Whilst institute-school partnerships have been investigated extensively as potentially valuable routes for the professional preparations of student teachers (Booth, Furling and Wilkin, 1990; McCullough and Fidler, 1994), considerably less is known as to how co-operating teachers/ teaching advisers process their roles and the nature of effect of their dynamic relationships with student teachers on their own professional lives. This paper attempts to present the voices of four teaching advisers who participated in the Honorary Teaching Adviser Scheme of an initial teacher education programme in Hong Kong. Data collected through semi-structured interviews, lesson observations, and post-observation conferences present a general picture of the challenges and promises of the Scheme as perceived by the teaching advisers on their own professional growth. Findings point to the need for re- envisioning the full potential of mentoring in teacher preparation and continuing professional development. Data from a previous study will also be contrasted to illustrate teachers' progression from resistance to readiness to assume an expanding role in teacher preparation. The paper will conclude with suggestions for fostering an effective and productive professional learning experience for both student teachers and teaching advisers.

Many teacher educator researchers often stand outside of schools to teach others about what is going on inside of them. In 1994 a team of researchers sought a different approach when they embarked upon a journey to enhance the professional development of primary teachers within the teachers' own school settings. The goal of this journey was to facilitate the development of literature-based reading programmes in selected Hong Kong primary schools. This colloquium will describe the process of facilitating and charting the development of the teachers as well as monitoring the growth of their students in reading over a three year period. The conditions and factors that influence teacher development will report briefly on the work in their respective schools and the approaches used to facilitate teacher development. Researchers will offer insights into their personal successes and failures and indicate directions for continuing teachers' professional development after the project. The limitations and strengths of adopting a long term approach to enhancing and studying teacher development from a curriculum initiative and research perspective, will be examined and recommendations offered for the way forward into the new century.

The focus of teacher education research in recent years has shifted from a behavioural research paradigm (Beatie, 1995), which examines how teacher behaviour influences student learning, to one which studies teacher cognition, and its relationship with professional actions (Watkins and Biggs, 2001). Such a shift is premised on the belief that what teachers do is directed by what they think (Clark & Peterson, 1986), and that teachers' implicit theories which impact their behaviours are guided by a personally held system of beliefs, values and principles (Zeichner, and Liston, 1987). This paper explores the practicum experiences of a group of Chinese student teachers learning to teach English in Hong Kong. Data were collected through interviews, journal entries and field notes based on practicum teaching observations. Major themes emerging from the data reveal the interplay between the student teachers' conceptions of teaching and argue for a shift away from a didactic approach in teacher education towards a dialectic and reflextive approach in foreign language teacher education.

The development of institute-school partnership to facilitate the implementation of the field-based component of initial teacher education programme has been a dominant theme in teacher education. This paper outlines the development of the Honorary Teaching Adviser Scheme of an initial teacher education programme for cultural and technology subject teachers of secondary schools in Hong Kong. It presents the process of how inputs from a cross-section of stakeholders are integrated in the development of the Scheme. The integration is done through consultation and collaboration between the teacher education institution and the school community. Consulting different groups of stakeholders lays the ground for the introduction of the Scheme. The stakeholders include academics from different departments of the teacher education institution, academics from local and overseas higher education institutions as well as principals and teachers of the school community. Collaboration is done through inviting members of the school community to work on piloting the Scheme before its full implementation. Insights gained from consultation and piloting the Scheme inform its further development. The attempts on consultation and collaboration represent a move from a unidimensional model of institute-school partnership to some form of complementarity (Bines & Welton, 1995). Such development involves a complex process of managing change and redefining roles and responsibilities of higher education and school personnel in initial teacher education.

Whilst institute-school partnership have been affirmed as potentially valuable routes for the professional preparations of student teachers (Booth, Furlong & Wilkin, 1990; McCullough & Fidler, 1994), relatively less is known as to how teaching advisers perceive their roles and the impact of their collaborative relationships with student teachers on their own professional lives. This paper attempts to present the voices of four teaching advisers who participated in a mentoring scheme of an initial teacher education program in Hong Kong. Data collected through semi-structured interviews, lesson observations, and post-observation conferences present a general picture of the promises of the scheme as perceived by the teaching advisers in enhancing their own professional development, as well as challenges at the 'action' level. Findings point to the need for re-envisioning the roles and responsibilities of teachers for their own professional development as well as that of others. The paper will conclude with suggestions for fostering an effective and productive learning experience for both student teachers and teaching advisers.
[Copyright © 2004 De La Salle University, Philippines.]

There is a growing consensus that schools and practising teachers can, in collaboration and/or in partnership with higher education institutions, make valuable contributions to initial and continuous teacher development, specifically when teachers can see how their efforts result in improved student learning and achievement. Learning Study, a Hong Kong version of the Japanese Lesson Study, was developed and used as a tool in a three-year project (2000 - 2003) for improving teaching and learning. Learning Study, which is built on a school-university partnership model, and is grounded in a theoretical framework of variation (Marton & Booth, 1997), was found to be powerful for teachers' professional development. In four years' time, Learning Study has spread from two primary schools to over a hundred primary and secondary schools, and over a hundred Learning Studies had been developed. Learning Study was also used in mentoring to facilitate the forming of a "learning community", to supplement the one to one mentor-mentee model, where the professional growth of all teachers involved was enhanced. In this symposium, we will illustrate how learning communities can be facilitated through engaging teachers in action research cycles of Learning Studies, in which teachers are empowered to learn from their students, from each other and from research as well.