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 Primary English Reading Project, supported by the Hong Kong Government’s Language Fund, is a four year longitudinal project that aims to develop innovative reading programmes in primary schools in Hong Kong. The Project has adopted a collaborative approach to curriculum and teacher development in an attempt to create and put into practice a shared vision of how reading instruction can best support pupils’ reading in English. This paper will describe the strategies and processes that are being employed by the researchers and teachers as they strive to bring innovative change to teaching and learning processes within the classroom. Using data gathered through a questionnaire on teachers’ beliefs and practices in the teaching of reading, the writers illustrate the ways in which a collaborative approach to teacher development has influenced teachers’ and researchers’ understandings and actual practice in the classroom. The implications of employing collaborative approaches to teacher development as a means of translating vision into reality are discussed.