This article reports on the results of a qualitative interpretive pilot study investigating the role of comic strips on tertiary ESP learners’ motivation and discipline-specific language learning. The participants were 10 third-year students enrolled in two discipline-specific English courses at a university in Hong Kong. The results show that integrating multimodality through comic strips helped to transform the traditional delivery of instruction and also motivated and facilitated learners’ understanding of discipline-specific concepts and vocabulary. Participants also indicated that technology contributed to more student agency and fostered language creativity as they expended more effort in their learning. The findings suggest the need for ESP teachers to explore technology and integrate creativity and multimodality in the delivery of discipline-specific course content. Copyright © 2021 Asian ESP Journal.

There has been an increasing concern on teachers’ adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in their teaching practices. However, little has been explored about English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ ICT adoption. This study synthesizes the technology acceptance model (TAM), the value-expectancy theory, and a learning perspective to propose a model -for investigating ESL teachers’ continuance intention to use ICT in teaching. In the proposed model, motivational beliefs, ICT learning behaviors, facilitating conditions, and perceptions towards ICT use were put together to see how they worked together to influence continuance intention. Participants were 156 primary school ESL teachers in Hong Kong, who attended a teacher professional development program. Structural equation modeling showed that ICT self-efficacy and facilitating conditions were positively associated with continuance intention through perceptions (i.e. perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness). ICT anxiety had a negative effect, whereas interest had a positive effect on continuance intention. Growth mindset had a positive effect on continuance intention through learning of ICT (i.e. adaptive help seeking). Implications for teachers’ professional development programs are discussed. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

This study aimed to investigate parents' understanding of, support for and concerns about e-learning and proposed a school–parent partnership distributing responsibilities to parents and schools based on the results of the study. A total of 61 parents from 21 schools in an e-learning pilot scheme in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire survey and focus group interviews. Results indicated that there was a high correlation between parental understanding and support for e-learning although parents demonstrated only a basic level of understanding. Four types of parental support and six major areas of parental concern were identified. These results shed light on the school–parent partnership whereby parents should implement a proactive e-learning policy at home to monitor, support and inspire e-learning. Schools should formulate a holistic policy to address parents' concerns responsively and proactively to gain support. Schools can enhance parents' pedagogical understanding of e-learning and address parental concerns through school–parent communication and peer support among parents.
[Copyright © 2017 Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education.]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the complex, intricate relationships between the central (intended) curriculum, teachers’ perceived curriculums, and the enacted/assessed curriculum in classroom contexts. To do this, the authors have used Hong Kong’s new core senior-secondary liberal studies (LS) curriculum as a case study, with a special focus on its key pedagogical component – inquiry teaching/learning. Design/methodology/approach: This study’s objects are two teachers (from two local schools), each with a LS teacher’s education. Documentary analysis, lesson observation, and focus interviews were used to triangulate data for interpretation and analysis. Findings: The findings illuminate: how LS teachers’ perceptions of inquiry teaching/learning relate to and align with the advocacy embodied in the intended curriculum, the relationships between teachers’ perceptions and practices of inquiry learning and teaching, and how this aspect of the intended curriculum reform can be made more relevant to the classroom context. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the under-researched area of curriculum gaps and (mis)alignments in Hong Kong’s LS curriculum reform.
[Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited.]

The study investigated the phonological awareness abilities of Cantonese-speaking pre-schoolers with cochlear implants. Participants were 15 Cantonese-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) aged 3.08-6.10, chronological-age-matched with 15 children with normal hearing. Each participant performed 10 tasks evaluating different levels of phonological awareness abilities and phonological knowledge. The results showed that pre-schoolers with cochlear implants and their normal hearing peers had similar levels of syllable awareness, phoneme awareness and rhyme awareness. However, cochlear implant users showed significantly poorer performance on tone awareness and phonological knowledge tasks than their normal hearing peers. Cantonese-speaking pre-schoolers with cochlear implants were able to develop phonological awareness. However, the cochlear implants might not provide enough tonal information for children with hearing impairment for tonal lexical comprehension. Incomplete speech and language stimulation may affect phonological knowledge development in Cantonese-speaking pre-schoolers with cochlear implants.
[Copyright of Informa Healthcare. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2011.604428]

Objective. The reliability and validity of Stunkard's Figure Rating Scale (FRS) as a measure of current body size (CBS) was established in Western adolescent girls but not in non-Western population. We examined the validity and test-retest reliability of Stunkard's FRS in assessing CBS among Chinese adolescents. Methods. In a school-based survey in Hong Kong, 5666 adolescents (boys: 45.1%; mean age 14.7 years) provided data on self-reported height and weight, CBS, perceived weight status, and health-related quality of life using the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form version 2 (SF-12v2). Height and weight were also objectively measured. Spearman's correlation was used to assess construct validity, concurrent validity and test-retest reliability.
Results. Convergent and discriminant validity were good: CBS correlated strongly with weight and self-reported/measured BMI, but only weakly with SF-12v2. CBS correlated strongly with perceived weight status, showing concurrent validity. Spearman's correlation (r) for CBS was 0.78 for girls and 0.72 for boys indicating good test-retest reliability. Validity and reliability results did not differ significantly between senior and junior grade adolescents. Conclusion. Our findings support the use of Stunkard's FRS to measure body size among Chinese adolescents.
[Copyright of Informa Healthcare. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/17477166.2011.575146]

Despite its popularity in other countries, like America and Canada, peer editing is considered quite 'avant-garde' in the Hong Kong academic community and has never been a common practice in local secondary schools' classrooms. This paper will try to unveil the reasons why a number of Hong Kong English teachers are reluctant to use peer-editing. It is hypothesized that any positive experience of peer editing among teachers themselves is an impetus to use peer editing in class. Based on this hypothesis, a brief survey was carried out to examine a group of fifteen student-teachers' attitudes who had taken a second language writing course in a graduate school's setting, in which peer-editing activities of each other's work over six weeks, in six one-hour blocks, were conducted. Reservations concerning adopting peer-editing were observed among the student-teachers' future classes. All forms of resistance and reservations, according to the participants, were claimed to derive from external constraints. A closer look, however, suggests that none of these given constraints were purely external. Rather, I believe these teachers might have either been prejudiced or neglected 'locus of control', which refers to the possible control and power a teacher possess over their classes. This paper looks at both the teachers' personalities, characterized by skeptical beliefs in peer-editing, and the external constraints from the local social situations that contribute to the resistance and reluctance of teachers implementing peer editing in Hong Kong's education institutions.
[Copyright of English Language Teaching is the property of Canadian Center of Science and Education.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/index]