schools. The Supporting Teaching Practice took place in a four-week period in March and April, 1995. The three levels of support which characterize this part of the programme – support from peers, support form teachers and support from Institute supervisor – are examined. As the development of team work is the most innovative aspect of the Supported Teaching Practice, this is examined in detail in terms of its implementation, operation and effectiveness. The general conclusion are that collaborative support from peers was very well received by the students themselves and is acceptable to the placement schools. Its operation in terms of joint post-lesson planning, peer observation and team teaching followed by joint-lesson reflection has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for promoting reflective hypothesis formation about the teaching-learning process and it enables testing and evaluation of these by emerging teachers.

English language remains an important learning component of all university students in Hong Kong. Regardless of their academic interests, all pre-service teachers whose specialisms are not English are also compulsorily required to study English during their first year of university years. Does it mean these non-English subject trained pre-service teachers will be de-motivated to learn English? How do they respond to English learning even if they do not expect to teach English in the future? What learning strategies do they adopt during English lessons? In this paper, we attempt to look at a group of non-English major pre-service teachers' motivation to learn English. Through the research instruments of questionnaire and in-depth interviews with teachers and students, data are to be collected to analyse their motivation and attitudes to learn English.

Recent research indicates that English medium education in Hong Kong, even in schools with very able students, is not helping students to achieve the level of second language proficiency that both theory and the experience of other countries suggest is possible. The study reported in this paper aimed to identify the contribution that teacher education can make to improving the quality of English medium education in Hong Kong. The paper takes into account the recent developments in the Hong Kong Government's medium of instruction policy. The study investigated the specialised language oriented teacher education needs of English medium secondary teachers of content subjects in Hong Kong in connection with the further development of a teacher education programme in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The study is based within immersion education theory of which English medium education in Hong Kong is seen as a variant. This proposes that students can acquire a very high level of proficiency in the second language through the use of the language as the medium of learning for content subjects across the curriculum. Research in other educational contexts suggests a variety of qualities which teachers may need but none relate to the specific context of Hong Kong. The unusual characteristics of immersion education in Hong Kong area very high proportion of students undertaking English medium education by international standards (even with the recent changes in government policy), teachers with varying levels of second language proficiency and students with very varying levels of motivation to learn in this way. Although some research exists within Hong Kong on this topic it is incomplete and inconclusive. It was, therefore, necessary to bring together research from overseas and Hong Kong within this one study. In addition, questionnaires were administered to teachers, interviews were held with teachers and lessons observed in schools. The analysis produced a framework consisting

Bringing a coach or coaches into a school to provide support is not entirely a new idea in Hong Kong. In local schools there is increased emphasis on coaching – a process whereby teacher trainers provide instructional support, professional development opportunities, feedback, and materials to classroom teachers – as a means to improve instruction and strengthen the competence of teachers. This paper reports on a pilot study which involved two academic staff from the Hong Kong Institute of Education and teachers of English in a local primary school to work together to enable teacher professional development. The paper reports a sub-set of the findings of a study which aims at identifying a coaching model for English teachers' professional development, and at developing a school-based language teaching curriculum development framework pilot school using a school-based language teaching curriculum development framework piloted in earlier research projects by the investigators. Data were collected through pre-, while- and post-questionnaire surveys, focus groups interviews, and lesson observations. The findings echo earlier research that modeling instruction in individual classrooms, rather than just the provision of group-focused activities, is most likely to result in modifications in instructional practices. It is also argued that in addition to teachers' exposure to new teaching materials, continuous joint professional discourse between coaches and teachers about how to use the materials would also lead to changes in teachers' instructional goals and practices. Implications for incorporating the use of coaches into school improvement plans for optimum results will also be discussed.