Empirical Research Background: This study investigates the performance of Hong Kong pre-school children aged from 3 to 5 in the area of number and addition. This is the first stage data reporting. Empirical Research Aims: It aims to establish a scale on number and addition competency for young children aged from 3 to 6, and to validate the number and addition competency of children in relation with the literature and the official curriculum guide. Empirical Research Sample: Ten children aged 3, 4, and 5 were sampled from 10 pre-schools in Hong Kong, with a total of 300 children. Empirical Research Method: Measurement scale and behavioural checklist on number and addition concepts were established for teachers. Empirical Research RASCH: Quantitative data analysis derived from the Rasch model for measurement for dichotomous data were used. Empirical Research Results: The Wright Map showed a general progression of the position of items along the measurement continuum and a gradual increase in the mean difficulty at each of the age levels from 3-year-olds to 5-year-olds. Irregularities showed that children master some concepts earlier than expected. Misfit items showed that there is an absence of curriculum among schools, or among levels. Empirical Research Conclusions: Abilities of children increase in accordance with age, and children master some concepts earlier. There are unlikely a share curriculum among schools.

This paper reports the perceptions of school principals, English panel chairpersons and English teachers of the new senior secondary curriculum (NSSC) in English Key Learning Area (KLA) in Hong Kong. Findings of recent research have reported dilemmas and challenges faced by school administrators and frontline teachers in undergoing curriculum change in areas of management of change, teachers' receptivity to and their readiness for the change and collaboration among the stakeholders. Drawing on these research findings the analysis of this paper focuses on whether such dilemmas and challenges exist in the enactment of change in the NSSC and the extent to which they are resolved. Using qualitative research procedures such as semi-focused interviews and lesson observations four key questions were addressed: the school personnel's understanding of the changes in the NSSC; the extent they feel they can implement the new curriculum; factors encouraging/constraining implementation; and the possible effects of change on schools. The findings show that though challenges exist in addressing the four areas, they demonstrate principals' and teachers' support for curriculum change.

Developing student's creativity is one of the important pedagogical issues of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Poetry is an art that can be expressed in simple language it can lead the child into a world of active imagination, in which the child can express his emotions and satisfaction (G. W. F. Hegel). This presentation shows how the teachers worked together to construct a series of well planned lessons to enhance the students' capability to write a simple poem. A Learning Study is premised on a conceptual framework which is based on the Theory of Variation, and builds on three types of variation: variation in students' understanding of a specific topic (V1); variation in teachers' understanding and ways of handling the object of learning' (V2); and the use of patterns of variation' as a guiding principle of pedagogical design (V3). It also reports the findings from difference sources of data including student interviews, pre- and post-tests data, classroom videos and observations. This study is taking the children's narrative poetry as teaching object in Primary 4 by using the Learning Study approach. First, the teachers and researchers analyzed the students' "poetry" and found out the difficulties faced by the students in writing poetry. During the research lesson, the teachers provided the students with the opportunity to read and appreciate different kinds of child poetry. The teachers also used the Variation Theory as a pedagogical tool to help the students master the skills of changing a simple passage to a piece of poetry. Finally, the students created their own poetry. This study showed that students of different levels of academic achievement can use their own experience to create very interesting poetry.

This paper reports the results of a pilot corpus study on English classroom teaching discourse in Chinese-medium, junior secondary schools (S1-S3) in Hong Kong with a focus on the nature of intellectual demand placed upon students in the classroom. Intellectual demand is defined in this study as thinking opportunities provided for students in the classroom, including recall and recognition, comparison, abstract reasoning, analysis etc. Intellectual demand cannot be observed directly. It is mediated through language use in teacher-student interaction in the classroom. A level of intellectual demand too far below the intellectual capacity of students in their L1 is considered a barrier to L2 development. The pilot study explored the issue of intellectual demand from a cross-lingual perspective. This perspective was taken because empirical evidence has proved that literacy skills in the L1 and L2 are strongly related, and are manifestations of a common underlying proficiency (Cummins & Schecter, 2003). Cross-lingual transfer is likely to occur in developing academic language proficiency, which is of prime concern in the study context. Cross-lingual transfer occurs between languages of the same family, and between remotely-related languages such as English and Chinese (see Geva & Wang, 2001). While there is continued need for high English proficiency personnel in the high-tech economy in Hong Kong, the transferable proficiency possessed by students in their L1 such as higher order thinking skills etc. did not seem to be taken into consideration in English curriculums or classroom practice, which was a major impetus of the study. A question, therefore, arose – can Hong Kong’s English language instruction take advantage of students’ conceptual maturity in Chinese and use it for the benefit of their second language learning? To undertake such a cross-lingual investigation, we used detailed classroom interaction data as a window to observe intellectual demand. Corpus approach

With the spread in popularity of the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years programme (MYP) and the International Baccalaureate (IB) in education systems world – wide, teachers are having to translate the curriculum goals into meaningful syllabus plans. This paper will summarise the challenges that teachers are feeling in effectively supporting the English language and literacy work that needs to be done in delivering this new curriculum. It will draw on a recent consultancy carried out by the HKIEd into the needs of international school teachers in Hong Kong.

Curriculum initiatives in both primary and secondary mathematics are nderway in Hong Kong. New visions of learning and teaching expected to be found in the new curricula would make new demands on teachers: to help students to investigate, to explore, to discover mathematics, to solve mathematical problems, to learn and to appreciate mathematical structures, to enjoy mathematics, and to prepare themselves for a rapidly changing technological world. Are the teachers of mathematics sufficiently prepared for the new curriculum ? Because teaching and learning is so complex, there can be many factors which influence students' achievement and attitude in mathematics. However, it cannot be denied that a teacher's classroom practices and his/her abilities in implementing the curriculum could be one of the many factors affecting students' chance of acquiring the relevant knowledge, skills and attitude. To enable an informed planning of the Refresher Training Course (Secondary) (RTC(S)) with particular reference to the teaching methodologies part offered to course participants taking mathematics as an elective, the general and specific teaching strategies acquired by some of the inservice teachers of secondary mathematics were studied. A questionnaire of two parts was constructed. The first part was intended to elicit the general practices by teachers, and the second part teacher activities relating to the specific strategies in the teaching of mathematical skills, concepts and principles. An unstructured group interview was conducted after each part of the questionnaire was completed, results collected, processed, and distributed. The first part of the questionnaire consists of open ended questions.The teachers were asked to state the most and least frequently used teaching strategies during their last two weeks of mathematics teaching. Only three teachers claimed to use the discovery teaching often and the rest teachers simply used exposition as the only means in order to cover

The early childhood period is associated with the fundamental movement phase of motor behaviors (Baddard, 1992; Sanders, 1992; Gallahue & Donnelly, 2003). It is a crucial period for subsequent learning development (White & Watts, 1973; Skinner, 1979; Kelly & Kelly, 1984; Opper, 1992) in the intellectual, social, emotional and physical aspects. In preschool curriculum, movement has been regarded as the essence of life and the course of all learning (Vannier & Gallahue, 1978; Graham, Holt/Hale & Parker, 2007), through which young children move to explore, discover, and to interact with the world and its myriad parts (Whitehurst, 1971). It is why the Guide to the Pre-primary Curriculum (The Curriculum Development Council, 2006) has emphazied the importance of “Physical Fitness and Health” as one of the six learning areas for young children in Hong Kong. The main purposes of this paper are two-fold. First, to keep pace with the contemporary trend of early childhood curriculum, an innovative teaching approach for preschool physical education will be introduced with the ultimate goal to enhance young children’s total development in body, mind and spirit. Secondly, through the Hong Kong experience in practicing the approach, the paper will discuss the educational learning outcomes of the preschool physical education curriculum to the whole child development, namely: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, moral, creative and aesthetic aspects. It is expected that the newly innovated approach will initiate new insights to preschool teachers in designing preschool physical education curriculum and remarkable movement to the development of educationally appropriate preschool physical education practice in Hong Kong.

Many school subjects in Hong Kong now have a component of school-based assessment (SBA) to enable a better judgment of students' performance. However, how SBA could be used at classroom level is often a concern to many teachers. Using three core school subjects, namely, Chinese Language, English Language, and Maths as the context, this paper discusses how school-based assessment could be implemented successfully in the classroom.

Hong Kong teachers anecdotally refer to the setback in students' abilities over the summer holidays. Numerous studies in America reported that many students experienced learning setback when they did not engage in educational activities during the summer holidays. This project aims to apply the Rasch measurement model from data collected as part of research and development activities of the Centre for Assessment Research and Development (CARD) to develop an English reading achievement scale. The scale is derived from linked testlets, which were administered to students in eighteen primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. These linked items will serve as the benchmark for students, and will be used to measure the growth of students in English reading achievement after periods of four months of learning, one school year of learning and the effect of the summer holidays away from school.

According to the Curriculum Guide issued by the Education Bureau in Hong Kong, English should not be taught as a formal subject and children should be EUR exposed' to it. This paper presents findings from a questionnaire survey and classroom observations on how teachers in Hong Kong preschools help children learn English. It examines the various ways teachers create a rich environment for the children to be exposed to English as a second language.