The paper focuses on the development of teacher thinking, specifically L2 teachers' subject-matter cognitions, i.e. their Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) (see e.g. Andrews 2001, 2003). The study examines the evolving TLA, as it relates to grammar, of three teachers, each a graduate with more than 10 years' experience of teaching English in Hong Kong secondary schools. All three teachers took part in a previous TLA study conducted in 1996-97 (see Andrews, 1999a), when they were in their early years of teaching and had received no professional training. In the present study, these three teachers' TLA and cognitions about grammar were investigated once more (in 2004). The aim of this follow-up study was to tell the story of each teacher's evolving TLA and grammar-related cognitions. In both phases of the research a mixed methods approach was adopted. Data from the two studies suggested that the teachers' TLA and grammar-related cognitions had altered very little. Their underlying beliefs about grammar pedagogy and the role of explicit grammar teaching, and their knowledge about grammar (as measured by a test of LA) seemed largely unchanged. The main difference between the three teachers was in their interaction with the context in which they worked.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658410608668846 ]

This paper gives a contrastive analysis of noun phrases in English and Chinese. The syntactic features of the structures, the devices used to mark distinctions in number, case and gender, as well as the similarities and differences between English and Chinese relative clauses are discussed. Partly due to the documented differences between these structures in the two languages, and partly due to students' incorrect mastery of the target language, Chinese ESL learners in Hong Kong encounter a lot of problems with English noun phrases, including topic-comment structures, choice of relative pronouns in relative clauses, resumptive pronouns, and missing subjects. The paper attempts to find the sources of the problems and proposes a system of teaching priorities for the benefit of teachers and students.
[Copyright of Language, Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908310408666680 ]

The author points out that native Chinese speaking learners of English as a Second Language are found to choose the term "always" more frequent than the more proper "often" in their essay writing. In this paper, the author focuses on how the problematic usage of "always" can influence students' competence in academic discussion, and points out that grammar textbooks sight diagnoses of the problem and provide contributive treatments.

Investigating English grammar awareness and knowledge of 141 English as a Second Language teachers and teacher trainees in Hong Kong, the author compares the results between native Cantonese speaking and native English speaking teachers, and then relates the results to teachers' teaching experience and educational background.

The author examines the essays written by 40 S.6 students in order to compare how argumentative composition expressed in Chinese as the first langauge differs that in English as the second language, and finds that students express more effectively in their first language.