Background: STEM education and research are increasingly emphasized by governments worldwide to foster national development and productivity, economic competitiveness and societal wellbeing. There is no exception in Hong Kong, with its desire to promote STEM education and to strengthen Innovation and Technology development in the future. Purpose: This study aimed to explore the STEM activities employed in primary students' STEM projects under the theme 'Living in a Smart City', and to identify what and how computation technologies were generally used and to examine the differences of computation technology used among project types and award levels. Sample: 168 project reports were collected from a STEM Fair with the following areas of content: the origins of the inquiry idea; scientific/STEM theories employed; inquiry process and testing methods implemented; findings and results obtained; difficulties encountered; and students' reflections. Design and methods: Content analysis on project reports and students' reflections was performed. The qualitative data were coded for statistical analysis, to explore the differences in the association of the STEM activities in the projects. Analyses were supported by students' reflections in the reports to explore students' computation experiences. Results: Most students worked on new device projects, and projects producing new devices were more likely to integrate technological activities. On the whole, science, engineering and mathematics activities complemented each other well, with less evidence of integration with respect to technology activities. Students gained valuable knowledge and got a sense of achievement from the STEM project work. Conclusion: It is encouraging to find that students were capable of integrating STEM activities to different extents into STEM projects. It is noticed that more emphasis should be laid on promoting the infusion of computation technological activities. More attention should also be paid on providing

The recent decades have seen enthusiastic calls for reconceptualizing English as a foreign language (EFL) education, taking into account the current socio-lingual status of English and how it is used genuinely for communication interculturally and internationally. However, a wide gap still exists between promulgation such as intelligibility over nativelikeness in pronunciation instruction and realities in the EFL classroom. The study investigated pre- and in-service teachers' cognition about accents and the incorporation of different accents in their classrooms. One hundred and sixty-six EFL teachers (89 pre-service and 77 in-service) from Hong Kong and Guangdong (a province in China) completed a questionnaire. Contrary to expectations, the teachers' overall attitude was neutral rather than positive towards General American (GA) / Received Pronunciation (RP)(1) associated with EFL teachers' accents and EFL education. Only two thirds of the teachers were certain about which accents to use and to teach in listening and pronunciation lessons (i.e. as many as one third were uncertain). Also, the participants were neutral about incorporating non-GA/RP accents into EFL lessons, with around one third objecting to doing so. Although no differences were found between pre- and in-service teachers' cognition, additional analysis revealed that teachers' individual background variables, namely teaching experience, self-rated language proficiency, and knowledge of sound systems (IPA for English; pinyin for Mandarin), have significant correlations with their cognition. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

With growing attention attached to young students' social and emotional well-being besides their cognitive development, social and emotional learning (SEL) has been increasingly researched in general school education over the past decades with its positive effects on academic performance reported. However, SEL research has not emerged in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning contexts. To bridge the void, the current research aimed to profile Hong Kong secondary school students' SEL competence level and examine the intricate relationships among the four SEL competence clusters (i.e. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social management) and English learning achievements. The results indicated an overall medium level of SEL competence among 315 secondary school grade level 3 students and suggested a gap between the students' high level of awareness skills and their medium level of management skills. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses confirmed two mediation paths, thus highlighting the seminal mediating role of self-management skills in enhancing the effects of self-awareness and social awareness skills on English learning achievements. Important implications are discussed. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

In English-medium instruction (EMI), English-as-a-second-language students will learn all/some subjects through English. Although there are a considerable number of studies which explore classroom interaction in Hong Kong (HK) secondary EMI schools, few studies have investigated EMI lessons which involve South Asian ethnic minorised students. These students share different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and they may not share a common first language with the teacher and other classmates. This study conducts a multimodal conversation analysis of science and mathematics lessons at a HK EMI secondary school, triangulated with interview data, in order to explore how the EMI teacher mobilises various resources to make discipline-specific knowledge accessible and cater for the different needs of all students in the classroom. This study argues that the process of enacting inclusive practices is a process of translanguaging which requires the EMI teacher to mobilise various available multilingual and semiotic resources and draw on what students know collectively for transcending cultural boundaries from the students' everyday culture to cultures of school science and mathematics. Copyright ©2021 Springer.

This paper reports on our inquiry into how language teachers' identities relate to their efforts to teach intercultural communicative competence. In the study, we collected data through in-depth interviews with and observations of 16 Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong's international schools. The analysis revealed that the participants simultaneously embraced multiple professional and sociocultural identities related to intercultural communicative competence teaching. Specifically, the professional identities included a Chinese language teacher identity and a school staff member identity, while the sociocultural identity comprised a Chinese culture bearer identity, a multicultural identity, a cultural transmitter identity, a culture learner identity, and a cultural bridge identity. These identities were found to compete with or reinforce each other in mediating the participants' efforts in relation to teaching intercultural communicative competence; different identities were often associated with different understandings of and approaches to teaching intercultural communicative competence. The findings suggest that language teacher educators need to recognise teacher identities as an important pedagogical resource when preparing language teachers for teaching in cross-cultural contexts. Copyright ©2021 Routledge.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how 22 preservice science teachers' (PSTs') beliefs about teaching socioscientific issues (SSI) changed after experiencing SSI instruction and reflection from both a learner's perspective and a teacher's perspective during a 12-week initial teacher education course. The study also explored the learning experiences associated with these changes. This study was conducted in Hong Kong, where the science, technology, society and environment (STSE) framework has been integrated into the secondary science curriculum but no SSI instruction is provided. Data were collected through learning tasks completed by the participants: (a) curriculum designs (pre-, mid- and post-course), (b) lesson plans (mid- and post-course) and (c) weekly reflective journals. Six profiles characterising teaching beliefs about SSI emerged from the data analysis. Qualitative analysis showed that the teaching beliefs of the PSTs had shifted from the traditional view that SSI should not be covered in science education to embracing SSI teaching. Three illustrative cases were used to capture key learning experiences and explore how these had led to a change in beliefs over time. These cases explained how PSTs' reflection on the why, what and how of teaching SSI to students can shape their beliefs about teaching SSI. The results have implications for the development of a closer alignment between PST beliefs and the SSI paradigm. Copyright ©2021 Springer.

This multiple-case study investigated the experience of three preservice teachers who attempted formative assessment (FA) strategies in their English as a second language writing class during their teaching practicum in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Based on data from 17 lesson observations and 24 interviews, the study examined the three teachers' implementation of FA strategies during cycles of pre-, while- and post-writing stages. Also analyzed are the teachers' reflections on and their mentors' and students' evaluation of their FA implementation. The study found the teachers could translate their understanding of FA principles into teaching and assessment strategies appropriately, but the school's accountability culture worked against their innovation. School mentors' open-mindedness and support to their FA attempts were found to be crucial. The findings are discussed centering on key issues in the relational, developmental and contextual dimensions of the teaching practicum and their impact on preservice teachers' practice and attitude. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier.

Understanding the language demands made on students can help teachers provide pedagogical support during critical transition periods, in turn helping English learners make a smooth transition to the next stage in their education. Through multi-stratal analysis of English textbooks in Hong Kong, this paper elucidated the differences in language demands made of students in different grades, particularly in terms of scope and complexity of choices in register and lexico-grammar. The analysis revealed two critical transition periods: the move from primary to junior secondary school and from junior secondary to senior secondary school. Different linguistic demands during these two transition periods require additional pedagogical support. Furthermore, this paper found a close correlation between the registerial progression indicated by the analysed texts and the learning targets for grades in the mandated English language curriculum. The lexico-grammatical progression revealed contributes to understanding the meaning of more complex stressed in the mandated curriculum. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier.

Aviation is an interdisciplinary subject that has influenced human development over the last century. Learning about aviation exposes students to principles of flight, language, earth science, aeronautical engineering, flight training and airmanship. In K-12 education, educators have started to encourage children to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects via aviation-themed activities to develop future scientists and engineers. This study investigated upper primary students' motivations to learn STEM via engaging in flight simulation experiences. The sample consisted of 345 10- to 13-year-old Hong Kong students from 8 primary schools. A modified version of the 31-item Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II) with four subscales with a focus on aviation was used. The relationships between intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy and peer support across gender and performance were examined. The data obtained were analysed using factor analysis and a regression model. According to our model, students are most strongly motivated by peer support, followed by intrinsic motivation, and they are least motivated by self-efficacy. As expected, our results indicate that a gender gap exists in aviation-themed STEM learning. These findings can help educators to better understand students' perceptions of aviation science and further develop related learning activities. Copyright ©2021 Springer.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the K-12 science standards of seven countries that have improved their engineering practices noticeably by integrating engineering and its elements into their science documents, namely, Australia, England, Estonia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States. For this purpose, K-12 science standard documents were examined vis-a-vis their inclusion and distribution of engineering and its elements across grade bands. Standards were analyzed through content analysis by employing the Framework for Quality K-12 Engineering Education. The results showed that the United States and to some extent Turkish standard documents had placed a particular emphasis on engineering. The number of standards relating to engineering is the highest in the United States and the lowest in Estonia. These standards across grade bands were distributed evenly in the documents of England and the United States. Science standard documents in early grades included few such standards. In light of the results, we discussed the extent and comprehensiveness of engineering integrated into the K-12 science standard documents and provided implications for integrating engineering elements into science standard documents. Copyright ©2021 Springer.