The language-related challenges affecting international university students' adaptation to a new host environment have been extensively explored in English-speaking countries. However, few studies have been performed in non English-speaking countries or regions, and even fewer have investigated these challenges from the perspective of learner autonomy. Adopting a process-oriented approach, the present qualitative, multiple case study examines how nine first-year mainland Chinese university students developed their autonomy in adapting to English-medium-instruction (EMI) in a university in Hong Kong, a multilingual context. The findings reveal that, via a three-stage process, the participants developed autonomy by changing their strategies for both learning and using English during their first year of study. The participants' development of autonomy for learning and using English was also mediated by the local multilingual context. These findings help to deepen our understanding of the dynamics and complexity of students' long-term autonomy development in an era of increasing internationalization in higher education.
[Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.]

This paper presents a personal picture of my long-standing association with the English language teaching and assessment situation in Hong Kong. The paper presents a 50-year retrospective of assessment in Hong Kong, through the lens of my own 35-year stint in the territory and my personal experience of English language teaching, teacher education, and assessment. I present a historical and theoretical picture of how English language examinations have moved forward in Hong Kong, and how I was fortunate enough to be involved in the big changes which were taking place in English language assessment in particular. While the picture I portray through this paper is a rather personal one, it contributes to an understanding of how assessment reform has been forward-looking, and largely successful, in Hong Kong, painting a picture of how assessment development has complemented curriculum development. I suggest that it may be instructive for educators in other jurisdictions to consider the long-term picture of development in English language assessment reform in their own country with a view to analyzing their own perspectives concerning the relative success of policy changes and large-scale reforms.
[Copyright © 2015 Brunei Darussalam : Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.]

English is an important language in Hong Kong, an international city located on the southern coast of the People's Republic of China that, for over 150 years to 1997, was a British colony. This paper describes and analyses changes in teaching methodologies in the English language curriculum formally proposed for Hong Kong junior secondary schools from 1975 to the present day, to study how the curriculum developments reflect interrelated social, political, economic, and cultural factors of the period and the ideology in educational circles that was pre-eminent at the time. It finds that, while the rhetoric of the curriculum has changed in accordance with shifts in socio-economic conditions, the curriculum content and pedagogical approaches implemented in the classrooms have proved more constant across time. The paper suggests some explanations for the resultant curricula tensions.
[Copyright © Lulu Press Inc.].

This paper reports on the assessment of readiness and receptivity of school principals, English panel chairpersons and English teachers for the implementation of the new senior secondary curriculum (NSSC) in English Key Learning Area (KLA) in Hong Kong. Recent research ahs probed into the dilemmas and challenges faced by school administrators and frontline teachers when facing curriculum change. Such challenges exist in the management of change, the teachers’ readiness for change, and in problems with collaboration among the stakeholders. Drawing on these research findings the analysis of this paper focuses on whether such problems are also re-occurring in the implementation of change in the NSSC, and if so, considers how they can be resolved. Using qualitative research procedures four key questions were addressed: how far the school personnel understood the changes in the NSSC; the extent to which they felt they could implement the new curriculum; which factors encouraged/constrained implementation; and the possible effects of change on schools. The findings showed that schools with students of high or medium ability seemed to be more positive in terms of perceptions and receptivity at the initial stage of change, while schools dominated by cohorts of medium or low academic ability students appeared to be resistant to the shift in pedagogic arrangements. Yet all the school principals interviewed expressed their unreserved agreement with the spirit of the new curriculum.
[Copyright © 2009 The Asian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.]

This paper reports the perceptions of school principals, English panel chairpersons and English teachers of the new senior secondary curriculum (NSSC) in English Key Learning Area (KLA) in Hong Kong. Findings of recent research have reported dilemmas and challenges faced by school administrators and frontline teachers in undergoing curriculum change in areas of management of change, teachers' receptivity to and their readiness for the change and collaboration among the stakeholders. Drawing on these research findings the analysis of this paper focuses on whether such dilemmas and challenges exist in the enactment of change in the NSSC and the extent to which they are resolved. Using qualitative research procedures such as semi-focused interviews and lesson observations four key questions were addressed: the school personnel's understanding of the changes in the NSSC; the extent they feel they can implement the new curriculum; factors encouraging/constraining implementation; and the possible effects of change on schools. The findings show that though challenges exist in addressing the four areas, they demonstrate principals' and teachers' support for curriculum change.

The Target-Oriented Curriculum recommends task-based learning. This paper analyzes classroom observations regarding teachers' use of tasks and the practice opportunities created as the result of the tasks. Specific attention is focused on the interaction modes elicited by tasks, and the problems identified in the organization and management of tasks.