This study aims to investigate and compare the relationship between immersion and motivation in two different groups of student teachers who enrolled in an immersion programme. With a group of student teachers whose social and cultural backgrounds are different – one group is from Mainland China and one is from Hong Kong – though they both are of Chinese ethnicity and speak the same Chinese variety, the reasons behind their studying a postgraduate programme and going on an immersion can be different. The method of data collection adopted for this study was a qualitative paradigm. In-depth interviews, both pre- and post-immersion, were conducted. Participants were also encouraged to send e-mails to the researcher during immersion that reflected on their experience. Results show that Mainland participants were motivated by desires to enhance their pedagogical knowledge in EFL teaching in order to satisfy implementation constraints in their homeland. In contrast, Hong Kong participants were primarily interested in improving their language proficiency in order to satisfy the mandatory language assessment required for graduation. Both groups, however, saw cultural enrichment as their secondary reason for undertaking immersion, in that it allowed them to better understand the culture behind the language and thus become better English teachers. Copyright © 2019 Academy Publication.

This study studied the accent perception of a group of non-native pre-service EFL teachers in Hong Kong in order to see whether native English norm is of their preference for teaching and learning. Results found that participants all preferred traditional native English as learning model and seemed to have overlooked the principle of intelligibility, even there had been calls for using lingua franca core as learning model. Results show that participants all preferred using native English to be the model of teaching and learning. Among all the native English varieties, participants preferred the accent from the United Kingdom though not all could identify the accent they preferred. The study showed there was a mismatch between what the participants preferred and their ability of identifying accents of different kinds. Copyright © 2018 Academy Publication.

This longitudinal study investigates how in-service study abroad can improve the professional skills of teachers in regard to the strategies and attitudes they use to better motivate their students to learn English. The subject of this study is an in-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher from China who undertook a one-year teacher training course in Hong Kong and Australia, including taught modules, school attachment and teaching practicum. A series of interviews and classroom observations were conducted as the course progressed in order to collect the participant's views and practical strategies she plans to employ to enhance student motivation. Benefits of the one-year overseas training course are that the participant has become more sensitive to individual student potential, can more effectively tailor relevant teaching approaches to students' levels of understanding and will better comprehend that a teacher is of critical importance in motivating students to learn English. These three benefits, it is argued, will not only make the teacher more effective, but also tend to further draw out the potential in each student, resulting in better student performance.
[Copyright © 2016 Pedagogy, Culture & Society.]

This paper presents a two-year longitudinal study of a collaboration between four researcher-and-teacher pairs. The ultimate goal is to raise the quality of English language teaching in Hong Kong by first improving teacher understanding of language knowledge and language use and, then second, guiding teachers on how to adjust their English lesson planning accordingly. Methods used to evaluate the four teachers’ growth in understanding included comprehensive interviews at the beginning and end of the study, and stimulated recall interviews immediately following the teaching of the lesson. Findings indicate that teaching behaviours improved as a result of the collaboration. Areas of change included a deeper understanding of the concepts of language know-ledge and language use, a better balancing of language knowledge and use in lessons, a greater use of inductive teaching methodology, and a differentiated use of error correction according to the focus of the lesson – whether on language knowledge or language use. Factors contributing to change included the focus in discussions on pedagogical and content knowledge, as well as the collaborative, immediate and long-term reflective nature of intervention.
[Copyright © 2011 Centre for Language Studies, National University of Singapore. The article is available online at: http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v8n12011/wong.htm]

English language remains an important learning component of all university students in Hong Kong. Regardless of their academic interests, all pre-service teachers whose specialisms are not English are also compulsorily required to study English during their first year of university years. Does it mean these non-English subject trained pre-service teachers will be de-motivated to learn English? How do they respond to English learning even if they do not expect to teach English in the future? What learning strategies do they adopt during English lessons? In this paper, we attempt to look at a group of non-English major pre-service teachers' motivation to learn English. Through the research instruments of questionnaire and in-depth interviews with teachers and students, data are to be collected to analyse their motivation and attitudes to learn English.

Numerous studies have been carried out to investigate motivation; however, no research has been done to evaluate how length of stay has an impact on the second language learning pattern. This study, therefore, investigated how length of stay places impact on a group of Chinese immigrant students’ motivation to learn English in Hong Kong. It is hoped that an understanding of Chinese immigrant students’ motivation to learn English in relations to length of stay would have implications on current teaching and learning practices, based on the adopted motivational theory and that these would enhance learners’ motivation to learn English while adjusting to and integrating with the new learning environment.
[Copyright © 2008 Samara AltLinguo.]