The two-year longitudinal case study reported in this paper documents a non- Cantonese speaking mainland Chinese student's language learning experiences in Cantonese- dominant Hong Kong, who came to pursue undergraduate studies in an English-medium university. Using a sociocultural approach, this paper focuses on three biographical episodes. which recount how the student attempted to open up alternatives within the contextual structures and seek new learning opportunities, how she came to realize her limitation and withdrew from her early active pursuits, and how she followed other mainland Chinese students in memorizing words and attached her own meanings to it. The paper highlights the social, cultural, arid politic aspects of her strategy use in the learning context and argues that learners' biographical experiences are an important avenue to understand learners' strategy use as a complicated phenomenon revealing the interplay between learners' agency and contextual structures.

The paper argues that the overall process of curriculum development (from the intended official written curriculum to the resourced curriculum set out in textbooks, and then to the taught implemented curriculum) in the two cities has been influenced by similar socio-political forces, It also argues that the process is characterized by some similar and some varying complex patterns in the nature and extent of Chinese and non-Chinese music which is not adequately recognized in the existing literatures. The study contends that the national identity, preference of national and local cultures, national education, colonial education, and acceptances of, and relationships with, other cultures have played important roles in shaping the nature and extent of Chinese and non-Chinese elements in the music curriculum.

This paper focuses on a controversial issue in the field of education in Hong Kong, namely, the effect of the initiatives of School Self-evaluation (SSE) and External School Review (ESR) on school improvement (SI), under the current school-based management reform, It made use of questionnaires and case study in an attempt to give a preliminary account on whether such initiatives contribute to school improvement arid in what ways it did. There is a presumption that the effectiveness of SSE/ESR in facilitating school improvement actually pertains to how far the inspected schools can develop or sustain a learning culture among school personnel. Findings indicate that teachers in the school have a positive attitude towards SSEIESR, and SSE/ESR fosters organizational learning which ultimately contributes to school improvement and teacher development.

Computer programming has been taught in secondary schools in Hong Kong since the 1980s. However, learning to program poses a lot of difficulties to novices. This study aims to investigate the mental model of individuals of various learning styles in learning to program. Forty-one secondary students participated in a pilot study. No difference in mental models was found among the different groups. There was some evidence that learning style predicted mental model. Concrete learners had higher similarity than abstract learners. Students' understanding of programming knowledge was only rudimentary. Sequential learners in general outperformed their random counterparts. AR learners were students particularly at risk in learning programming. A number of pedagogical recommendations are made and limitations of the study are discussed.