This study explored emotions and self-regulatory learning in postgraduate students, forced to transition to emergency remote teaching, at a Hong Kong university after the start of the academic semester. Self-regulation is a critical factor for successful online learning, and emotions are important antecedents of self-regulated learning. The study adopted a two-phase research design, with an initial online questionnaire (n = 52) followed by semi-structured interviews (n = 16) to gain a rich and holistic understanding of students' experiences. Our findings indicate that: (1) locating a suitable location to attend online classes and sharing problems with classmates were the two most frequently self-regulatory learning strategies employed by students; (2) students experienced some enjoyment attending online classes but experienced increased pressure and time commitment to complete assigned work; (3) students found online learning to lack a sense of community, making it challenging to interact with classmates. The findings suggest teachers need to incorporate various synchronous and asynchronous collaborative activities, and they need to increase their own and students' presence online to motivate and facilitate effective teaching and learning. Copyright © 2021 by the authors.

Due to it being generally regarded as an effective pedagogic approach, the flipped classroom has been widely applied in various disciplines in higher education in many places around the world, but has rarely been used in primary English education. This research investigated teacher and student perceptions of the impact, feasibility, and potential of the flipped EFL classroom by conducting a one-year project among 277 students and eight teachers in a primary school in Hong Kong. Teacher and student reflection, roundtable discussion minutes, and trainer observation and logs were employed as means of continual data collection. The results showed that the flipped classroom improved the teacher–student relationship and teaching and learning performance, and increased teacher and student motivation and confidence. This study demonstrates the high feasibility of using the flipped classroom for primary English education and its great potential for providing students with personalized learning, developing their self-regulated learning and active learning skills. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s).

This study presents a systematic review of previous research on e-book-based language learning. E-book-based language learning has been increasingly investigated in the field of language education, whereas previous review studies of relevant literature were relatively low in volume and incomprehensive from aspects of research participants and research perspectives. In the present study, we identified 52 relevant journal articles on e-book-based language learning published in the recent decade, coding them from three dimensions: methodology, e-book devices and features, and research issues and findings. The results indicated that: (a) most studies on e-book-based language learning were of a large sample size and one-session investigation; (b) pre-school children and university students were the most frequently investigated sample groups; (c) computers and tablets were the most frequently used devices; (d) multimedia, feedback giving, gamification and personalisation were the four features most frequently applied in enhancing the efficiency of e-book-based language learning; (e) researchers collected and processed data mainly through pre- and post-tests and group comparisons; (f) learning outcomes, learning behaviours and learners’ psychological states were investigated in most studies, whereby the findings indicated overall positive effects of e-book on language learning. Copyright © 2020 Laboratory for Knowledge Management & E-Learning, The University of Hong Kong.

In higher education, understanding discipline-specific vocabulary can be challenging. Insufficient vocabulary can be a major challenge for students as they begin their university studies. This study examined university undergraduate English language learners' discipline-specific vocabulary retention when they used an in-house developed mobile app, Books vs Brains@PolyU, in Hong Kong. A total of 159 second language (L2) students from four disciplines participated in the study, and they completed a pre- and posttest consisting of 120 words in four difficulty levels in their chosen disciplines. The results suggested that participants acquired more vocabulary words at the intermediate and advanced levels than at the beginner and elementary ones. The findings improve the understanding of MALL and vocabulary acquisition using apps to facilitate and support learners' academic studies. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).

During the past five years, the development of various technologies and the maturing of related education industries have never ceased, and the Hong Kong government continually invests into the comprehensive establishment of technology-enhanced education systems, especially those for English education. Here we then meet the point where the efforts of the past five years call for a panoramic view and an in-depth analysis of people's attitudes toward technology-enhanced language learning. This study investigated a total of 56 in-service English teachers' acceptance of technology-enhanced language learning and teaching. These teachers were from 56 different primary schools in Hong Kong. The results presented an overview of the current situation of e-learning in Hong Kong English education, showing insights into the future TELL design and development of related programs. Copyright © 2019 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Students from Mainland China are the largest group of non-local students for Hong Kong universities in recent years. To attract more Mainland students and smoothen their application processes, the admission policies of Hong Kong universities are becoming increasingly more compatible for students from Mainland by recognizing various qualifications and standard examinations (e.g., Joint Entrance Exam For Universities in PRC, College English Test and Test for English Majors). However, the quick increasing amount of Mainland students in Hong Kong universities has brought various social issues concerning arguments about the medium of instructions, Hong Kong-mainland contradictions and so on. To understand how the various policy text, this essay reviews the admission policies of Hong Kong universities and related issues from three aspects: institution categories, programme levels, and place of origin. Furthermore, research questions such as what broader politics surround the policy issue, which institutions/actors are involved in the policy process and what the outcomes are answered by employing the political system theories. The social problems related to the admission policies will be examined and discussed, solutions for which will also be proposed. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

The presented research discusses students’ perceptions, attitudes and expectations of a game-mediated vocabulary app. Throughout the development of the mobile app, continuous focus group interviews with students were held. The collected data were coded and analysed to identify common features or points mentioned by the students. The results showed that students highly value features like the story plot, graphic, vocabulary list and types of definitions for the design of vocabulary learning APPs. Based on these findings, the APP was further improved by adding synonyms, sentence contexts and extended definitions of the words. Our followed-up interviews indicated that students rated the improved version of the APP higher than the preliminary one. Such findings are consistent with Zou’s (2016, 2017) arguments that the availability of various aspects of word knowledge are conducive to effective word learning as it promotes greater degree of elaboration on the target vocabulary. Copyright © 2018 individual authors.

With such advantages as being fun, effective and interactive, game-based learning has become a new trend in education field. In the course Web Intelligence (INT 4029), one of the major difficulties for students to complete the assignment and to meet the achievement of the expected learning outcome is the lack of information literacy skills. To facilitate the development of students' information literacy, the present research developed a game based on an online role-playing platform called MEGA World. Twenty students participated in the project. Pre-questionnaire and postquestionnaire surveys were conducted to collect data concerning the students' attitudes towards the game-based learning experience. The results showed that students believed that game-based learning effectively facilitated the development of their information literacy. Copyright ©2018 Global Chinese Society for Computers in Education All rights reserved.

Hong Kong and Macau are two cities which share many common features. For example, both are located in south coast in China, colonies of European countries for more than a century, Special Administrative Regions (SARs) in China, small in area, etc. The main differences are obvious: Hong Kong is considerably larger in terms of population and land area, a key role in financial field, whereas Macau is a gambling-based economic and known as the "Las Vegas" in the East. It has been about two decades since the reunification of both Hong Kong and Macau to China. The political, social and economic environments have been significantly changed. One main change is that China now becomes the world's second-largest economy and more influential in the policy making of two SARs. This paper attempts to explain the differences and similarities of educational policy changes of primary and secondary schooling in Hong Kong and Macau in recent years. Since the educational policies play an essential role in many social issues such as shaping national identity, social justice, etc, it is important to investigate how are they changed in recent year and understand the implications of such changes. Copyright © 2018 IEEE.

Although Hong Kong government has done a great job in various areas for active aging such as social security, residential care services, community care and support systems, the English education for elders is a weak point. This paper analyzes the current situation of English education for elders in Hong Kong from four perspectives: barriers, motivations, styles and methods of English learning for elders. Suggestions, possible solutions and necessary actions are also proposed accordingly.