The present paper tries to identify the societal factors and psychological factors that motivate students to have better performance in English as a second language and to postulate a theoretical model subsuming these socio-psychological variables to explain and predict the performance in English as a second language for Hong Kong students in Australia. Since the proposal of socio-educational model of second language learning by Gardner (1959), a number of studies have focused on identifying the potent factors in second language acquisition. Giles and Byrne (1982) emphasized the need to have variables intended to determine the perceived relationships operating between ethnic groups. Kraemer (1993) included ethnolinguistic vitality perception construct in her study on social psychological factors in the learning of Arabic in Israeli schools. 247 students of ethnic Chinese in the Sydney metropolitan area who were studying in weekend Chinese schools and 628 Hong Kong students who were studying in primary and secondary schools were sampled. Path analysis was used to determine the relationship between the performance of Chinese and English with societal and psychological variables.
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This study used item response modelling to develop measures of the development of proficiency in speaking, reading and writing English among Hong Kong primary students. Home and family background factors were identified that could be linked to higher than average levels of development in proficiency across two school years, from Primary One to Primary Two or from Primary Two to Primary Three. Participants were 2133 Hong Kong students and their parents, sampled from 140 primary schools that had employed a native-speaking teacher of English to work with the students. Higher than average improvement in English proficiency was associated with the students' attitudes to learning, their opportunities to use English in everyday life, access to books in any language at home and school, parents' level of education and parents' support of their child's English studies. The year level and gender of the student also interacted with home background factors in predicting development of second language acquisition.
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This paper presents a case study of how four teachers in one school adopted Learning Study in teaching Visual Arts in Hong Kong. The teachers found that the students at the primary level had difficulties expressing feelings through shapes. In 2003, they used the Learning Study approach to analyse teaching of this difficult topic. Each teacher taught the lesson and observed the lesson of the other three. A discussion, using student feedback, was held immediately after each lesson, aimed at improving the next one. A post-test was conducted to discover what students had learned. The result was good yet there were still many problems. In 2004, the same teachers taught the same topic with revision based on the outcomes of their previous lessons. There was more focus on using artists' artworks and students' expression of human figures. This paper will analyse materials and interviews from the Learning Studies to look at how to improve teachers' teaching of drawing. As drawing is central in children's art and the findings of this paper could be useful for other teachers in teaching visual arts.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]