This paper reports the outcomes of a 2-year research project designed to investigate the practice of assessment for learning by Hong Kong teachers. The project was a collaborative one, involving the School Development and Evaluation Team (SDET) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and teachers from 10 kindergartens and 10 primary schools. In the project, training programmes, workshops and meetings were provided to the participating schools for the purpose of enhancing teachers’ Assessment for Learning (AfL) competency in their daily teaching. A questionnaire was administered twice to all teachers in the project schools at the beginning as well as towards the end of the project to tap any improvement regarding teachers’ habits in utilizing AfL strategies in their classrooms. Results indicate that there is a remarkable improvement regarding teachers’ habits in utilizing AfL strategies during the study. It is recommended that more professional development programmes and school support for teachers should be provided for enhancing teachers’ AfL literacy in their daily teaching. Copyright © 2011 Hong Kong Educational Research Association.

This study explores kindergarten teachers’ understanding of, comments on their actual practice of giving feedback to children in Hong Kong. The research employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, with data being collected through questionnaires and interviews. The sample was chosen from the in-service kindergarten teachers who were enrolled in the teacher certificate course offered at Hong Kong Institute of Education during the academic year 2015-2016. Questionnaires were sent to 150 in-service kindergarten teachers and six teachers were interviewed. Finding indicates that many teachers have the basic understanding of using feedback. They can analyze the aims of giving students feedback not only from the perspectives of students, but also the interaction between teachers and students. However, they seldom explore it through the views from teachers. Teachers’ aims of giving students feedback are mostly for encouraging and it is mainly positive and appreciation. It is common for teachers to give motivational feedback in kindergartens, however, over-emphasize has its disadvantage. It is found that teachers encountered two problems. Firstly, teachers do not have adequate training about giving students feedback. Secondly, teachers lack follow-up work after giving feedback to students. Some suggestions for teachers’ development are made at the end of the paper. Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). All Rights Reserved.

This study investigated the effects of two vocabulary instructional approaches on Chinese EFL primary school students (n = 31) to vocabulary learning, extended and incidental instructions, with using a between-subject design. Student's general intelligence and initial English ability were entered as covariates. The extended instruction featured multiple encounters to vocabulary, providing opportunities to apply as well as encouraging active and deep processing. The incidental instruction featured natural exposure to the words and learning vocabulary through readings. The instructional effects on student's vocabulary knowledge were assessed by three measures: target word mastery, expressive definition as well as word association. Extended instruction showed an advantage in building up vocabulary breadth in students compared to incidental instruction. Both instructions seemed inefficient on enhancing depth of vocabulary knowledge. Implications of present findings are discussed and directions about future research are suggested. All rights reserved.

Early childhood is viewed as a fundamental stage of life in terms of physical and cognitive development; therefore, the investigation of pedagogy used in kindergarten and young children’s surrounding environment becomes essential. Play is being viewed as a central pedagogy in kindergartens of many countries, and teachers are considered as a vital element affecting child development. In Hong Kong, the importance of “Play” has been stressed for over 30 years; however, government reports and researches reflect the reality that learning and teaching in early childhood settings is deviated from the government’s expectations. In fact, kindergarten teachers face many challenges implementing play in their classroom. Factors such as parental expectations and school policy may discourage kindergarten teachers to further develop quality play time. Playwork is considered as the art and science of facilitating children’s play, and in this poster more about playwork and teachers as playworkers would be explored. Teachers will have a general idea on the benefits of having quality play time in early childhood, how playwork can facilitate play time, and strategies applying playwork theories in early childhood education settings. Strategies such as evaluating play values of different materials, creating playful environments and assessing play environment would also be mentioned. The intended results of this poster presentation are to increase teachers’ awareness in improving play quality in their classroom and to enhance their self-efficacy when hosting play activities. Copyright © 2017 The Education University of Hong Kong.

In recent years, universities in Hong Kong have attracted a large number of applicants from the Chinese mainland; however, despite sharing a common ethnicity with the locally born Chinese population of Hong Kong, these migrant students still encounter both linguistic and cross-cultural obstacles to their socialization (Gu 2011). Hong Kong students affected a particular Hong Kong style of code-switching between Cantonese and English (using Cantonese as a sentence base) to present a Hong Kong identity, through which to establish a group boundary (Gu, 2014). Putonghua is seen as an irrelevant language; to these students, not using Putonghua terms in daily intra-group communication is a means of establishing a Hong Kong identity, as opposed to a more generic Chinese one. Mainland Chinese students were found to have set up a Putonghua-speaking community at university, to resist the marginalized status of Putonghua. Furthermore, maintaining that American- or British-accented English is superior to other versions of the language, they practiced speaking ‘standard‘ English in order to establish an international identity, differentiating themselves from Hong Kong peers, who tended to speak Cantonese-accented English (Gu 2014). In addition to these two populations, there is a growing body of international students studying in Hong Kong, which makes the linguistic situation even more complex.With multilingual speakers sharing Chinese ethnicity but having different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, tertiary campuses in Hong Kong are unique multilingual settings, sites full of struggle in relation and response to governmental ideology surrounding multilingualism, public discourse emphasizing the use of English, and diverse language ideologies held by different language-based and cultural groups. As part of a larger project investigating the linguistic ecology of multilingual universities, this study, drawing on notion of symbolic competence (Kramsch and Whiteside 2008) and insights

This chapter presents a qualitative study of the language-related educational experiences of a group of immigrant mainland Chinese students in a multilingual university in Hong Kong. Drawing on interview data, this study explored the construction process of the language ideologies of these students and the social, contextual and interpersonal factors that may influence the construction. This study identified the problems and issues that Hong Kong university academics need to address in order to build a more inclusive learning environment to accommodate the language needs of these Chinese students. Furthermore, this study explored effective ways of maintaining cultural and linguistic diversity in the multilingual universities in an era of globalisation. This study provided implications as to how the immigrant students can employ the multilingual practices as a symbolic resource instead of as a disadvantage constructed by the institutional ideologies. Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.

國際化是現時高等教育界的一個重要議程和發展方向，也是主流評級機構用以評核大學的其中一個因素。各界對國際化的定義不盡相同。在香港，有意見指實施國際化目的就是為了強化「香港的特徵」，從而增加國際學生與本地學生相互文化發展機會。境外學習活動既可以提升學生多方面的技能，亦能讓他們獲得個人全面發展及擴闊全球視野。透過瞭解國際化的定義，以及一所本地大學在其國際化進程中為學生提供境外學習的經驗，我們可對香港高校學生怎樣在國際化中獲益有更深瞭解。 Copyright © 2017 香港教師中心.

The predictors of attitudes regarding academic plagiarism were investigated in Hong Kong secondary school students. The participants were 257 Grade 10 and 11 students who were taking liberal studies. Quantitative analysis showed that the students were unfamiliar with what actions constituted plagiarism. The best predictor of attitudes was the perceived descriptive norm regarding plagiarism (i.e., perception of the frequency of plagiarism in one's environment). We explain this finding by applying the cultural-self perspective and present our recommendations for teachers. Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.