This study explores 16 non-native English teachers' beliefs and practices about pronunciation teaching in Hong Kong. Drawing on data from the teachers' written reflections and follow-up interviews, the findings suggest that these non-native English teachers understood the importance and goal of pronunciation teaching but appeared unconfident and ill-prepared in their teaching. Their lack of confidence was not only a result of insufficient training but also of their non-native English teacher status influenced by specific institutional and sociocultural contexts. Important implications for EFL teacher education and professional development are drawn. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

This study aims to investigate and compare the relationship between immersion and motivation in two different groups of student teachers who enrolled in an immersion programme. With a group of student teachers whose social and cultural backgrounds are different – one group is from Mainland China and one is from Hong Kong – though they both are of Chinese ethnicity and speak the same Chinese variety, the reasons behind their studying a postgraduate programme and going on an immersion can be different. The method of data collection adopted for this study was a qualitative paradigm. In-depth interviews, both pre- and post-immersion, were conducted. Participants were also encouraged to send e-mails to the researcher during immersion that reflected on their experience. Results show that Mainland participants were motivated by desires to enhance their pedagogical knowledge in EFL teaching in order to satisfy implementation constraints in their homeland. In contrast, Hong Kong participants were primarily interested in improving their language proficiency in order to satisfy the mandatory language assessment required for graduation. Both groups, however, saw cultural enrichment as their secondary reason for undertaking immersion, in that it allowed them to better understand the culture behind the language and thus become better English teachers. Copyright © 2019 Academy Publication.

This longitudinal study investigated the bidirectional relationships between executive functioning (EF), visual skills, Chinese and English word reading abilities in children transitioning to primary school. A total of 165 children in Hong Kong were followed from the third year of kindergarten (Time 1) (mean age: 62.80 months, SD: 3.74) to the first year of primary school (Time 2) (mean age: 77.25 months, SD: 4.60). Assessments for measuring EF, visual skills, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and Chinese and English word reading were administered to the children at the two time points. Results of cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that after age, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness were controlled, EF and visual skills exhibited a bidirectional relationship. Furthermore, EF and word reading in Chinese or English reciprocally predicted each other during the school transition period after other skills were controlled. However, visual skills and word reading in Chinese or English did not predict each other. These findings highlight the close associations between EF and visual skills as well as the importance of EF in learning to read Chinese and English in kindergarten and early primary school. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Financial literacy is a multicomponent construct comprising financial knowledge, attitude, behaviors, and well-being. Financial literacy in young people helps them to achieve financial independence and escape from intergenerational poverty. Recent assessments, however, reveal that youth financial literacy is unsatisfactory. Financial education should be provided for students during secondary school as a natural context in which to establish young people's financial literacy. Empirical evidence from randomized experiments studying the impact of financial education on secondary school students, however, is limited. To address this research gap, we performed a randomized experiment with 270 Form-3 (U.S. equivalent Grade 9) secondary school students in Hong Kong. Structural equation modeling (SEM) results demonstrated that objective financial knowledge, financial attitudinal variables, and financial well-being variables could converge into the latent construct of financial literacy, while all financial behavioral variables converged into another latent construct of financial behavior; of note, the two latent constructs were not significantly correlated. SEM results also revealed that our financial education program significantly improved financial literacy, but did not have a significant effect on financial behavior in the short term. These findings contribute to existing financial literacy research by facilitating more accurate measurement and detailing the near-term effects of financial interventions at the adolescent stage in young people. Copyright © 2019 The Author(s).

The presented research discusses students’ perceptions, attitudes and expectations of a game-mediated vocabulary app. Throughout the development of the mobile app, continuous focus group interviews with students were held. The collected data were coded and analysed to identify common features or points mentioned by the students. The results showed that students highly value features like the story plot, graphic, vocabulary list and types of definitions for the design of vocabulary learning APPs. Based on these findings, the APP was further improved by adding synonyms, sentence contexts and extended definitions of the words. Our followed-up interviews indicated that students rated the improved version of the APP higher than the preliminary one. Such findings are consistent with Zou’s (2016, 2017) arguments that the availability of various aspects of word knowledge are conducive to effective word learning as it promotes greater degree of elaboration on the target vocabulary. Copyright © 2018 individual authors.

香港推行十二年免費教育，很多殘疾學生，無論就讀於主流學校或特殊學校，都可以完成高中學習階段，而生涯規劃，也是學校教育的重點。在盡展學生的潛能的概念下，為殘疾學生提供的教育及訓練，有根本的轉變。殘疾學生的生涯發展需要，已由簡單的技能評估及訓練，超越至擴闊視野、引發興趣、設定目標、培養能力及體驗學習。不少研究指出，如能以殘疾學生的興趣及優勢，配合社區支援及自主學習動機，更能發揮他們的專長，有助他們融入社會及公開就業。講者將綜合近年支援殘疾學生的措施及經驗，介紹生涯規劃的內容及重要性，協助殘疾學生如何從學習到就業階段的準備，期望能結集不同的社會力量，為殘疾人士創造機遇，指出未來發展方向。 Copyright © 2018 殘疾人士就業能力研討會.

In Hong Kong, English instruction begins early and is delivered as a school subject in kindergartens. English teaching approaches are diverse and English Teachers’ background varies greatly among different kindergartens. It is acknowledged that teachers’ background may influence their pedagogical approaches and students’ learning. In the present study, we explore the differences between the teaching content and quality of instruction delivered by English teachers who are native speakers of English or non-native speaker of English. We compare their teaching content and quality of instruction based on lesson observations over one school year in 12 Hong Kong kindergartens. The findings have implications for future professional development in English teaching and learning in early childhood education. Copyright © 2017 ICLLL.

Many studies have found that the preschool curriculum in Hong Kong still reflects the influences of its social and cultural context that emphasises teacher-directed learning. Developing creativity in preschools requires teachers to change their familiar practices. A good understanding of teachers’ actual practices for facilitating creativity in the classroom is an important first step for educators dedicated to pedagogical change. This study aims to investigate the creativity-fostering pedagogy that teachers actually use in their classrooms to draw attention to the crucial aspects of effective creativity-fostering pedagogy in Hong Kong preschool settings. This study employed a qualitative research approach to explore and analyse the characteristic features of creativity-fostering practice in Hong Kong preschools with results presented in the form of case studies. Semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were used as data sources and content analysis was performed to examine the features and the effectiveness of teachers’ creativity-fostering pedagogical practices. Findings revealed that the three Chinese teachers held similar perspectives about creativity-fostering pedagogies and their perspectives were mainly rooted in Western pedagogies. However, the three cases demonstrated the different interpretation of these pedagogical perspectives, ranging from being strongly teacher-directed to strongly child-centred. A balance between teacher-directed and child-centred was found to be more effective pedagogic practice in the Chinese classroom. Results suggested that different creativity-fostering pedagogies might work for certain contexts and certain children and an awareness of both cultural and contextual appropriateness is important for creativity reform. Copyright © 2018 The Asian Conference on Education.

Research suggests that teachers’ self-efficacy improves student learning and academic achievement (Caprara, Barnabelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006; Woolfolk, Hoy, & Davis, 2006) by enhancing students’ sense of efficacy (Lin, Gorrell, & Taylor, 2002) and strengthening their motivation to learn (Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989). Within the context of citizenship education (CE), teachers’ self-efficacy generates many benefits, which take on different meanings. Recently, many youth in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea have been become radically active citizens. The question remains as to what roles schools and teachers play in students’ political socialization. Combining ICCS 2009 teacher and student data, this study is to examine on teacher self “efficacy have affected student civic learning, participation in school activities and intention to participation in future among these countries. According to the primarily findings, in Hong Kong, teachers’ participation in school governance has affected students’ civic knowledge; gender has affected students’ civic participation in the wider community and students’ expected adult participation in political activities, and teachers’ perceptions of social problems at school have affected on students’ expected adult electoral participation. In Taiwan, teacher self-efficacy has not affected student civic learning, participation in school activities and intention to participation in future. In Korea, teachers’ perceptions of students’ activities in the community have affected on students’ civic knowledge. Teachers’ perceptions of social problems at school have affected students’ participation in school activities. Copyright © 2017 13th citized International Conference.