The present study examines how gender is represented in the visuals (or illustrations) of two English Language textbook series used in most primary schools in Hong Kong. Instead of conducting frequency counts of the occurrence of male and female characters in illustrations or the spheres of activities they engaged in as in previous textbook studies, this study involves qualitative analyses of how visualised male and female characters are represented in the selected illustrations of the analysed textbook series in terms of their hair length and clothing. The results show that human females were more often portrayed having long hair than short hair and wearing dresses than trousers in both line drawings and photographs. For the colour of clothing, although blue and pink are generally considered ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ colours respectively, less than half and only a small percentage of the human males and females were portrayed wearing blue and pink respectively. For non-human characters, again, colour is not always a reliable cue to their sex. Yet, they can be recognised as males and females by the generally accepted ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ colour and clothing items.

Moodle的是一個開放源代碼的電子學習軟件平台，由馬丁‧多基馬斯（馬丁Dougiamas） 開發，其原意是讓教師們建立一個教師和學生之間線上課程的支援互動。近年來，Moodle 引起了香港教育工作者的注意，因為在2012-2013學年，香港的大學所提供的本科學位課程從三年制改為了四年制。基於雙軌制學年，形成香港教育學院的語言課程出現大班教學，導致普通話教師難以在課堂上照顧每位學生的需要，也造成很多其他問題。有鑑於此，香港的大學正在研作者：Moodle的對於提高教學質量方面的潛力。本文將以香港教育學院的進階普通話課程為例，探討下列兩個問題：1）在Moodle的平台上，如何運用各種的活動和資源；2）的Moodle課程如何提升學生的學習經驗。
[Copyright © 2014 臺灣華語文教學學會.]

Choral singing in Hong Kong schools has been developing for over four decades. Nowadays most of the schools own their choirs for performances and competitions. However, the teaching methods of choral conducting in Hong Kong are in lack of formal research and documentation. Many music teachers tend to work on their own without seeking for improvement through research, workshops, seminars and conferences at a large extent. Meanwhile, applying kinesthetic movement and gesture (KMG) has been advocated in other overseas countries for a period of time and significant teaching effectiveness has been noticed. After reviewing the relevant literature as a background, this study therefore aims at investigating the present situation of applying KMG in Hong Kong schools by a questionnaire survey. In addition, three semi-structured interviews were conducted to seek the opinions and personal experiences of three pioneer music teachers who have been applying KMG for 10 to 24 years. Findings from the questionnaire survey reveal that those music teachers who apply KMG in their choral teaching admitted that they found KMG very effective in various ways such as relaxation while singing. Furthermore, the three interviewees have provided a number of concrete examples of applying KMG in teaching children to understand musical elements, and developing their vocal skills and choral skills. These findings provide implications on how music teachers should teach in their choral activities.

The fast growth of digital technology, transportation system, and wireless communication networks in recent years has dramatically increased the contact of people from different countries and regions. Accompanying this is the need to have better understanding of different cultures to attain harmony among all walks of life for a concerted effort to develop the earth. As an important part of culture, music facilitates the multi-faceted understanding and knowledge of countries and regions. Western classics, which have long taken an important portion of the music curriculum, gradually got more companies from local traditional music and popular music as can be seen from the music curriculum of many places. Excluding these, to what extent music from other parts of the world is included in the music, educational, and cultural policies of china is worth investigation. This paper will focus on cultural inclusivity in the music curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong and Nanjing. Curriculum documents for various stages of learning from lower primary through senior high school levels would be investigated and compared. It will see how much cultural understanding may be brought about by the music curriculum. The depth and breadth of this cultural understanding would be analyzed and the transparency of purpose checked. There would be a review of the literature in an attempt to establish the basis for analysis of the curriculum documents. The inclusion of music from different parts of the world appears to be covered in relation to the domains of appreciation, performing, and creating, as well as cultural specific areas such as aesthetic sense, philosophical aspirations, and functionalities (context of the music). Implications for music education, teacher education, and policy-making regarding cultural inclusiveness would be deliberated to inform concerned music educators.

Similar to many other countries, creativity has been included in the arts education curriculum in schools of Hong Kong since 2003. in order to prepare preservice music teachers to cope with the requirement of the curriculum, a specific course titled “Creativity in Music” has been introduced to a B.Ed program at a major teacher education institution in Hong Kong. The course was designed with an outcome-based learning approach in which the learning outcomes of the students are clearly defined and assessed formatively and summatively. This presentation introduces the specific aims, content and assessment method of the course. A number of 30 final year music majors took part in the course from September to October 2011 and afterwards they participated in a field experience for their teaching practice in schools for eight weeks. They were required to employ collaborative creative music-making activities in their teaching practice. Semi-structured interviews with observation of video recordings were used to collect qualitative data in order to examine these research questions: to what extent the course could nurture the student teachers in teaching musical creativity effectively? And, what and how should the course be improved to further enhance the learning effectiveness in schools? The findings of this study would shed light on how pre-service teachers respond to an existing course in teacher education program and provide evidence on the effectiveness of such course. Implications for other countries’ references are to be made.

The most updated ICT in education policies in Hong Kong music curriculum are the music curriculum guide and the music curriculum and assessment guide implemented in 2006 and 2009 for primary and secondary school. Both curriculum guides emphasis the importance of the role of technology in the music curriculum. This paper focuses on the music software design from the perspective of Hong Kong music teachers’ pedagogical considerations. Most music software used by teachers today in their teaching is originally designed for professional or commercial usage, and little pedagogical considerations have been taken. While technology is gradually and increasingly integrated into music education, the absence of pedagogical considerations in the software design is an emerging problem. In order to understand the music teachers’ needs and expectations from music software, the purpose of this study was to investigate the most useful and desired features of commonly used music software from the perspective of music teachers’ pedagogical concerns. A simple questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were conducted with 15 purposefully chosen primary or secondary school music teachers in Hong Kong. Those teachers were chosen to included both primary and secondary schools, and both mainstream local curriculum and international baccalaureate (IB) program. Teachers recently graduated were particularly chosen as they have experienced the most recent pre-service music teacher training which incorporated the considerations of ICT in education. Results show that music notation software is the most popular software used for music teaching, followed by audio editing software and mobile apps. Choice of particular music software brand is up to the availability and personal preference from the music teachers. The main use of music software by teachers is for preparing teaching materials. Software mostly used during the music classes is mobile apps for the purpose of demonstration. Some of the desired

Since the reunion of Hong Kong and china in 1997, Hong Kong has changed its national anthem, education and language policy accordingly. This sovereignty transfer has manifestly brought changes at every aspect of local society, which undoubtedly reflects on the content and design of school curricula. As Putonghua, i.e. The official language in mainland china, has been taught in schools for sixteen years as an important measure to enhance the appreciation and understanding of Chinese cultural heritage and to endorse national identity, Putonghua songs ranging from the Chinese folk songs and the national anthem, to the popular song, Chinghuatze (written by the Taiwanese singer songwriter, Jay Chou), have become an indispensable music learning experience for many Hong Kong students. Integrating Putonghua songs into the general music curricula is part of the education and language policy in Hong Kong schools, how to construct and deliver an innovative and feasible Putonghua music curriculum to be enjoyed by music educators and learners becomes a major challenge and necessary undertaking. This project investigated the phenomenon of the learning and teaching of Putonghua songs in Hong Kong schools since the change of sovereignty in 1997. the principal investigator intended to study the current perception and impact of using Putonghua songs as part of the music curricula in facilitating the understanding and appreciation of Chinese cultural traditions by surveying 400 undergraduate and postgraduate music students (i.e. Potential future music educators in Hong Kong) followed by semi-guided interview sessions with some of those subjects. The perception and viewpoints of future music educators towards Putonghua songs were carefully examined and discussed in order to understand the challenges of the learning and teaching of Putonghua songs in the context of enhancing Chinese cultural exposure, values education and national identity in light of post-colonisation in current Hong