Sixth-grade pupils in Hong Kong received a classroom intervention focusing on counter-argumentation using a heavily prescriptive approach. Four sets of scripts were generated by 82 students in their second language, English, on topics deemed familiar to them. Scripts were coded for argumentative elements and strategies. Findings revealed the students were able to generate a wide range of arguments including counter-arguments and rebuttals suggesting counter-argumentation can be introduced to second language learners at the primary level.

Adopting a case study approach with multiple data sources, this paper explores the ways in which rapport is built, and its impact on the learning process based on five successive writing support consultations between a native English-speaking (NES) tutor and her second language (L2) tutee in a Hong Kong university. With reference to the prepared coding categories, six strategies that realize the four key elements of rapport management were identified, namely greetings, small talk, the use of qualifiers and mitigation devices, first-person plural pronouns, praises and expressions of empathy, and open-ended questions. These strategies symbolized association, addressed face work and emotional reactions, and encouraged equity in the directive and tutor dominance writing consultations. Motivated by the harmonious relationship, the tutee gradually took a more active role in learning in different ways by asking questions, expressing an opposite view, admitting inadequate knowledge, reflecting on cognitive processes, and initiating small talk. The implicit impact was further reflected in her improved self-rating and the completion of the five consultations. Pedagogical recommendations for tutor training are made.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Taylor & Francis. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1038275]

Developing student's creativity is one of the important pedagogical issues of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Poetry is an art that can be expressed in simple language it can lead the child into a world of active imagination, in which the child can express his emotions and satisfaction (G. W. F. Hegel). This presentation shows how the teachers worked together to construct a series of well planned lessons to enhance the students' capability to write a simple poem. A Learning Study is premised on a conceptual framework which is based on the Theory of Variation, and builds on three types of variation: variation in students' understanding of a specific topic (V1); variation in teachers' understanding and ways of handling the object of learning' (V2); and the use of patterns of variation' as a guiding principle of pedagogical design (V3). It also reports the findings from difference sources of data including student interviews, pre- and post-tests data, classroom videos and observations. This study is taking the children's narrative poetry as teaching object in Primary 4 by using the Learning Study approach. First, the teachers and researchers analyzed the students' "poetry" and found out the difficulties faced by the students in writing poetry. During the research lesson, the teachers provided the students with the opportunity to read and appreciate different kinds of child poetry. The teachers also used the Variation Theory as a pedagogical tool to help the students master the skills of changing a simple passage to a piece of poetry. Finally, the students created their own poetry. This study showed that students of different levels of academic achievement can use their own experience to create very interesting poetry.

As part of a package of measures designed to enrich the English language learning environment in Hong Kong schools, the government has recruited up to 700 native-speaking teachers of English (NETs) to join the predominantly non-native speaking Chinese staff teaching English in the local secondary schools. To get an accurate assessment of the operation of the NET scheme, an evaluation project entitled The Monitoring and Evaluation of the Native-speaking English Teacher Scheme (MENETS) was commissioned by a language and research funding body of the government. This large scale research project, involving some 100 schools, employs three major methods to achieve its investigative purposes: assessments, questionnaires, and case studies. In this paper, the presenter will focus on the quantitative measurement of the ESL learners' spoken & written language production before and after increased exposure to a native speaker model.

This presentation will focus on how teacher feedback helps cultivate critical thinking skills and raises awareness in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. Analysis is based on data taken from verbal/written exchanges between teacher-student and student-teacher. Samples from students' work and teachers' comments will highlight the effectiveness of the process approach in developing L2 learners' writing skills. Practical issues such as ways of organising individual and group feedback sessions will be addressed. It also argues that dialogic encounters should be gradually scaffolded in order to maximise learning outcomes.

Grounded in the interdisciplinary educational work of Cultural Studies, this paper examines the pedagogical potentials of narrative and performance for the teaching of writing as a mode of public discourse. Guided to address a wide readership, students engage in critical communication aimed at linking self inquiry and narrative discourse to the contextual analysis of the social. Drawing on research findings derived from the undergraduate teaching of cultural criticism as a genre of public writing at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, we look at how educational drama mediates the work of narrative and performative acts involving the young learner-writers and contributes to the shaping of a dialogic mode of address and communication, thus articulating the process and impact of writing to the public-oriented discourse in Cultural Studies education. In light of such acts in critical discourse and imagination targeted at the potential reader, we show how the young writers' own engagement with critical thinking and communication are opened up by drama-in-education adopted in the class, and argue how, in this sense, both writing and its learning process become effective stages in the making of the kind of cultural criticism we want to help students to learn.
[Copyright of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2013.769747]