This study reports on a longitudinal inquiry into professional identity construction among six novice cross-border English language teachers from mainland China, who completed their pre-service teacher education in Hong Kong (HK) and began their teaching practice in local HK schools. The findings indicate that the participants navigated obstacles in teaching by deploying their own multiple languages as a cultural and linguistic repertoire. The findings also show that the teachers experienced difficulty legitimising their professional identity in the teaching community, where contextual issues and power interplays mediated the process. Furthermore, it is found that the participants' commitment to teaching was negatively influenced by their non-legitimate position in the teaching community and the discordance between their teaching beliefs and the norms and values of their workplace. This study suggests that complex inter-relationships between marginal status in and legitimate membership of the community, between historical and cultural background, present practice, and future expectations, between social discourse and personal location, are involved in the process of identity construction. Measures to legitimate these teachers' position and to transform the linguistic and cultural repertories of these teachers into valuable resources of the local schools are suggested. Implications for future research are outlined.
[Copyright of Educational Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2013.801769]

A central issue in the class size debate is that while cutting class size might lead to improved teaching and learning, it is also possible that it may not if teachers do not seek to exploit the advantages of a smaller class size through an alternative pedagogy. Research suggests that teachers do not change their pedagogy when moving from large classes to smaller ones. This paper focuses on pedagogical practices in large and reduced-size secondary school classes where the teacher is the same in both contexts; a research design that has not been employed in previous class size studies. The paper explores the relationships between class size and the pedagogical practices adopted by four experienced teachers in Hong Kong who are each responsible for one large and one reduced-size English language class of the same grade level. Drawing on mostly qualitative data, this study's findings show that teachers did vary their teaching from one class to another with important differences noted in teacher-student interaction patterns, classroom organisation, the establishment of classroom rules and the teacher's use of humour. At the same time, interview data reveal that teachers could not always explain or theorise their pedagogical decisions. Implications for professional practice are presented.
[Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2011.653389]

Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers must be situated within the context of the practice of teachers and be relevant to their teaching and learning needs. A CPD project was conducted in a Hong Kong kindergarten class. For five years prior to the CPD project, the class had used a mixed curriculum of project approach topics and thematic units. The novice teachers, however, repeatedly expressed their concerns regarding the project work, including their lack of control over its direction. The author (the school consultant) offered to conduct a school-based CPD project at the kindergarten in order to enhance the teachers' professional development using the project approach. This paper tracks a novice teacher's professional growth and development through her experience in the CPD project. Specifically, the paper discusses how a project involving kindergarten children evolved in the classroom, as well as the reflections of a novice teacher regarding the project approach and CPD.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2012.722440]

There has been a substantial rise in the number of students enrolling in part-time taught postgraduate awards. This study investigates the reasons or motivation for students to spend significant amounts on tutorial fees and find time alongside work, family and social commitments to take a taught postgraduate award. Data were gathered through interviews with 21 part-time students in taught postgraduate programmes in Hong Kong. Students all held several motives for studying, so the outcome was a framework for explaining multiple interacting motives. Main categories of motivation were related to qualifications, current career, potential future career, interest, perpetual students and professional and social networks. Individual students displayed varying degrees of these motivations and the sub-categories of them. Students were able to specify their needs in terms of advanced specialised study, so enrolment satisfied a need for continuing professional development. The rise in taught postgraduate enrolments, in search of advanced specialised knowledge, seems set to continue as undergraduate degrees become broader and more attribute-oriented and the knowledge explosion makes it harder to reach the frontiers of knowledge.
[Copyright of Studies in Continuing Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2011.646979]

With the constructivist view of learning as a conceptual lens, this paper examines student teachers' professional learning in initial teacher education (ITE). A mixed-method study was conducted with student teachers of a Bachelor of Education Programme in Hong Kong. The quantitative element of the study reveals that student teachers held a constructivist conception of teaching and learning, and this conception was related to their learning experiences in different aspects of the ITE Programme, including the core components of the formal curriculum, informal and hidden curriculum, field experience and non-local experiences. The qualitative findings added further understanding of the dynamics and complexities of student teachers' development of the constructivist conception through learning in ITE coursework and fieldwork as well as their active construction of the professional artistry of teaching. Implications for enhancing student teachers' professional learning in ITE in support of the constructivist conception of teaching and learning are discussed.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2012.688549]