The key to successful of assessment reform depends on how teachers understand the concept and practices of assessment. Brown s (2003 & 2004) studies provided initiation for educators in this area. Different versions of Brown s questionnaire on teachers conceptions of assessment (TCoA-III) used both in Hong Kong and China rendered new insights and information into the wide range of conceptions and practices of assessment among Chinese practitioners (Brown, et al., 2006 and Li & Hui, 2007). These results showed that there might be fundamental difference in conceptions and practices of assessment between practitioners in a Chinese context and those in the West. Using interviews to tap into the minds of the local teachers, this study sets off to investigate the missing conception of assessment among Hong Kong teachers. Qualitative interviews were conducted among local practitioners of different backgrounds and subject specialists. The study is able to validate traditional, unwritten as well as unique conceptions of assessment held within Chinese teachers. Preliminary results show that there are cultural-specific as well as context-based differences. The former is illustrated by examples such as assessment as a way of promoting industriousness among students and assessment as differentiating brilliance in studying. The latter is supported by examples of using assessment to predict and boost the results of Territory-wide System Assessment which indicates individual school s standards in key learning areas for the purposes of school improvement. The results are helpful in revealing the possible cultural factors and their influences that contributes to the dissimilarities found in the conceptions and practices in assessment. It also provides insights of why these conceptions govern the ways in which assessment is practised in local schools. This missing link broadens our understanding about and allows us to better measure teachers conceptions and practices of assessment.

This paper examines teachers' quality teaching in the dynamic and contingent classroom setting through classroom anecdotes obtained during the author's most recent research project in Hong Kong. It raises the research question of how we should interpret the meaning of 'quality teacher'. Experiential stories of unexpected/contingent classroom moments have been obtained through teacher/student interviews and writing exercises (three schools with 20 teachers and 200 students participated), and interpreted using the technique of hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry. Emerged themes from the analysis show that quality teaching is creative and risk-taking; it is relational, embodied and normative, and culturally constructed. Quality should not be confused with qualifications. While people tend to understand quality teaching in the language of management and technology, this paper reminds us that we need to seek a broader understanding. Nonetheless, rather than finding new answers or solutions, this paper intends to raise more questions and allow reader to reflect further on this lasting topic of quality teaching and teacher qualities.

在教學環境中，如課室的擺設、學習情境、課程和選材、教師表現、學校行政措施和地區的教育目標等，都會影響學生的個人成長和學習愉快感，而鄭燕祥 (1995) 認為教師直接施行整個教育過程，他們對教育目標的達成起著重要影響。在探究教育是否成功時，教師的角色和功能備受重視，Burton (1991) 更指出教師對學生愉快地學習及達致最好的成果起著最大的貢獻。本文旨在探討香港中學班主任的角色和功能，和他們對學生成長和學習愉快感的影響。
[Copyright © 2000 朗文香港教育.]

Two teaching departments of a Sixth Form College in Hong Kong with teaching effectiveness are identified by the criteria of students consistently achieving value-added results for the past three years in the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examinations and relatively high students’ satisfaction with the teaching of the departments. Research was conducted to look at possible factors contributing to the teaching effectiveness of the departments. Strong leadership of department heads, outstanding management and good department climate such as high morale, professional interaction and good team work were found to be important factors leading to teaching effectiveness of the departments. Schools should attach importance to the above factors in order to improve teaching effectiveness at the teaching department level and teacher educators should develop skills of potential and serving teachers on leadership, management, and building good working relationship among colleagues.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

The Native English speaking Teacher Scheme is often wrongly termed an innovation, whereas in fact the involvement of expatriate teachers in the system is one aspect of Hong Kong Education “Then” as well as “Now” and “Tomorrow”. The broadening of the Scheme to the primary sector from 2002 is also nothing new, but it does pose some interesting challenges for the majority of primary schools where expatriate teachers have not played a role before. The Monitoring and Evaluating of the Native English speaking Teacher Scheme, the official evaluation of the mainly secondary scheme introduced in 1998, also explored the joys and frustrations of NETs employed in twenty local primary schools from 1998 to 2000. Since then what might be more properly termed innovations in the deployment of NETs have been introduced in the Tsuen Wan district and in the Government PSED Scheme. This paper draws on the results of the official NET evaluation and the successes of these other initiatives to identify possible pitfalls and issue pointers for potentially very exciting successes associated with the wider deployment of expatriates in the local primary schools.