Fluent speakers of a target language choosing to enrol in beginner-level courses at tertiary institutes could be considered unfair. In this paper, however, based on data obtained from in-depth qualitative interviews with 12 students at a Hong Kong university, we show that fluent speakers of Japanese – a widely-spoken foreign language in Hong Kong – were motivated to engage in learning activities during beginner Japanese lessons, as those lessons constituted 'safe houses' in which the participants shaped subversive identities against the perceived institutional dominance (GPA-oriented system) of the university and negotiated security. Our key findings related to the participants' L2 motivations are three-fold. First, perceived ease pertained to the participants' motivations to enrol in the course. Second, the participants were motivated to 'outsmart' the university's dominant GPA-oriented system and 'cash in' their accumulated effort to achieve fluency in Japanese, 'converting' it into good grades. Third, the participants showed motivation because they believed beginning Japanese lessons to be sites in which they could feel secure, due to being able to speak Japanese and extend their Japanese-related social networks. This paper concludes with implications for L2 motivation research and suggestions for language teachers who are faced with such fluent speakers in beginner-level language classrooms.
[Copyright of Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development is the property of Routledge.]

This article explores language ideologies and language uses in a multilingual university in Hong Kong by exploring the voices and experiences of both mainland Chinese and Hong Kong students. Drawing on the notions of language ideologies, separate multilingualism, and translanguaging, the research illustrates how students' linguistic ideologies are shaped by multilingual encounters in the educational setting and index broader institutional and ideological frameworks and examines the identity positions they construct and present and the social spaces they jointly establish. It also demonstrates that the multilingual university context provides students a site to establish a translanguaging space with hybrid language use in which linguistic resources are employed to perform a range of subject positions and to play a number of roles.
[Copyright of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2013.766148]

A major challenge for language teacher educators working in the area of teacher language awareness (TLA) is to develop pedagogical approaches that will go beyond merely enhancing L2 teachers' knowledge about language by enabling them to make the bridge between the declarative and procedural dimensions of TLA. This paper sets out to investigate the effectiveness of using online discussion forums to develop the language awareness of a group of student-teachers of L2 English in Hong Kong. Through content analysis of the 18 discussion threads initiated by these novice teachers, the research team found that despite the different reasons they had for posting their discussion topics, most of them had used extensively the e-learning platform to request help regarding the two dimensions of TLA, and that their reflections showed a strong tendency to move from the declarative to the procedural dimension of TLA. The study, though exploratory, has enhanced our understanding of learning to teach by opening up a small window for people to understand how TLA affected the teacher behaviour of this group of student-teachers during their teaching practice. The study also shows the research potential of using online discussion forums to understand teachers' language awareness development.
[Copyright of Language Awareness is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2012.680467]

In this article we share our experiences of using poems in teacher-training courses where the students are predominantly second-language learners. We describe how we tried to help learners engage with a creative text through its language and meaning. We share our experiences of helping to facilitate the open expression of opinions and feelings in L2 teachers (both inservice and preservice) on creative texts, specifically the poem "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke. The use of this poem and others like it in teacher education courses in three of Hong Kong's tertiary institutions has produced consistently impressive outcomes in terms of teachers' responses to poetry in general. We aim to illustrate a teaching strategy that emphasizes the reader as expert and to show how this process leads EFL/ESL teachers as well as English-language learners (ELLs) to experience more lived, esthetic responses as part of their coursework.
[Copyright of TESL Canada Journal is the property of TESL Canada.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://journals.sfu.ca/tesl/index.php/tesl/index]

Teacher-student interaction in classrooms is perceived to be crucial for learning. Previous research has compared the interaction in classrooms where a second language is used as the medium of instruction (MoI) with those where the mother tongue is used. This has been done mainly via qualitative impressions. The current study adopted a mixed method design to examine objectively and comprehensively the classroom interaction in a sample of Hong Kong secondary schools that used Chinese as the MoI from Grade 7 to 9, but then switched to English from Grade 10 onwards (i.e. MoI-switching schools). By doing so, this study aimed to identify the possible effect of a change in the MoI on classroom interaction and its potential for learning. Sixty lessons were observed in Grade 9 and 10 in three MoI-switching schools and compared to two schools where English was used throughout all the grades. The results show that, when the MoI changed from students' first to second language, lessons tended to become more teacher-centred and there were fewer opportunities for negotiation of meaning and scaffolding. These findings have significant implications for the relationship between the MoI and classroom interaction and provide important insights into pedagogy and teacher development.
[Copyright of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2011.588307]