The transition to primary school is stressful for children in Hong Kong, with students showing high rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms. To further understand this transition, the current study: 1) examined the utility of Pekrun's (2006) theory of achievement emotions for young children with limited control conceptions; 2) tested the theory in high and low competence subject areas; and 3) tested a mediational model predicting changes in children's achievement emotions over time from control/value appraisals and academic coping strategies. 242 children (age 5 to 6) from 11 schools in Hong Kong participated. At each of two time points (the third and last months of the school year), children were interviewed individually about their control/value appraisals, academic achievement emotions, and academic coping strategies. Control and value appraisals were positively associated with academic enjoyment and negatively associated with boredom and anxiety. The control by value interaction for academic anxiety was in the expected direction and marginally significant (p =.06). Results were stronger for the low competence areas, and the mediational model was significant for girls only. Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Internationally, there is growing concern regarding the insufficient preparation of teachers in mainstream kindergartens in terms of teaching for ethnically diverse children. As teacher educators, we are concerned about how to help kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong improve their teaching. In this study, we adopted the research approach of phenomenography to investigate the following research question: In what qualitatively different ways do teachers experience the teaching for ethnically diverse children? We conducted individual semi-structured interviews with 26 in-service kindergarten teachers. Four ways of experiencing were identified. Teaching for ethnically diverse children can be experienced as: adjusting instruction (A), expanding modes of expression (B), exploring new possibilities (C), and embracing inclusion (D). We recommend that teacher educators discuss our results with teachers in professional development programmes, making them aware of alternatives and appropriate advanced ways of experiencing such teaching. Moreover, our results also revealed the benefits that ethnically diverse children bring to all children. Copyright © 2023 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research.

This study investigated how English learners complete multimodal formative quizzes. Participants included 17,950 students enrolled in a mandatory English for Academic Purposes course at a university in Hong Kong. We retrieved data from Blackboard, a learning management system, and conducted a two-step cluster analysis to examine student self-regulated learning (SRL) profiles with the quizzes. We first identified five clusters of learners with distinctively different self-regulated learning patterns. Then, we performed a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to further explore their differences in SRL, in terms of start day, days started before deadline, differences in scores between first and last attempt, and scores in language learning activities. Our findings echoed those of previous studies on the relationship between self-regulated learning and academic success. This research enables us to better understand the needs of EAP students in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 International Forum of Educational Technology & Society.

Despite the significant research on the effectiveness and challenges of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the global COVID-19 pandemic, few studies have focused on the systematic facilitation of positive emotions by classroom teachers. This study aimed to identify the strategies that teachers of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) used during the ERT period, by interviewing 18 university English teachers in Hong Kong. Our results suggest that one traditional learning theory, the constructionist approach, played an unexpectedly important role in facilitating positive student emotions, as well as encouraging learning. Cognitively demanding tasks helped divert students’ attention away from the negative emotions they faced and towards their learning. Interactions also played an essential role in helping students learn and in reducing negative emotions. These results shed light on the significance of positive emotions in an online or ERT environment, with significant implications for university teachers who want their teaching to systematically promote positive emotions. Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is characterized by using students’ additional language (L2) as the medium of instruction of non-language content subjects. In recent decades, this type of program has been gaining worldwide popularity, especially in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) contexts, because of the assumption that it can facilitate L2 learning. However, this assumption may not be realized in many classrooms in EFL contexts, where both teachers and students are often not well-prepared to cope with the heavy linguistic demands to learn content and language simultaneously. Owing to a combination of sociopolitical and socioeconomic forces, Hong Kong has a rather long history of practicing some form of CLIL in secondary schools, in the form of English-medium instruction (EMI) education. Following some recent changes in the government’s medium of instruction policies, there are different models and practices of EMI in Hong Kong schools to accommodate students with different English proficiency levels and also the expectations of different stakeholders. This chapter will illustrate these different models and practices and discuss their implications and challenges for English language learning, content learning, and teacher education. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Individuals with higher financial capability not only have more savings, fewer debts and better lives after retirement but also exhibit higher life satisfaction, fewer depressive symptoms and more prosocial behaviours towards others. Unsurprisingly, financial capability has been regarded as one of the most important ‘life skills’ by parents, educators, spouses, employers and the community. Therefore, integrating financial capability into formal school curricula and students’ learning journeys is important. Existing practices have emphasised the relevance of saving and spending to financial education but distinguishing between investment and speculation and sharing and donating has been gaining attention from educators. Most existing programmes, international or local, have been limited because they have focused relatively less on (a) the behavioural aspect of financial capability (e.g., how to save and how to control impulse buying), (b) the pedagogical approach to engage younger children and support their learning and (c) whether they were able to improve the financial knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and self-control and gratitude of the recipients. To date, no financial education programmes have been designed for and evaluated with primary school students in Asia, much less Hong Kong. The goal of this dissertation was to develop a programme that was comprehensive in content, suitable for younger children and effective in improving children’s financial capability in terms of their knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviours. The programme was called ‘The 4S Programme’ because it targeted effective saving, wise spending, distinguishing between speculation and investment and sharing. The programme consisted of 10 sessions of 60 minutes, equipped with a wide range of interactive pedagogical activities, including discussion, games, role-play, case studies and experiential learning activities. The programme was also equipped with simple, take-home worksheets that involved