This study examines language features that students are likely to encounter in chemistry textbooks in EMI classrooms. In consultation with teachers, the presentation of science knowledge was examined in three chemistry textbooks commonly used in Hong Kong secondary English Medium Instruction (EMI) classrooms. Student textbooks were collected from eight Grade 10-12 chemistry classrooms. Adopting a functional linguistic approach (e.g., Veel's (1997) framework of text taxonomy), analyses showed that explanation is the most common text type in the three chemistry textbooks, and the five subtypes of explanations represented in the textbooks are causal (40%), factorial (24%), sequential (15%), consequential (13%) and theoretical (8%). The distribution of these different types of explanation texts and their features were examined to reveal the kind of language that students in EMI classrooms are likely to encounter when learning chemistry. The results show that explanation texts served as a primary linguistic reservoir for EMI students to learn the language of science. The analysis of the language features of these texts could be used to inform future pedagogies aiming at making these textbooks more accessible to students learning in English and facilitating both their science learning and control of scientific English.
[Copyright of Journal of English for Academic Purposes is the property of Elsevier Ltd.]

Research Findings: This study employed data from the TIMSS 2015 survey to investigate whether parental educational involvement behaviour in early childhood and parental attitudes towards education can enhance children's mathematics achievement in the 4th grade via influencing children's learning interests. Samples from Singapore (N=6237) and Hong Kong (N=3316), which share similar cultural backgrounds, and students demonstrating outstanding mathematical performance were selected to examine whether a hypothesized model fit the data. The overall model fit was found good. As hypothesized, after controlling for gender, immigration status, and family learning resources variables, both parental involvement in learning activities and parental attitudes towards education had positive significant effects on children's mathematics achievement in the 4th grade. However, a variation was also discovered in terms of the influences of parental attitudes in the two samples. Practice or Policy: The current findings shed light on the importance of parents' attitudes on education and their involvement in their children's mathematics activities during early childhood. The importance of family education should be communicated thoroughly to the public, and the government should provide more support for parents to involve more in early learning activities at home.
[Copyright of Early Education and Development is the property of Routledge.]

Social work educators are challenged with preparing students for international social work and work with immigrant and refugee populations. This pilot project aimed to develop an online global classroom to teach an international social work course to social work students participating from five different locations: United States (N=25), South Africa (N=4), Mexico (N=11), Hong Kong (N=6), and Australia (N=2). Qualitative data were collected from students regarding their experiences in this global classroom. Thematic analysis revealed the development of rich authentic learning, where their interactions with international classmates led to a transformative learning experience and a beginning sense of social work in a global context. Implications for future leaning and teaching of social work content across global borders are discussed.
[Copyright of Journal of Social Work Education is the property of Routledge.]

Objectives: It has been supported by various literatures that there is a relation between holistic processing and Chinese character recognition. The present study examined the relation between holistic processing of Chinese characters and literacy ability of Hong Kong preschoolers, in order to explore whether the extent of holistic processing is associated with writing or reading experience. Methods: Participants were 59 local preschoolers (37 boys, 22 girls). The literacy ability of participants was assessed by The Hong Kong Reading Ability Screening Test for Preschool Children (RAST-K); while holistic processing of Chinese characters was measured by adopting the procedures from Hsiao & Cottrell (2009) in a complete composite paradigm (Gauthier & Bukach, 2007). Results: In line with the previous research findings, preschoolers also showed holistic processing in perceiving Chinese characters. Specifically, K2 students were significantly more holistic than K3 students. Such discrepancy may relate to writing experience instead of reading experience since a negative correlation between holistic processing and writing ability was significantly observed. Conclusion: This study had a theoretical contribution on the study of Chinese writing difficulties among preschoolers. Educators and parents may help enhancing the writing ability of preschoolers by leading them to perceive the characters separately, i.e. weakening the holistic processing of Chinese characters. All rights reserved.

口語是人們日常學習及溝通，以至交流情感的工具。《幼稚園教育課程指引》(2017，頁 28) 指出，香港人口大都以中文（口語主要是粵語）為溝通媒介，學校應該「先讓幼兒多發展中文方面的能力」，並「為幼兒提供生活化和富趣昧的聽、説經驗」，從而「豐富讀、寫的經驗。」其實，不少幼兒教育理論也認同「感官學習」對幼兒的重要性。本研究以行動研究方式，以29位介乎5-6歲「高班」幼兒為研究對象，嘗試透過「多感官學習法」改善幼兒的粵語發音。研究結果發現100%受試幼兒能透過「多感官學習法」改善粵語發音，也提高了説粵語的信心，顯示「多感官學習法」引導學前幼兒掌握粵語發音的可行性。同時，家長問卷也顯示「多感官學習法」得到家長的認同。 Copyright © 2019 香港教師中心.

Values, as a culturally specific notion, have a vital role to play in classroom mathematics learning. In this chapter, we argue that valuing, especially from the student's perspective, serves as a lens for us to better understand how they perform in mathematics learning. To develop such a lens, we investigated the componential structure of Hong Kong mathematics students by utilising a values questionnaire as a lens to better understand what the students find important in mathematics learning. A principal component analysis has been used in this study with the objective to interrogate the data. The analysis of the data led to the identification of nine components valued by Hong Kong students in their mathematics learning. We discuss the findings in terms of the Hong Kong culture and context and the value categories and we suggest implications for future research studies. Copyright © 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

當前語文課程及教學研究都十分重視引導學生掌握閱讀策略，但對於小學低年級學生閱讀策略的學習對加強閱讀理解表現有否成效，卻依然存在爭議。針對這一問題，本研究在香港六所本地小學二年級實施了為期一年的閱讀策略教學准實驗。控制班136 人，實驗班148 人。研究表明，教學實驗後，實驗班學生的閱讀理解進步分顯著高於控制班；低水平的閱讀者在閱讀實驗中受益最大。調查問卷顯示，學生在教學實驗後在展示創意、想像畫面兩項策略的應用頻次上有顯著提升。本研究也討論了研究結果對閱讀教學的一些啟發。The current Chinese curriculum and teaching research attach great importance to master reading strategies, but the effects of learning reading strategies among lower graders are still controversial. In response to this research gap, this study implemented a one-year quasi-experiment by teaching P2 students reading strategies among six local primary schools in Hong Kong. There were 136 pupils in the controlled class and 148 in the experimental class. This study demonstrated that after the teaching experiment, students in experimental class had a significant improvement in reading comprehension than that of the controlled class; low level readers benefitted the most from the teaching experiment. Results collected from the questionnaire indicated that students have significantly improved the use of the two strategies (i.e., demonstrating creativity and imaging) when reading independently after teaching experiment. Implications on reading instruction derived from the results were discussed as well. Copyright © 2019 香港教育大學.

The contribution of teacher knowledge to learning outcomes at the beginning stages of literacy acquisition is of growing concern because the ability to provide quality instruction is central to successful literacy acquisition, particularly for pupils with dyslexia. To date, the majority of research has focused on teachers of English as a first language. Yet, English is the most widely taught foreign language today. The present study extends the exploration of teacher knowledge by probing two heretofore unexamined groups of teachers who are responsible for teaching beginning stages of literacy in English as a foreign language: regular class teachers who are non-native English-speaking (N = 96) and native English-speaking teachers (N = 24) working in the kindergarten setting in Hong Kong. As these two teacher groups serve as gatekeepers of beginning English as a foreign language literacy for kindergarten children in Hong Kong, it is crucial to gather information about the depth and quality of their teacher knowledge. This information can be instrumental to improving the quality of beginning literacy instruction in English and assisting early identification of dyslexia. Both groups completed the basic language constructs survey (Binks-Cantrell, Joshi, & Washburn, Annals of Dyslexia, 62, 153–171, 2012a). Results showed while native English teachers performed significantly better than non-native English teachers, total percentage correct scores were below 50%, except for phonological awareness tasks. All teachers scored higher in items requiring syllable as opposed to phoneme manipulation. Only teacher type predicted teachers’ performance on the survey. The need for quality instruction, particularly for children at-risk for dyslexia or those struggling at the beginning stages of literacy acquisition, is addressed. Copyright © 2020 The International Dyslexia Association.

This study investigated the direct and indirect roles of verbal and visuospatial memory in Chinese reading comprehension. One hundred twenty-eight Cantonese-speaking children participated in the study at the end of their 3rd year of kindergarten in Hong Kong. Both verbal and visuospatial memory were found to be significantly associated with Chinese reading comprehension. Path analysis showed that visuospatial memory was significantly associated with reading comprehension through word reading. Verbal memory was associated with reading comprehension indirectly through listening comprehension. Additionally, the direct path from visuospatial memory to reading comprehension was significant when word reading and listening comprehension were considered simultaneously. The findings of the direct and unique role of visuospatial memory in reading comprehension in Chinese elaborated and extended our understanding of the simple view of reading in young children in a non-alphabetic language. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature B.V.

New social annotation practices have the potential to become a “signature pedagogy” for educators in literary studies, because social annotation encapsulates both the expected learning outcomes and the underlying value commitments of literature education. We give an account of a project conducted by colleagues at the Education University of Hong Kong, during which colleagues explored social annotation technologies in literary studies courses. After implementing social annotation in our courses, instructors held roundtable discussions, collected surveys and conducted focus group interviews. Basing our interpretation of these data on Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading and writing, we propose that social annotation can help students engage with literary texts more effectively by showing them how to move toward an aesthetic mode of reading. Students participating in social annotation, moreover, understood its application to literary studies in ways that directly reproduced Rosenblatt's account of literary interpretation. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).