This study, which investigated primary school English teachers’ cognition in English Language Teaching (ELT), was a two-year longitudinal qualitative case study with five cases. Data were collected across two years from June 2014 to June 2016 at two sites (i.e., the informants’ practicum schools and in-service schools) using different sources, including semi-structured interviews, lesson observations, post-lesson conferences and reflective journals (i.e., one retrospective text and one questionnaire) for checking the consistency and inconsistency of the informants’ claimed beliefs about ELT and their pedagogy during actual teaching practice; other artifacts collected during the lesson observation (e.g., lesson plans, learning products, etc.) were also taken into consideration.Data were gathered at three stages: (1) before the teaching practicum (2) during the teaching practicum, and (3) during the 1st year of teaching. These procedures were followed first to identify the initial beliefs, assumptions and pedagogical content knowledge the five informants held before they served in schools, and then to track the stability and changes over time from “schooling to teaching practicum” and “teaching practicum to 1st year teaching.” The analysis revealed that the five informants’ cognition, shaped by both schooling, and professional coursework would change over time when influenced by contextual factors.The perceptions the informants held about ELT were quite consistent with their fond, and negative experiences encountered during their early “schooling.” They regarded the following elements as effective: motivation, inviting learning environments, good teacher-student rapport, availability of learning resources and encouragement from knowledgeable adults, e.g., NETs, favorable teachers, etc. The following traditional teaching approaches were considered ineffective and demotivating to language learning: drilling, rote-learning, and being teacher-centred. Evidence showed that

This study examines the interplay among language proficiency, use and attitudes of Shenzhen-Hong Kong cross-border students (CBS), a unique group of Hong Kong students who reside in Shenzhen and attend school in Hong Kong. A questionnaire survey of over 500 CBS reveals that Putonghua is their dominant language, followed by Cantonese, while their hometown dialect and English play peripheral roles. CBS show strong preferences for Putonghua, both instrumentally and integratively. Statistical analyses indicate significant correlations between CBS’ proficiency in the four languages and their attitudes towards them. The study identifies pairwise associations among CBS’ use of Cantonese at school, their proficiency in the language, and their attitudes towards it, forming a reinforcing cycle. However, no such patterns were found for Putonghua or English. The study concludes that improving CBS’ Cantonese proficiency and emotional connection to the language is essential for their integration into Hong Kong society, addressing identity challenges, and fostering a cohesive sense of belonging. Copyright © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In order to create a linguistically inclusive environment for multilingual learners’ meaning making of nature of science (NOS), it is important to allow students to freely mobilise different linguistic and modal resources for meaning making. In this single case study of a Hong Kong seventh-grade linguistically diverse classroom, we characterise two types of translanguaging spaces for meaning making of NOS: NOS-negotiation space and NOS-inscription space. Furthermore, we articulate how linguistically diverse learners navigate within and across these two translanguaging spaces. Our findings indicate that the teacher and students discussed a network of NOS ideas using gestures, different named languages as well as visual resources within the NOS-negotiation space. Students co-learnt metalanguages of NOS and created a multimodal ensemble of NOS within the NOS-inscription space. We also identified factors that facilitate or impede students’ connection of NOS ideas across two translanguaging spaces. Research reported in the paper calls for science educators to explicitly design translanguaging spaces to foster an inclusive environment for linguistically diverse learners’ meaning making of NOS. Copyright © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Differentiated instruction has been advocated for embracing learner diversity, but it has been found that differentiated instruction implementation is difficult and teachers often feel unprepared. This qualitative case study explored the professional development of two English language teachers in two participating schools of a school-university collaboration project on diversity management in Hong Kong. Based on the data collected from co-planning meetings, lesson observations, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and artefacts, the study showed that research-informed teaching and teaching-informed research were both indispensable to differentiated instruction infrastructure building; school cultures and teacher efficacies both affected teachers’ attitudes towards researcher-practitioner collaboration modes for professional development. Teachers whose efficacy and professional learning community remained at a developing stage tended to rely on an expert-guided collaboration mode. Yet, those whose efficacy and professional learning community had advanced would prefer a more self-redirected learning mode. These findings shed light on bridging the researcher-practitioner divide in teacher education. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

This study investigates whether demographics, L2 enjoyment, L2 anxiety, psychological well-being, or informal digital learning of English (IDLE) affect willingness to communicate in L2 (L2 WTC) at trait or state levels. Across two weeks, 16 Hong Kong EFL students completed pre-and post-trait-level surveys and generated 1,120 state-level responses via the experience sampling method (ESM). The survey findings revealed that students who were older, had higher language proficiency, or had higher pre-WTC digitally reported higher L2 WTC in the classroom. Students who had studied English longer, had higher language proficiency, had higher pre-psychological well-being, had a higher standard deviation L2 WTC over 14 days, or had higher teacher appreciation showed higher L2 WTC outside of class. Students with higher language proficiency, higher pre-WTC digitally, or higher post-psychological well-being reported higher L2 WTC in digital settings. The ESM findings revealed that students with higher teacher appreciation, currently engaged in productive IDLE or both receptive and productive types of IDLE, currently experienced greater L2 enjoyment, or currently experienced greater well-being had higher L2 WTC now. Our findings are relevant to: (a) L2 WTC, informal language learning, and positive psychology theories, and (b) strategies that can be used to enhance students’ L2 WTC overall and at a particular moment. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).

This study investigated the perceptions of second language (L2) English learners from Hong Kong on the speech produced by third language (L3) English learners from the Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China. Twenty L2 learners from a local university were asked to listen to speech recordings from two L3 learners, and then complete an online survey, which focused on comprehension of the speech and four dimensions of language attitudes, namely Appropriateness, Solidarity, Status, and Dynamism. Results showed correlations between the phonological performance of learners and the perception of listeners. Specifically, vowel replacement and addition, as well as consonant addition were found to have a negative correlation with the learners’ actual comprehensibility. Replacing /ə/ with Chinese ‘er’ /ɚ/ only affected their perceived comprehensibility. For perceived attitude, the presence of vowel replacement and addition had an adverse effect on the rating of Dynamism. These two features, along with consonant addition, also negatively affected the rating of Status. Moreover, consonant addition was the sole factor that negatively affected the rating of Solidarity. These findings provided pedagogical insights for learners to communicate in English as well as social implications for language paradigm, particularly in a multilingual and multicultural context such as the GBA. Copyright © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Quantitative research on the linguistic acculturation of sojourners in non-Western and multilingual social contexts remains scarce. Revising the Framework of Acculturation Variables (FAV), we propose a parsimonious model exploring the effect of acculturation conditions (trilingual language usage and perceived discrimination), orientations (social connectedness to mainstream and minority community), and outcome (psychological well-being). In particular, we examined the alternative paths enabled by non-local languages in the acculturation process, revealing the complexity of multidimensionality in trilingual linguistic acculturation. The findings highlight the crucial mediating role of acculturation orientation in the acculturation process. The effects of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English usage on the acculturation process of Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong (N = 798) were examined. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Students’ development of multilingual competence has attracted increasing attention from language researchers and educators. However, research on students’ interaction strategy use in group discussions across different language settings remains scarce. In this study, therefore, we examined interaction strategy use in Cantonese as a first language (L1) and Putonghua as a second language (L2) during group discussion tasks among 42 primary school students in Hong Kong. We also investigated the effects of interaction strategy use on performance in respective tasks. We discovered that students employed significantly more interaction strategies in L1 than in L2, with a higher contribution to L1 task performance. Specifically, three of the five strategies identified—Strategy 2 (S2) asking for opinions, S3 expressing attitude, and S5 non-verbal language—were employed more frequently in L1 than in L2. Furthermore, we found that strategy use had various effects on oral performance between the two languages. In the L1 task, S1 expressing actively, S3 expressing attitude, and S4 giving clarification significantly predicted students’ group discussion performance, whereas this effect was only observed in S1 expressing actively in the L2 task. Pedagogical implications for primary students’ learning of interaction strategies for group discussions in both L1 and L2 are discussed. Copyright © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Negotiation of meaning (NoM) has played a facilitative role in second language acquisition. However, the existing studies have primarily focused on adult English language learners. This study investigated the impact of task type and task complexity on NoM strategies among young learners of Chinese as a second language, an underexplored group. The participants were 110 students in Hong Kong aged 10-12, mainly from Pakistan, India, Philippines, and Nepal. They were asked to perform four tasks with different task types and levels of task complexity in Cantonese (the primary Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong). In terms of task type, the study found that required information exchange tasks (i.e., information gap tasks) produced significantly more clarification requests, confirmation checks, self-repetitions, and other repetitions in terms of total numbers and numbers per 100 Chinese characters than the optional exchange tasks (i.e., decision-making tasks). Complex tasks, on the other hand, elicited significantly more confirmation checks than simple tasks. These findings provide useful insights for designing tasks that can promote greater use of NoM strategies in classroom practice. Copyright © 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.

Language choice and code-switching are commonplaces for peer interaction among bilingual children from various language backgrounds in Hong Kong. However, few studies concern these linguistic practices of immigrant children proficient in Mandarin and English. This study adopted a qualitative research approach to investigate three Mandarin-English preschoolers’ language choice and code-switching by analyzing their conversations in interaction with a Cantonese–English bilingual peer under the framework of translanguaging. The findings reveal that these Mandarin-English preschoolers’ priority language for interaction is English, indicating that choosing a shared language is an essential communicative strategy for integrating with their Cantonese–English peers. The factors for those language choices include social environment, interlocutor’s ability, and sense of identity and belonging. Both inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching are adopted in verbal interaction. However, intra-sentential code-switching occurs more frequently and with greater diversity in Mandarin-based sentences, where nouns are the most easily switched component, followed by verbs and adjectives. This study enriches the study of bilingual children in Hong Kong, extends the application of translanguaging to peer interaction outside the classroom in multilingual contexts, and provides pedagogic implications. Copyright © 2024 Informa  UK  Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.