With the introduction of the new senior secondary academic structure in Hong Kong, in which Tourism and Hospitality Studies (THS) has been included in the elective curricula, understanding the effectiveness of the curriculum and its influence on the interests of students in further studies and in working in the tourism and hospitality industry is of great importance. This study collected data from 567 secondary school students taking THS and identified their study motivations, expectations, perceptions, and preferences with respect to the curriculum, as well as their preferences with regard to further studies and their future career. Results indicate that students chose THS because of their interest in the field of tourism and hospitality and in pursuing a career in the industry. Students preferred hotel management as the learning area both in THS and in further studies. Students also indicated their strong interest in pursuing a career in aviation and theme park management.
[Copyright of Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/iral-2014-0008]

Mentoring has been widely recognized as an important aspect of the professional preparation of beginning teachers. How mentoring is viewed bears important implications for how mentoring is to be practiced and experienced. This study investigated the views of mentoring held by mentors, mentored in-service teachers and university teachers in a mentoring scheme initiated by a university in Hong Kong. Ten pairs of mentors and mentored in-service teachers and three university teachers participated in in-depth individual interviews designed to explore their views of mentoring with respect to five themes: mentor selection and preparation; mentor roles and responsibilities; mentor-mentee relationships; the mentoring programme; and school-university relationships. The findings show that the dynamic interaction between mentors, mentored in-service teachers and university teachers shaped the learning opportunities for the mentored in-service teachers. This paper argues that teaching practice and mentored learning to teach play an important role in in-service teachers' professional preparation. To strengthen in-service teacher learning, key players in the mentoring scheme should attain a shared vision of mentoring for in-service teachers and work together to create an integrated curriculum for the learning of in-service teachers.
[Copyright of Professional Development in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19415250903115962]

This article draws on a longitudinal study of four Chinese students' English learning experiences during their college years and explores the ways in which EFL learning has influenced their sense of national identity. The study captures the changes they have experienced in constructing identities over a prolonged period in the context of mainland China where strong sense of national identity has been historically promoted and where there is currently unprecedentedly close interaction between local cultures and western cultures. Drawing on interviews and diary studies as the primary data source, this study identifies a three-stage development in the national identities of the college students that proceeds from initial admiration of English-speaking cultures, to antagonism towards alien things, before then reaching a stage of conciliation between the national and the global. The findings suggest that China's deeply-rooted culture of collectivism and altruism plays a role in shaping English learners' national identity and that the learners also demonstrate considerable agency in constructing national identities at different stages of English learning.
[Copyright of Changing English: Studies in Culture & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13586840903557076]

The rationale for this study is that students' views on their own learning play an integral part in their educational journeys. Students' voice has been gaining recognition as a vehicle for cultivating ownership of learning, restoring classroom dialogue, and developing strategies for school improvement. These benefits echo the pedagogical purposes of drama education. This study examines how a group of primary students in Hong Kong relate drama pedagogy to their learning in two curriculum subjects: Chinese Language and General Studies. Working with a group of primary students introduced to drama as a medium of learning for the first time, the researcher seeks to find out what aspects of the drama programme is seen by the students as pertinent to their learning in these subjects. The students generally found the Process Drama units more closely related to the learning in General Studies than Chinese Language. Factors influencing their views include the learning focus of the Process Drama work, students' beliefs about learning in these two school subjects, and the pedagogical approaches previously adopted in their school.
[Copyright of Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569780902868770]

This study aims to provide recommendations on school-based planning for the use of information technology (IT) to improve the quality of school education. Focus group discussions and case studies were conducted to collect the views of school practitioners on the need for IT in education and related areas of school-based planning. The results of this study indicated that schools in Hong Kong recognise the importance of Twenty-first Century Knowledge, the role of IT and the need for school-based IT in education plans. The schools put considerable effort into curriculum re-interpretation to accommodate the use of IT to improve learning and teaching, and have shown determination in their leadership to provide and manage IT infrastructure in response to the trend towards the integration of IT into school education. Four sets of school-based strategies are recommended to promote the role of IT in enhancing school education, namely the use of IT to foster the capability of enquiry learning, the promotion of self-regulated learning involving the use of digital resources, the use of digital student learning records to encourage assessment for learning, and the creation of a digital campus for effective learning and teaching.
[Copyright of Technology, Pedagogy and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759390903255627]

Standard Written Chinese is expected to be scripted or recorded in Putonghua expressions, the national lingua franca in China. However, due to the influence of mother tongue, Hong Kong students often unconsciously employ Cantonese dialect expressions in their writing. This paper introduces CPWrite, an implemented Web-based CALL package to help tackle this problem. The important functions of the software are to test and improve students' ability in Cantonese dialect recognition and Putonghua translation, at both lexical and grammatical levels. The underlying strategies employed by CPWrite can be applicable to converting authentic language to standardized formats.
[Copyright of Computer Assisted Language Learning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/call.16.4.367.23413]