An overview is presented of a three-year project aimed at helping Chinese language teachers in Taiwan refine ways that Chinese, an ideographic language that differs markedly from alphabetic English, is taught in primary schools. Guided by university staff in Taiwan, Hong Kong University and a Taiwanese non-government social enterprise, 20 experienced Taiwanese Chinese language teachers visited Hong Kong, observed literacy lessons, held in-depth discussions with principals and teachers, and engaged in seminars that helped them reflect on ways to modify practice in Taiwan. Back in Taiwan, they tried out techniques witnessed in Hong Kong, shared their experiences with colleagues in and beyond their own school, and evaluated their relevance for language teaching in Taiwan. Experiences were exchanged via practical demonstrations of techniques, video-recordings of lessons, accounts of new ways to teach Chinese, interviews and progress reports on an Internet forum. The outcomes are an example of positive teacher change.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2012.722439]

Across cultures and eras, children have engaged in play as part of the process of growing and maturing into adulthood. Play has been recognized as an effective form of pedagogy to promote learning in the early years. However, beliefs about what play is and how it should be practiced vary across Hong Kong and in other countries. Because Chinese culture places a heavy emphasis on academic achievement, a play-based curriculum has not been widely implemented in the region. Through classroom observations and interviews with key stakeholders in early childhood education, namely parents, teachers, and principals, this study reveals the complexity of views on this matter and uncovers the root cause of the difficulties in supporting play in the Hong Kong kindergartens. These findings may help promote the play-based curriculum in Hong Kong and other countries where play is in crisis.
[Copyright of Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2011.599794]

This paper investigates the identity construction and language practice of a group of mainland Chinese immigrant students studying at a secondary school in Hong Kong, and explores the underlying reasons for, as well as the individual and group identities derived from, those language choices and practices. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the immigrant students and through observations in the school context, which focused on their views and attitudes concerning Putonghua maintenance, Cantonese and English learning and their perceptions of language ideologies in the school context. The marginalised position of Putonghua and its non-use in and out of classrooms reflects the social distinctions or language hierarchies found in the local school context. To resist the marginalised practice in the school context, the immigrant students employ their cultural and linguistic resources to establish and maintain Putonghua-speaking social networks and to imagine a proficient multilingual identity within the broader social context. The findings suggest that immigrant students should raise their awareness of language ideologies in the school context and recognise existing contradictions and discontinuities. It is also suggested that language ideologies could be incorporated into teachers' professional development.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2011.614350]

In the recent years, students' engagement has been the focus of concern in the US Various studies have found that students' academic performances were directly affected by students' engagement In Hong Kong, research on this topic has not yet been found This research aimed to find out how the behaviors of three primary school English teachers' affect their students' engagements The teachers were observed on how they presented their lessons on one of the units of the textbooks Each teacher chose three students as samples of this research Ways of data collection included: lesson observation, video-taping of classroom teaching, in-class tape-recording of the sample students, and interviewing the teachers and sample students
The findings of this research perceived the following six behaviors that were of vital importance to students' engagement: (1) Providing learning opportunities for students, (2) Roles of teachers, (3) Student-teacher dialogue, (4) Teachers' demand on students' understanding of what they have been taught, (5) Teachers' self-reflection while teaching, and (6) Teachers' expectations on students
There are three aspects of engagements: affective engagement, behavioral engagement and cognitive engagement Students display different levels of engagements due to their teachers' behaviors while teaching This research found that students' behavioral engagement is associated with superficial affective engagement but does not necessarily correlate with cognitive engagement On the other hand, cognitive engagement is closely associated with profound affective engagement It was also found that students' engagement is influenced by the following psychological factors: (1) autonomy, competence and relatedness of the Self Determination Theory, (2) self-efficacy, and (3) students' learning goal orientation In order to elevate students' engagement, teachers have to provide learning opportunities at a suitable level of difficulties for the students and at the