Music education is often regarded as an elite discipline in Chinese society, and pre-service teachers in early childhood education may lack musical knowledge and confidence in teaching music due to interdisciplinary teacher training. This study aims to explore the essential components of a quality responsive teacher education course in music for pre-service teachers in Hong Kong and evaluate the impact of six-hour training workshops on their self-perceived musical competence and music teaching confidence. The study employs a quasi-experimental research design and consists of six-hour training workshops in music to enhance pre-service teachers' musicianship and competence in conducting music appreciation, performance, and creative activities. This study answers two research questions based on the quantitative and qualitative data: (1) How will the training workshops impact pre-service teachers' self-perceived musical competence and music teaching confidence? (2) How will the musical competence enhance their music teaching confidence? The study employs a quasi-experimental research design and finds that the workshops significantly improve pre-service teachers' confidence in leading music activities and their perceived importance of children's music education. The study underscores the need for music training in early childhood teacher education and may offer insights into designing responsive music professional development courses for early childhood teachers globally. Copyright © 2023 ACE.

Music education is often considered an elite discipline in Chinese society, resulting in a lack of low confidence in teaching music among pre-service teachers in early childhood education. Additionally, teacher education programs in music often provide separate training in musicianship and pedagogical skills, leading to a gap between teachers’ beliefs and their teaching practices. This study aims to explore the components of a quality responsive teacher education course in music for pre-service teachers in Hong Kong. The study includes six-hour training workshops in music using a play-based approach to enhance pre-service teachers’ musicianship and competence in conducting music appreciation, performance, and creative activities. The study answers two research questions based on qualitative data: (1) How will the training workshops impact pre-service teachers’ self-perceived musical competence and music teaching confidence? (2) What are pre-service teachers’ perceptions of responsive teacher training courses in music? The study highlights the need for music training in early childhood teacher education and provides insights into designing a responsive music professional development course for early childhood teachers in the Chinese context. Copyright © 2023 AQIA.

This empirical study aims to enhance group cohesion, a critical factor for collaborative learning success and immersion in inquiry-based coding activities in a metaverse platform – Learningverse. The study involved two classes of Grade 5 students engaging in a two-hour coding activity, which required them to assemble robotics using VEXcode GO and a Code Base in groups. An inquiry-based learning consisting of ‘engage, explore, create, explain, evaluate’ was adopted in the instructional design. Class A (23 students) as the control group conducted the activity in a traditional classroom setting; while, Class B (28 students) conducted the activity across the metaverse platform and physical classroom settings in an immersive, seamless learning environment. Data collection involved log data in the metaverse, questionnaire on immersion, pre-and post-domain and interviews. The findings show that students in the experimental group showed a higher degree of group cohesion and immersion than those in the control group; and students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in conceptual understanding. The study sheds light on the potential of the metaverse in enhancing group cohesion and immersion which, in turn, helps improve group learning performance in an immersive seamless learning environment. Copyright © 2024 The Education University of Hong Kong.

To create a socially just teaching method in higher education (HE), we used Fraser’s social justice framework to create a new pedagogical method called student voice for social justice (SVSJ). SVSJ emphasizes student voice and empowerment by developing a co-constructed learning space where students can influence the procedure and content of the class. Applying a participatory action research (PAR) methodology, we explore the skill development of students engaged in SVSJ. Students highlighted five primary learning outcomes (self-learning, critical thinking, knowledge generation, cognitive development, and expression of voice) in the interviews as well as challenges in implementing the model. By employing SVSJ, students’ recognition and representation of their identity groups are enhanced, and the knowledge held by them is redistributed to peers and the lecturer through active participation. In addition, they are equipped with skills that can empower them in their education and future life. Copyright © 2024 The Education University of Hong Kong. All Rights Reserved.

Developing intercultural competence plays an essential part in language learning. This resonates with Halliday’s (1978) apt observation that culture provides meaning to language-in-use. Intercultural competence is a complex concept, including dimensions such as attitudes, knowledge, skills, and awareness (Byram, 2009). Cultivating students’ intercultural competence has become one of the objectives of language teaching, and a range of courses has been designed and conducted for preparing students to take an active part in the global world. As more college students are willing to work in multinational corporations or study abroad, language teachers play an important role in providing students with more opportunities to enhance their intercultural knowledge and skills.Based on Byram’s (1997) intercultural competence model and guided by the intercultural language teaching approach proposed by Liddicoat (2003; 2013), the researcher developed a course that seeks to cultivate students’ intercultural competence in four dimensions, attitudes, knowledge, skills, and awareness. One class of second-year English major students took part in the 12-week course with another class as the control group. During the course, students experienced a process which involved noticing, comparing, and reflecting through various intercultural activities. This study employed a range of methods including questionnaire, interview, and reflective journals, and it was found that students’ intercultural competence was improved, and the course showed significantly positive influence on the cultivation of students’ attitudes, facilitation of cultural knowledge acquisition, and the development of intercultural skills and awareness. Further analysis led to identification and detailed discussion of a range of aspects of the four dimensions of intercultural competence such as willingness to explore otherness and enriched knowledge of value systems and various intercultural skills.The study has shown an example

This folio is a collection of three separate research papers which includes one theoretical paper and two other empirical studies and each contribution can also be read as a stand-alone article. The overall aims of the folio are to revise the proposed vocational teachers’ workplace learning model and its practical application into teaching and learning in vocational education and training and to illustrate how vocational teachers enact vocational pedagogy developed from classroom-based learning. Moreover, the folio also further addresses vocational students’ learning in the work-based collaborative learning environment. Following the revised theoretical model of workplace learning, the two empirical research studies reflect on occupational pedagogy and teachers’ work-related knowledge and experiences in collaborative learning and adaptive instructions. The second paper mainly focuses on vocational teaching behaviours in facilitating practice-based teaching pedagogy concerning students’ occupational learning, which implied on the practical importance of collaborative instructions in vocational pedagogy and students’ participation in hands-on activities. The contribution of the third paper relates to the findings of the second paper, and the third paper contributes to vocational students’ learning patterns and learning participation concerning collaborative learning environments and adaptive instructions through dialogic analysis of classroom observations. These findings implies on interactive work-based learning in vocational teaching and learning relating to professional education, the vocational curriculum, and knowledge and experience. All rights reserved.

There are always concerns about teaching quality worldwide. However, there has not been any systematic qualitative or quantitative study in the context of immersion education, as a form of content-based language teaching (CBLT), about the content-language teaching strategies from content-trained teachers with differing levels of L2 respectively. This qualitative study aims at providing rich descriptions about the content-language teaching strategies used by three content teachers with different L2 levels in Hong Kong. Hence, the study can provide insights into whether there is a need to adjust the current requirement for the immersion education teachers in Hong Kong; such teachers are only required to have achieved Band 6 from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Also, with the traditional wisdom that good English means good content-language teaching, the study explored the possible relationships between Hong Kong’s immersion education teachers’ L2 levels and the content-language teaching strategies adopted by such teachers.The three teachers of the study had three different English proficiency levels: an advanced level, an upper intermediate level and an intermediate level respectively. The students of the three teachers were from the same high school class from a local secondary school in Hong Kong. The three teachers involved were from three different subjects but the teaches had similar backgrounds in terms of teaching experience, teacher training, specialised content subject training. The three teachers had not received any training about immersion education.As a constructivist grounded study, this research made use of lesson observation and also stimulated recall interviews. The lessons from the three teachers were not only observed but also recorded. There was lesson observation time equivalent to 5 single lessons (each lasting for 40 minutes) from each teacher; saturation was reached after the fifth lesson was observed from each teacher.