This article reports on a qualitative study that explored the prospects for the promotion of collaborative relationships between English as a Second Language (ESL) and content teachers in Hong Kong. At the time of the study, the eight participants, four content teachers and four ESL teachers, were all teaching in English-medium secondary schools in Hong Kong. The study drew upon interview data to examine how the participants' construction of teacher identities can shape possibilities for collaboration between ESL and content teachers. The paper begins by discussing some of the key issues in promoting collaboration between content and ESL teachers, then draws upon the works of Wenger and Fairclough to describe a framework for understanding the construction of teacher identity in practice and in discourse. The framework is applied to reveal the major challenges facing the promotion of collaboration between content and ESL teachers. Implications for institutional change that might promote these collaborative relations are also discussed.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791003721622]

While Western educators caution against contrived collegiality in the midst of enthusiasm for peer coaching as a form of teacher development, Hong Kong educators are struggling to detach discussion and observation of classroom teaching from staff appraisal. The challenges for this task are twofold: to secure a niche for peer coaching in the practice of staff development, and to ward off contrived collegiality in the course. Using an action research paradigm, the present project attempted to meet these challenges in two schools. As a joint work between various parties, the present project had to negotiate its way cautiously to achieve genuine collaboration and avoid imposition from the administrators and outsiders to the front-line teachers. During the course, innovative strategies were taken to cope with various difficulties, including time constraints, teachers' psychological pressure, and the possibility of contrived collegiality and implementation partnership. The evaluation of the project showed that the teachers generally accepted peer coaching and found it helpful to their professional development. The experience in the two schools indicated that true collaboration might emerge from organizationally induced collegiality under certain conditions.
[Copyright of Educational Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0013188011010xxxx]

The study that we report in this paper, named as learning study, is a hybrid between a design experiment as characterized by Brown and Collins, and a Japanese lesson study as characterized by Yoshida, and Stigler and Hiebert. This paper aims at tracing the development of the learning study and examining its impact on teacher professional learning, through the example of an empirical study conducted in Hong Kong. First, the notion of learning study is explicated, together with the related ideas of the lesson study approach, the teaching research group and design experiments. Second, an empirical study is reported, which documents how a group of economics teachers in Hong Kong worked collaboratively within the learning study model to improve student learning, and in doing so enhanced their own professional learning. Finally, the implication of learning study for teacher professional learning is discussed.
[Copyright of Teaching Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10476210500527915]

Mentoring may be seen as a process that helps student teachers become professional teachers. In this context, a variety of significant roles played by mentors have been identified in the literature. This paper reports on mentors' perceptions of the most important roles selected from a given list, as revealed through questionnaire and interview data. This analysis forms part of a large-scale evaluative project of a school-university partnership scheme initiated by the University of Hong Kong. The findings indicate overwhelming attention given to the role of 'provider of feedback', which stresses the provision of pragmatic advice given to student teachers according to their personal strengths and weaknesses. However, for those mentors whose perception of the most important role had changed over time, the direction of change was towards roles such as 'counselor', 'equal partner' and 'critical friend', which emphasize a more relational aspect of working together with student teachers to achieve professional development.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660500286267]