The author examined how 101 Secondary English teachers in ten schools perceived the role and quality of textbooks, and how they made use of the textbooks in class. The criteria teachers used to evaluate textbooks differed from those of CDI. The author discovered that English teachers counted heavily on the use of textbooks, and thus recommended that a set of guidelines should be provided to teachers for textbook evaluation.

香港不少研究指出，影響教師課程決策的因素主要來自考試課程或教科書。唯香港小學美勞科卻未受到上述兩個主導因素的影響。美勞科主任原則上有絕大自由自行編訂校內的美勞課程。究竟他們如何作出校內的課程決策？此問題乃作者的研究探討的焦點。作者採用文獻分析和晤談兩種方法搜集資料，從文獻及回溯訪問的方式，探討美勞科主任在編訂教學計劃的過程中如何感知中央文獻課程，如何因著學校的情境因素和個人因素，從而作出校內美勞科的課程決策。

The author reports that problems faced by two novice expatriate teachers in their first year of teaching were examined. Their experiences were compared with those of other non-expatriate novice teachers. All novice teachers encountered similar difficulties. The expatriates felt more isolated than the non-expatriates.

The effect of linguistic accuracy and spacing appeared in an essay on teachers' and external raters' grading was investigated by the author, and both factors were found influential, especially to external raters.

The written feedback to senior form students' compositions of 20 local teachers were investigated by the author, who found that teachers tended to be a grammarian as their focus was on accuracy and that, in providing comments, some teachers took over students' own ideas.

This study assessed the three components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment), perceived self-efficacy, and the three triarchic abilities (analytical, synthetic, and practical) of successful intelligence in a sample of 267 Chinese prospective and in-service teachers in Hong Kong. The aim was to explore and examine the contribution of the blending or integration of the triarchic abilities to the three components of teacher burnout and perceived self-efficacy. While there were subtle gender and teaching-experience differences, the general findings suggested that the triarchic abilities, especially practical abilities, could independently contribute to teachers' sense of personal accomplishment as well as perceived self-efficacy. The interactive combination of the triarchic abilities could be most important in contributing negatively to emotional exhaustion. The implications of these findings for interventions to combat teacher burnout and enhance job engagement are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410601061397]

Fifty Hong Kong Chinese teachers rated the importance of 25 characteristics and 14 competencies for teachers of gifted learners. While all 39 characteristics and competencies were endorsed as important, the characteristics classified as philosophical ideals were rated most important, followed by characteristics related to professional predispositions. Personal attributes were rated least important. Regarding competencies, specific skills related to identifying, teaching, and counseling gifted learners were rated more important than global strategies. While the selection of teachers of gifted learners might proceed with selecting teachers with the desirable characteristics to meet the needs of gifted learners, the present findings indicated that the development of philosophical, professional, and personal characteristics conducive to effective teaching should not be neglected in teacher preparation programs. Further, desirable skills and competencies that teachers require to teach the gifted well could be made the objectives, goals, and outcomes of teacher preparation programs for teachers of gifted learners. It is believed that the development of teacher preparation programs for teachers of gifted learners in Hong Kong and elsewhere might benefit from integrating Chinese thinking with Western empirically supported findings on the characteristics and competencies of teachers of gifted learners.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02783190109554098 ]