This paper studies the identity dilemmas of a teacher negotiating the tensions underpinning the transformations in the language profile of a Hong Kong primary school. Using a rigorous triangulation of written journals and in-depth interviews, the study reconstructs a case narrative personified as “Lily”, an English language teacher at “Lexis Elementary”, a school that previously struggled with low student enrolments. As a solution, the school now enrols students from Mainland China, where the spoken language is Mandarin rather than Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong. Resulting tensions arose because of transformations in the school’s language profile. Lily constructs the language terrain she negotiates in her interactions with cross-border Mainland Chinese and local Hong Kong parents and students, and her responses to interactions among students. This paper provides original conceptual tools to explain complex “born-again” sentiments that trigger people to act in reverse against the stipulated conditions of the powerful. The concept of “born-again reversals” connects to global literature on resistance against “language learning for economic benefits”. Insights from this study reconcile theoretical debates on using economic power as soft power, providing teachers with the conceptual tools to understand the identity dilemmas they experience with language planning initiatives worldwide. Copyright © 2023 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

本文對大灣區國際中文師資培訓課程概況進行介紹，並且通過線上問卷，對來自粵、港、澳三地的112位國際中文師資課程在讀學生（或稱準教師，包括本科生、碩士生和博士生）進行調查，瞭解他們的基本背景、對專業和科目的看法、對畢業後去向的想法、對課程和專業前景的看法等。通過量化的數據分析，我們可以看到粵港澳大灣區中文師資課程的一些共性，也可以看到不同學位等級（本、碩、博）和不同地區（粵、港、澳）的一些特點。我們再從二語師資教育框架，國際中文教育中的“三教”、“三基”和“三化”，以及粵港澳大灣區背景的機遇和挑戰等角度進行討論，反思這些師資課程未來的發展路向和改善舉措。 Copyright © 2023 香港教育大學.

Over the recent decades, the topic of spirituality and health has attracted increasing research interest. Teaching has been recognized as a multi-faceted demanding profession. Particularly, spiritual well-being plays a vital role in cultivating quality of life; yet there is limited research investigating the impacts of spiritual well-being on teachers' quality of life. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between teachers' spiritual well-being and subjective quality of life in the Hong Kong context. Based on previous research, there is no universal standard to determine an "average" degree of spiritual well-being. Therefore, individual spiritual well-being can be better reflected through both the "ideals" and the "lived experience." In this cross-sectional study, the sample consisted of 671 teachers from 22 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. Participants were asked about their ideals of spiritual well-being as measured by Life Orientation Measure and their lived experiences of spiritual well-being as measured by Spiritual Health Measure. The results of structural equation modeling suggested a difference between Life Orientation and Spiritual Health in the pattern of predicting psychological and social aspects of quality of life. This study further explored the associations between spiritual well-being and subjective quality of life by investigating the effects of discrepancies between Life Orientation and Spiritual Health in three domains, namely personal and communal, environmental, and transcendental. The results of the path analysis suggested that the discrepancies in the three domains significantly predicted the psychological and the social aspects of quality of life among teachers. Copyright © 2023 The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The shift from face-to-face teaching to emergency remote teaching has become the new normal due to the pandemic in 2020. However, little research has been conducted in Hong Kong to investigate pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the immediate adoption and delivery of online face-to-face teaching. In response to this call, the present research conducted a questionnaire survey with 48 pre-service teachers at a Hong Kong university to examine their perceptions of Zoom as a viable alternative to the suspended traditional face-to-face delivery mode of instruction. It also discussed key factors that lead to better online learning outcomes. The results showed that the participants had overall positive perceptions of Zoom-supported synchronous online education. The Zoom feature that most students considered useful was screen sharing on computers. Zoom-supported synchronous online learning benefited students by helping them to attend class meetings remotely, study course materials and content, communicate and collaborate with their instructors and classmates, and develop a sense of community and social presence. Four main factors may influence learners’ perceptions of synchronous online learning: the quality of online communication and collaboration, learning efficiency, learner autonomy and the usability of technology. Copyright © 2023 Laboratory for Knowledge Management & E-Learning, The University of Hong Kong.

Teachers’ emotions and well-being are critical not only for their personal and professional development but also for facilitating holistic development of students. With increasing risks and uncertainties from sociopolitical changes and the global pandemic, teachers are facing tremendous stress which has affected their self-efficacy. This cross-sectional study of 1614 teachers from 50 primary schools in Hong Kong investigates how teachers’ perception of emotional competences and their emotional labour strategies relate to their self-efficacy in moral and character education via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The results reveal that both teachers’ emotional competences and teachers’ emotional labour strategies are positively associated with teachers’ self-efficacy in moral and character education. Understanding the relationships among emotional competences, emotional labour strategies and teachers' self-efficacy may be the first step in intervention implementation and effective policy development that could improve teachers’ self-efficacy in their provision of moral and character education. Copyright © 2023 Intellect Ltd.

This study explores the readiness of pre-service primary school teachers in Hong Kong to develop future-ready learners. Societal advances require the education sector to continuously update curricula to prepare young people for the future. Schools must equip students with the flexibility to use technologies that have not yet been invented and solve unanticipated problems. In this qualitative study, we analysed the perceptions of 15 pre-service primary school English language teachers at a university in Hong Kong. The study focused on the knowledge and learning environment necessary for developing future-ready learners. Via semi-structured interviews, the findings revealed that the participants believed it is essential to integrate technology into classrooms to address future digital literacy needs. They also noted that students must develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and soft skills to succeed in the future. The findings also suggest that teachers need to be innovative and adaptable in their pedagogical approaches as the existing primary school curriculum is not cultivating learners’ future-readiness. Copyright © 2023 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Self-determination theory (SDT) posits that autonomous motivation is a critical condition for optimizing human flourishing. In the school context, autonomy-supportive teaching promotes student learning and well-being. In Asian contexts, however, an indispensable part of classroom instruction seems to relate to control, which is conceptualised as the opposite of autonomy-support. While some researchers interpret Asian teachers’ instructional practices as authoritarian, increasingly more studies have argued that children in collectivist societies indeed benefit from teachers’ ‘control’. Some researchers proclaim that autonomy support is more appropriate in Western contexts while control is more important among Asian teachers. However, other studies claim that the need for autonomy-support is universal. This chapter aims to address this debate by reporting a study of the teaching style of two Hong Kong teachers. The mixed-method study was based on classroom observations and interviews of two teachers regarding their teaching styles, and a survey measured the motivation of 67 junior form students who were taught by the teachers. The coding results of classroom observation indicated that the two teachers have largely embodied autonomy support in their teaching, and that minimal controlling behaviour was found in the teachers. Their classroom practice was dominated by fostering student interest, with relatedness support and promoting mastery learning orientation as the dominant features of the two teacher’s teaching styles respectively. The two teachers’ beliefs and practices showed a strong resemblance to Confucian philosophical ideas, demonstrating the characteristics of being altruistic (jen), self as relational, and self-cultivation. Their students’ motivation was almost equally high in terms of students’ relationships with the teachers, perceived self-efficacy, learning goals, and self-handicapping behaviour (reverse score). The results disagreed with the point of view

This study investigated 14 Hong Kong primary school teachers’ conceptions of and concerns about the implementation of integrated STEM education in primary school. Data were collected through concept maps and interviews with the teachers. Results revealed that in addition to representing STEM as simplistic models (e.g., STEM as an acronym), the teachers mostly seemed to model STEM integration conceptually using integrated disciplines, science as context, or real-world problem solving as context. Not many teachers were found to represent STEM using engineering design progress as context. Results also indicated that the teachers expressed intense concerns regarding personal inadequacy of STEM knowledge or skills (personal), student outcomes of STEM education (consequence), and limited instructional time (management). This study suggested providing sustained teacher professional development, creating supportive school environments, and building a collaborative STEM community as strategies to facilitate changes in teachers’ concerns and to advance STEM implementation in primary schools. Copyright © 2022 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.

Procrastination tendencies are prevalent and are associated with negative psychosocial outcomes. However, how preservice teachers’ procrastination tendencies prior to the COVID-19 pandemic link to their experiences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic have not been investigated. The present study collected data from three time points, examining how preservice teachers’ procrastination tendencies before the COVID-19 pandemic related to their life satisfaction at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their perceived work stress and the COVID-19 impact two and a half years after the outbreak of the pandemic. A total of 385 preservice teachers from Hong Kong were included in this study. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that preservice teachers’ higher procrastination tendencies before the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with lower life satisfaction at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in turn was linked to higher perceived work stress and a more severe COVID-19 impact two and a half years after the COVID-19 outbreak. The results indicated that preservice teachers with procrastination tendencies may be especially vulnerable to experiencing work stress and life disruption in the face of traumatic events or crises. The findings provide valuable insights to both researchers and practitioners, highlighting the importance of addressing procrastination tendencies among preservice teachers. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.