*The importance of practicum to help student teachers teach English as a medium of instruction is discussed in the paper. The author reports that, to prepare student teachers more for the practice teaching period, an additional period is designed in a Hong Kong teacher training program by allowing the involved student teachers to interact with the cooperating teachers in advance.

A course which aims at exploring the concept of "discourse communities" to English teachers in Hong Kong is described in this paper.

作者利用問卷調查香港中學中文教師對下列「專業知識」的了解：一、對中學中文科課程的認識；二、對中學中文科教學目標的認識；三、對中學中文科課程「銜接」的認識。結果顯示：中文教師對本科課程少有深入的了解和研究，對中、小學課程的銜接問題更所知不多。作者指出，有限的「專業知識」會妨礙中文教師的「專業發展」。（馮吳淑瑩整理）

作者回顧了三個範疇的教師效能研究：首先是教師個別教學策略和技巧，繼而是理論教學模式、再而是教師認知和反省思考研究。將理論、策略和模式轉化成實踐經驗，實有賴教學實習和教師反思過程。作者指出，現行教學法課程中最弱的就是這兩個環節，而教學反思訓練更全付厥如，這是師訓教育中一項致命的弱點；「教學法」課程革新主要是將學理方法學習、實習前教程策劃訓練、實習教學興視導教學、實習後教學反思訓練四部份連結，構成一個有機結合，這不但可改進教師教學質素，還可改良教師思想質素。（關之英整理）

This paper looks at the developmental needs of teachers in relation to facilitating the personal and social development of students. It goes on to describe a module, 'Personal and Social Education', offered to all pre-service teachers in the Hong Kong Institute of Education which aims at equipping trainee teachers to carry out the guidance role of a teacher in the context of Hong Kong, particularly in the role of a class teacher. It concludes with the results of a survey seeking the views of these trainees on the module they had undertaken.
[Copyright of Pastoral Care in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0122.00160]

Twenty-one in-service early childhood students participated in a teaching practicum in Australia as part of the final year of a Bachelor of Arts in Hong Kong. Students spent two weeks visiting a university and early childhood settings in Australia. The university based component of the program included workshops and discussions with lecturing staff located in both the Australian and Hong Kong universities. Students were asked to complete written statements about 'What is children's learning?' before and after their practicum experience. An inductive analysis of students' written statements and practicum evaluations revealed an increase in beliefs about children's learning as 'active understanding' over the two-week period. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology is the property of University of Newcastle, Faculty of Education.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/journal/ajedp/]

This paper provides a case study of the use of language objectives within a newly developed English language teacher education programme in Hong Kong. The programme development team decided to adopt a content-based language teaching approach to support students' second language development through content learning. The teacher education programme (the content) prepares Chinese-speaking students to become secondary level English teachers. Because of students' level of English language proficiency upon entry, the programme must provide substantial support for students' English language development in addition to their learning of subject content knowledge and ELT pedagogy. There is also a government-stipulated proficiency level for all qualified English language teachers, which essentially becomes the language syllabus for the programme. The language objectives serve as a medium for mapping the language syllabus on the content curriculum. There are reasons to believe that the approach adopted has been successful in supporting students' language and content learning. This paper describes the programme development and implementation process and the problems and constraints met. The paper also shares the lessons learnt from the curriculum development and implementation process.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/le771.0]