Effective professional development (PD) in teaching writing involves supporting teachers' knowledge of the writer's craft, including their thinking processes, linguistic knowledge and practical strategies for teaching these. Grammar-for-writing approaches support teachers' knowledge of how grammar creates meaningful effects in writing. While training initiatives support teachers' knowledge of writing processes, more is needed to transfer process knowledge into effective teaching. Synthesising writerly processes with grammar-for-writing strategies may support teachers' classroom practice. This article explores the development of a workshop for teachers on a novel imaginative embodiment approach for teaching narrative writing, which links imaginative thinking and linguistic knowledge. The article reports on a study with Year 5 international school teachers in Hong Kong and their perceived efficacy of the approach after trialling it in their classrooms throughout a narrative writing unit, with the purpose of informing future teacher training. Findings from semi-structured interviews showed that teachers perceived imaginative embodiment as supporting their insider understanding of writing processes through purposeful and specific strategies resulting in student improvements. However, unfamiliarity with the approach and insecure linguistic subject knowledge resulted in a steep learning curve. It is argued that imaginative embodiment training may develop teachers' understanding of, and strategies for, teaching the link between narrative imagination and grammatical choice, but training should cater to teachers' prior linguistic knowledge. Copyright © 2024 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The study aims at exploring cognitive factors that might have an impact on the effect of the use of ChatGPT as a writing feedback giving tool. Five Form four students in a Band two secondary school in Hong Kong participated in the study. In each meeting session, they were asked to write a writing task and revise it based on the feedback received from ChatGPT. To understand more about the cognitive processes involved when the feedback is processed, a stimulated recall interview was conducted after each revision process. In the fourth meeting, some questions regarding how they feel about the use of this kind of feedback were asked. Two factors were found to be related to the effectiveness of the WCF: (1) whether the feedback could be processed with understanding; (2) whether the learners can pay enough attention to the areas for improvement provided by the feedback the next time they write. Students generally value the use of feedback but admitted that sometimes failing to understand the feedback or pay enough attention to the language items targeted. Further research into the effect of ChatGPT as a writing feedback giving tool with variation can help teachers make pedagogical decisions to maximize the effect of the feedback. Copyright © 2024 The Asian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.

While recent research has examined cross-national curriculum and teacher preparation for second language writing, little research has investigated the influences of the pandemic and other social changes in preparing teachers to teach writing. The purpose of the study was to understand the preparation of teachers to teach writing, the factors that influenced pedagogical practices, and the changes over a five-year period during political and social changes in Hong Kong. Interviews with university professors indicated that there was limited time devoted to writing both at the university level and in primary and secondary schools. Instructors modelled process and genre approaches with the preservice and practising teacher, noting there was an increased focus on prewriting strategies in schools; however, there was little emphasis on providing feedback or revising texts. Language policies and exam pressure continued to influence writing instruction. However, signs of changing writing practices included teachers taking up process writing and formative assessment; a focus on the 21st century skills including technology use learned through the pandemic; and preservice teachers adopting more critical stances. Copyright ©2024 Taylor & Francis.

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that affects primary school students, which is difficult to tackle through traditional school learning due to limited resources. To this end, large-scale digital learning presents new opportunities to address the need for inclusive education. A unique challenge for students with dyslexia in Hong Kong is learning Chinese characters. In this article, we investigate whether students with dyslexia can learn the writing of Chinese characters independently in an informal learning environment. For that purpose, we developed a mobile application for learning to write Chinese characters with three different writing conditions. First, students learn new Chinese characters in Condition 1: Grid+Contour+Instruction . Then, students strengthen their memory of the learned Chinese characters in Condition 2: Grid+Contour . Finally, students retrieve the memory of the learned Chinese characters in Condition 3: Grid Only . Students with dyslexia demonstrated a significant improvement after practicing with the three-condition design. For example, they wrote much slower than students without dyslexia before the study but caught up over time. This study contributes an approach to facilitate the self-paced learning of students with dyslexia at scale. © 2023 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

Background: Studies have shown that word dictation and syntactic skills are significant predictors of written composition performance among Chinese children in elementary grades. However, there is a paucity of research on the bidirectional relationships between these two cognitive‐linguistic skills (i.e., word dictation and syntactic skills) and Chinese writing skills. Methods: This paper reports the findings of a 1‐year longitudinal study tracking the developmental patterns of Chinese writing among students in Grades 3 and 5 in Hong Kong. The participants were administered tasks involving cognitive‐linguistic skills (working memory, word dictation and syntactic skills) and writing skills (narrative writing and expository writing). Results: Multiple regression analysis revealed that word dictation and syntactic skills in Grades 3 and 5 were significant longitudinal predictors of Chinese written composition performance in Grade 4 and Grade 6. Syntactic skills, but not word dictation, contributed a significant amount of unique variance to writing performance after controlling for the autoregressor effect of writing. The results also showed that written composition performance in Grades 3 and 5 contributed unique variance to individual differences in syntactic skills in Grades 4 and 6, after controlling for syntactic skills in the preceding year and other cognitive‐linguistic variables. Conclusion: The patterns of results underscore the significance of syntactic skills in Chinese written composition in upper elementary grades and the bidirectional relationship between syntactic skills and written composition in Chinese. Highlights: What is already known about this topicChinese word dictation, syntactic skills and verbal working memory are the major types of developmental skills important in Chinese writing among children in elementary grades. What this paper addsThe longitudinal contribution of word dictation to writing performance across grades was mediated by the contribution

Objectives: It has been supported by various literatures that there is a relation between holistic processing and Chinese character recognition. The present study examined the relation between holistic processing of Chinese characters and literacy ability of Hong Kong preschoolers, in order to explore whether the extent of holistic processing is associated with writing or reading experience. Methods: Participants were 59 local preschoolers (37 boys, 22 girls). The literacy ability of participants was assessed by The Hong Kong Reading Ability Screening Test for Preschool Children (RAST-K); while holistic processing of Chinese characters was measured by adopting the procedures from Hsiao & Cottrell (2009) in a complete composite paradigm (Gauthier & Bukach, 2007). Results: In line with the previous research findings, preschoolers also showed holistic processing in perceiving Chinese characters. Specifically, K2 students were significantly more holistic than K3 students. Such discrepancy may relate to writing experience instead of reading experience since a negative correlation between holistic processing and writing ability was significantly observed. Conclusion: This study had a theoretical contribution on the study of Chinese writing difficulties among preschoolers. Educators and parents may help enhancing the writing ability of preschoolers by leading them to perceive the characters separately, i.e. weakening the holistic processing of Chinese characters. All rights reserved.

閱讀與寫作都和文本有關，可通過文類教學聯結從閱讀到寫作的教學。實用文是教材與評估中的主要文類之一，本研究採用「閱讀促進寫作」文類教學法進行實用文的讀寫教學實踐。此教學法以系統功能語言學為基礎，形成從閱讀到寫作的完整教學設計，已證實在英文寫作教學領域有正面效果，但在中文教學及閱讀的應用仍處於發展階段。本研究進一步設計相應的閱讀理解評量表，以香港非華語學生為對象，通過前、後測及訪談等研究工具，收集量化及質性數據。研究結果顯示，「閱讀促進寫作」教學法能提升中文第二語言學習者的閱讀表現達5.9倍，寫作表現進步達1.4倍，且實驗班的讀寫進步幅度均顯著優於對照班，證明此教學法能大幅提升讀寫表現，可進一步推廣及融入於課程設計。Reading and writing are key components of literacy education, while genre pedagogy can be implemented to connect the teaching from reading to writing. Practical text is one of the main genre in teaching materials and assessment. Relevant pedagogy and research should be conducted to provide second language learners the knowledge about genre, context, and function of language about practical writing. Based on the theories of systemic functional linguistics, the “reading to learn, learning to write” (RLLW) pedagogy has demonstrated positive effect of improving English learners’ reading and writing competency. For further development of genre pedagogy in different languages, there is a need to investigate the effect and feasibility of applying RLLW in teaching languages other than English. This article reports on its effect on Chinese as second language education through mixed-method case study research. It proved that RLLW can improve non-Chinese speaking students’ reading performance by 5.9 times and writing performance by 1.4 times higher than pre-test, while both significantly better than the control group. Research findings proved the positive effect of RLLW pedagogy and its potential to be implemented in curriculum. Copyright © 2018 香港中文大學.

Assessment as learning (AaL) puts students at the centre of learning and is considered a powerful alternative assessment approach that can maximize student learning. How it can be applied as a pedagogical and assessment tool in writing classrooms, however, is not clearly understood. Research on the implementation of AaL as a unitary concept in L2 writing classrooms is scant, particularly at the primary level. To fill these gaps, the study investigates the implementation of AaL in two Hong Kong primary writing classrooms from teachers' and students' perspectives, focusing specifically on the perceived benefits and problems. Using data gathered from interviews with two participating teachers and six selected students, as well as classroom observations, the findings show that the teachers' very first attempt to put AaL into practice reaped benefits for themselves and the students, but a few problems were noted too, which provide useful implications for practice and further research. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Adopting a case study approach with multiple data sources, this paper explores the ways in which rapport is built, and its impact on the learning process based on five successive writing support consultations between a native English-speaking (NES) tutor and her second language (L2) tutee in a Hong Kong university. With reference to the prepared coding categories, six strategies that realize the four key elements of rapport management were identified, namely greetings, small talk, the use of qualifiers and mitigation devices, first-person plural pronouns, praises and expressions of empathy, and open-ended questions. These strategies symbolized association, addressed face work and emotional reactions, and encouraged equity in the directive and tutor dominance writing consultations. Motivated by the harmonious relationship, the tutee gradually took a more active role in learning in different ways by asking questions, expressing an opposite view, admitting inadequate knowledge, reflecting on cognitive processes, and initiating small talk. The implicit impact was further reflected in her improved self-rating and the completion of the five consultations. Pedagogical recommendations for tutor training are made.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1038275]