The University of Hong Kong, an English medium of instruction (EMI) institution in the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, has embarked upon an ambitious program designed to strengthen the university's international profile. In support of this aim, a recent review of language education at the university recommended that measures be adopted to encourage the use of English in all courses as well as in professional and social settings (University of Hong Kong, 2004). This study investigates the challenges and prospects for promoting the participation of undergraduate learners in classroom discussion at the university. An ethnographic approach is taken as the study explores the experiences of a group of eight Economics and Finance students and two English language teachers as they participated in oral interaction within their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom. Data were collected throughout the entire EAP course via interviews, audiovisual recording of classroom discussions, classroom observation, documentary analysis, and questionnaires.
The study, grounded in Layder's (1993; 2006) theory of social domain analysis, adopts a multi-level investment perspective on participants involvement in classroom discussion. Learner and teacher investment in such discussion is therefore examined from various perspectives, including the individual, the interactional, and the institutional. The findings challenge previous research, which have portrayed Hong Kong learners as reticent to take part in classroom discussion. These conclusions lead to the development of a theoretical framework that reflects, from these different perspectives, the constraints and enablements to learner investment in oral interaction in the EAP classroom. It is argued that this framework has implications for promoting learner investment in classroom discourse beyond the language classroom. A series of pedagogical recommendations are proposed to promote investment in

This article reports on a qualitative study that explored the prospects for the promotion of collaborative relationships between English as a Second Language (ESL) and content teachers in Hong Kong. At the time of the study, the eight participants, four content teachers and four ESL teachers, were all teaching in English-medium secondary schools in Hong Kong. The study drew upon interview data to examine how the participants' construction of teacher identities can shape possibilities for collaboration between ESL and content teachers. The paper begins by discussing some of the key issues in promoting collaboration between content and ESL teachers, then draws upon the works of Wenger and Fairclough to describe a framework for understanding the construction of teacher identity in practice and in discourse. The framework is applied to reveal the major challenges facing the promotion of collaboration between content and ESL teachers. Implications for institutional change that might promote these collaborative relations are also discussed.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791003721622]

In this paper, we report on an inquiry exploring the experiences of 10 mainland Chinese student teachers of English so as to understand why they came to Hong Kong for a teacher education programme. The study revealed that these students were largely attracted to teaching in Hong Kong because of its extrinsic benefits such as professional stability, the prestige associated with the English language teaching profession and the opportunities to acquire valued skills transferable to other professions including English competence. Facing challenges as non-local students, they were also uncertain of becoming teachers in the new context. As 'elite' Chinese students were often unwilling to become teachers, we found it strategic to attract a large number of talented non-local students to the teaching profession and retain them. We conclude the paper with recommendations for various stakeholders to support these non-local students' adaptation and development as committed and competent teachers in local schools.
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A teacher shortage in Hong Kong in core subjects, such as English, has led to interest in the recruitment and retention of second-career teachers. Drawing upon Wenger's theory of identity formation and using data from interviews with eight second-career English language teachers in Hong Kong, this article explores how second-career teachers may be better supported in their professional development. The study found that second-career teachers' skills and experiences were not valued within their schools and that this was reflected in a rigid division the participants drew between the institutionally endorsed identity positions made available to them and the type of teachers they wanted to be. In response to this antagonism, second- career teachers used their position of non-participation to establish identity territories that connected aspects of their first-career identities, such as engineers and managers, to their emerging teacher identities. It is suggested that non-participation, a potentially negative experience in Wenger's framework, was deployed by this group of teachers to create the space they needed to enact their own preferred teacher identities. Implications for attracting and retaining second-career teachers are discussed.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660903052449]

Internationally, English is increasingly being adopted as the language of postsecondary education. In Asia however efforts by universities to promote the use of the English language both inside and outside the classroom may be threatened by the supposed reticence of Asian learners. This paper problematizes Chinese learners alleged reticence by examining how one group of undergraduates at an English medium of instruction university in Hong Kong were able to meet the demands placed upon them for participation in spoken activities within their English for academic purposes classroom. Interviews with students and teachers, classroom observations, audiovisual recordings of classroom interaction and documentary analysis were used to understand how students participated in classroom discussion. The results suggest that learners adopted particular oral roles and drew upon a range of resources in ways that enabled them to conceptualize participation in classroom discussion as, in part, the result of learner agency. Implications for classroom practices in content classrooms traditionally dominated by a transmission mode of teaching are discussed.
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