Human development is a cultural process, and language serves as a cultural tool is closely related to virtually all the cognitive changes. The author addresses issues of language in education, and suggests that changing the medium of instruction should not be understood as purely a pedagogical decision. The connection between culture and language is examined for understanding why Hong Kong Chinese learners are stereotyped as passive learners. Through exploring personal experience with a student teacher, the author exemplifies how narrative inquiry is found to be a pragmatic approach to support teachers to become reflective thinkers. This study argues that narrative methods can serve as pedagogical strategies in teacher education since narrative can help both teachers and learners reflect on, question, and learn from their storied experiences.
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The focus of this study is to understand the impact of culture on learning that gives insight into how teacher education can be improved. This paper begins by inquiring into the Confucian Heritage Culture and explaining how it shapes Hong Kong Chinese learners into bicultural individuals who are still sticking to a traditional mode of learning. Two cases, explored through a teacher educator's interpretations of experience, are presented to illustrate how a narrative approach is adopted to change the learning habits of student teachers. This study argues that story telling offers opportunities for both teachers and learners to make meanings from their experiences of cultural tensions to facilitate reflection that gives rise to changes in learning.

Over the past decade, higher education has undergone drastic changes all over the world because of globalisation and the changing economy. The traditional view of university as a place for one-off training is now considered outdated. Instead, the strong focus on lifelong learning urges teachers, educators and academics to reconceptualise and transform education. In this new era, successful schools adopt outreach strategies and seek support from external agencies such as universities for their development. Institutions of higher education provide consultation or work with partner schools for collaborative sharing, reflection, research and growth. Hence, school–university partnerships have become important for professional development and educational reform. With the growth of school–university collaborations, there is mounting interest in empirical research on the variety and value of these initiatives. This article reviews the school–university partnerships in Hong Kong in light of the trends and development in the international context. The studies reviewed showed that school–university partnerships involving teacher training programmes focus on understanding the views of participants in school–university partnership with an aim to build appropriate teacher training and professional development features into the teacher education programmes. These studies have theoretically contributed to the construction of culturally relevant teacher education programmes. After all, new project initiatives have contributed to substantial changes in school leadership, teachers' professional development and school-based curriculum development which would benefit children's learning. The authors argue that the development of an appropriate mode of collaboration remains a challenge for successful school–university partnerships. They have a vision to move beyond the existing research focus to explore ways to build school–university collaborations. Gaps in the research base and relevant

This is a narrative study to inquire the experiences of my inner self through my life journey in teaching and learning of dance. Stemming from my experience as a student, a secondary school PE teacher, and a PE lecturer I have become critically aware of the need for learning of dance. Dance, probably more than games and gymnastics, offers many opportunities for integrating movement experiences with various aspects of the curriculum. The Hong Kong Curriculum Development Council (1995) states that at least two periods per week should be allocated to physical education and the teaching of dance should be included if the teacher aim to produce a balanced program. However, dance tends to receive less attention in physical education program, and most male PE teachers are found reluctant to teach dance. The inclusion of dance certainly depends on whether teachers consider it important for children to become skillful in and knowledgeable about expressive movement forms. The value we place on dance is personalized and revealing text in attempt to help others to rethink and recreate the meaning in learning and teaching of dance.

While teacher education in Hong Kong is generally delivered in a knowledge transmission mode, two teacher educators employ an alternative way in teaching. We explore the use of teacher narratives to promote teaching of child development. We view “teacher education as narrative inquiry” (Clandinin, 1993). Instead of beginning to teach the grand theories of child development, we share our family stories with students. We invite them to reflect upon the stories heard and resonate with their own family stories. By stimulating reflection (Schon, 1983) and resonance (Conle, 1996), we teach child development in an experiential and practical approach. Storytelling becomes a tool for teaching and understanding the meaning of lived experiences for construction of knowledge in teacher education programs.