The greatest difficulty in educating pre-service teachers is cultivating their ability to reflect on the learning in course work and apply this reflection in their teaching. Many academic articles have shown that organised learning portfolios can help pre-service teachers reflect and improve their teaching. This study focused on 20 pre-service teachers who studied the Chinese Language Teaching Methodology I module of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). They were asked to develop organized learning portfolios for use in their study programme (the first phase) and during field experience when they practise teaching (the second phase). The aim of the study was to explore the content of pre-service teachers’ learning portfolios. The research methodology focused on document analyses of artefacts and reflection reports in the portfolios. The study found that the learning portfolios could help teacher educators understand what the pre-service teachers had learnt in the lessons and the problems they encountered. In teaching reading, most pre-service teachers grasped how to help students understand the content of the passages, vocabulary, and sentence structure. However, they still lacked confidence in teaching different writing skills and rhetoric, and helping students deepen their understanding of 146 passages. The study also found the pre-service teachers’ reflections were generally limited to analysing the strengths and weaknesses of lessons and seldom included suggestions for improving future practice.教師培訓課程最大的困艱是培養準教師如何將課堂所學應用在實際教學中，如何幫助他們從反思中學習。很多文獻指出組織學習檔案能幫助準教師反思，改善教學。本研究的研究對像是20 名在香港教育大學修讀「中國語文教學法 I」的中文科準教師，他們須在大學課堂 (第一階段) 和實習期間 (第二階段) 建立學習檔案。研究旨在分析和探討準教師的學習檔案內容。研究方法採用檔分析，分析檔案中的顯證和反思報告。研究發現學習檔案能幫助導師暸解準教師的課堂所學和實踐教學時遇到的問題。準教師能掌握讀文教學中的理解課文，釋詞和句式的教法，但部分準教師對形式和內容深究教學仍欠信心。研究又指出準教師的反思只側重分析教學的優點和不足，較缺乏提出改善的建議。 Copyright © 2018 The Education University of Hong Kong.

This study explores kindergarten teachers’ understanding of, comments on their actual practice of giving feedback to children in Hong Kong. The research employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, with data being collected through questionnaires and interviews. The sample was chosen from the in-service kindergarten teachers who were enrolled in the teacher certificate course offered at Hong Kong Institute of Education during the academic year 2015-2016. Questionnaires were sent to 150 in-service kindergarten teachers and six teachers were interviewed. Finding indicates that many teachers have the basic understanding of using feedback. They can analyze the aims of giving students feedback not only from the perspectives of students, but also the interaction between teachers and students. However, they seldom explore it through the views from teachers. Teachers’ aims of giving students feedback are mostly for encouraging and it is mainly positive and appreciation. It is common for teachers to give motivational feedback in kindergartens, however, over-emphasize has its disadvantage. It is found that teachers encountered two problems. Firstly, teachers do not have adequate training about giving students feedback. Secondly, teachers lack follow-up work after giving feedback to students. Some suggestions for teachers’ development are made at the end of the paper. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

The whole language approach is an important language theory in the West. In recent years, many kindergartens in Hong Kong have been implementing the whole language approach. To understand how this western educational concept is being implemented in the Chinese society, this research aims to investigate the current practices of teachers implementing the Whole Language Approach in Hong Kong. The study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods with data collected through questionnaires and interviews. 138 questionnaires were sent to experienced teachers. A total of six teachers were interviewed, and they were all experienced. Findings indicate that most of the kindergarten teachers have the basic understanding of the whole language approach. However, it finds that many teachers cannot fully implement the meaning of the whole language approach in it entirely. Further training for teachers is needed.
[Copyright © Scientific Research Publishing, Inc.].

The primary focus of this study is the use of portfolio development in an in-service teacher education course that aimed to help primary school teachers develop a better understanding of, and ability to implement, an innovative teaching approach--namely, task-based learning (TBL)--in Chinese language. It explores the impact of portfolio development on teachers' understanding of TBL and their views on portfolio development. The research employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, with data being collected through questionnaires and interviews. The findings showed that the portfolio development had a positive impact on teachers' understanding of, attitude to and confidence in applying TBL. The processes encouraged teachers to think through their practice, to become more conscious of their teaching. On the basis of the major results, this study suggests improvements for the future use of portfolio development for in-service teacher education courses and for teachers' professional development.
[Copyright of Professional Development in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13674580802295849]