Mentoring may be seen as a process that helps student teachers become professional teachers. In this context, a variety of significant roles played by mentors have been identified in the literature. This paper reports on mentors' perceptions of the most important roles selected from a given list, as revealed through questionnaire and interview data. This analysis forms part of a large-scale evaluative project of a school-university partnership scheme initiated by the University of Hong Kong. The findings indicate overwhelming attention given to the role of 'provider of feedback', which stresses the provision of pragmatic advice given to student teachers according to their personal strengths and weaknesses. However, for those mentors whose perception of the most important role had changed over time, the direction of change was towards roles such as 'counselor', 'equal partner' and 'critical friend', which emphasize a more relational aspect of working together with student teachers to achieve professional development.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660500286267]

This article tries to explore some new direction for the in-service education of the teaching profession (INSET). The basic assumption for the present proposal of improving the lifelong professional development of teachers is that no substantial financial burden would be imposed on either the governments or the teachers. The present study was planned so that the data collected could be compared with two previous Hong Kong studies (Ho 1987, Ho and Chan 2000) done in the last 15 years. A questionnaire about INSET was designed for the study. Among the 2045 schools in Hong Kong, 102 schools (about 5%) were randomly selected for the study. Forty questionnaires were sent to each selected school for their teachers to complete. Fifty-nine schools sent back a total of 1363 questionnaires. The response rate was 58%. The results indicated that a great majority of teachers support the idea of partial pay leave as well as no pay leave. Governments and/or voluntary educational organizations are challenged to review their present policy of lifelong education of teachers.
[Copyright of International Journal of Lifelong Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0260137032000081511]

Substantial, broad and varied benefits can be gained from mentoring; however, the key to successful mentoring lies in the mentor/mentee relationship. The present study investigated the dimensions in the mentoring relationships that foster or impede the mentoring process between four kindergarten principals and four student-teachers in Hong Kong. The findings of the study support the view that relationship-building is critical in the mentoring process. The dimensions that may sustain an effective mentoring relationship appear to be a high comfort level, trust, openness, ongoing support, regular communication, and the mentors' expertise and level of commitment.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022404]

Reviews of teachers professional development show that it is a highly complicated area, in which it is difficult to offer a unified and comprehensive view of the growing development of teachers. This study looks into the development of teachers by tracking their practices in a problematic teaching area: 'learning through play'. Four Hong Kong kindergarten teachers participated in a qualitative study that investigated their implicit knowledge of teaching. The findings show that there is a close relationship between the informants' teaching approaches and their self-learning patterns. The result raises doubt about the staged developmental perspectives of teacher development. The significance of meta-learning ability, which is found to be an essential component for the professional development of teachers in a changing context, is revealed.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530701827764]

During 2001-2002 the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong undertook a large-scale evaluation of the school-university partnership scheme. As part of this study, all mentors were asked how, if at all, the mentoring process had enhanced their own professional development. An open-response questionnaire was administered with a selection of follow-up interviews. About 70% of the mentors claimed that they had benefited professionally from mentoring. Here we analyse mentors' responses and from them propose four constructs that we suggest lead to professional development, namely: learning through self-reflection, learning from student teachers, learning through mutual collaboration, and learning from university tutors. Of these, the first appears to be the most significant.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607470500043532]

A teacher professional identity scale was developed for Hong Kong in-service teachers to measure the professional identity of teachers. Most studies of professional identity have been qualitative. The present study tried to examine this important concept using a quantitative method. Based on various studies, one of the ways of understanding the professional identity of teachers was through teachers' roles and practices. This study described the procedure for developing a professional identity scale according to the practices of professional teachers. The final version of the scale included 19 items. Overall, this scale was found to be valid and reliable for measuring the professional identity of Hong Kong in-service teachers in both pilot and main studies.
[Copyright of Journal of In-Service Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13674580802003060]

This case study aims to discover how journal writing promotes critical reflectivity over time. Six non-native pre-service teachers of English as a Second Language (TESL) in an undergraduate program in Hong Kong took part in a 12-month study from the time they took Internship, which entailed a 2-week placement, to the time they completed Practice Teaching, which entailed a 3-week placement. Before the commencement of the Internship program and after the completion of the Practice Teaching course, the teachers were assigned to write about successful English teachers, understanding and expectations of teaching English in the context of local secondary schools. During the five weeks of teaching practicum, the teachers made daily journal entries freely on any topics they wanted. All entries were coded for topics and reflective traits, and further analyzed for changes in content. Results show that while most reflective traits in the free journal entries were located in the area of evaluating teaching, those in the assigned entries concentrated on theories of teaching. Post-coding interviews were held to allow the teachers to verify the codings and interpretations. Discussion in the interviews cross-validated the findings that the six teachers wrote reflectively and that they became more reflective towards the end of the courses, indicating less simplicity in their understanding of the multitude of issues of teaching. Such findings suggest that journal writing as a coursework assignment in pre-service teacher education program fosters teachers' critical reflectivity over time and promotes understanding of the nature, theories, and praxis of teaching.
[Copyright of Reflective Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1462394032000082268]

This paper presents the findings from a longitudinal study of teachers learning to teach English in Hong Kong secondary schools who were enrolled on the BA course in Teaching English as a Second Language (BATESL) at the City University of Hong Kong. The purpose of the study is to try to determine the extent to which the beliefs and knowledge of pre-service English teachers change between leaving secondary school and entering the teaching profession. A detailed questionnaire was completed by a cohort of student teachers as they began the course in 1994 and again upon graduation from it in 1997. The results of the comparison between the two administrations reveal that pre-service teachers' beliefs and knowledge are based on their experiences as students within the education system; are strongly influenced by their time in classrooms during practice teaching; but are changed relatively less by the training that they receive in their BA course.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500780308666843 ]