The recent decades have seen enthusiastic calls for reconceptualizing English as a foreign language (EFL) education, taking into account the current socio-lingual status of English and how it is used genuinely for communication interculturally and internationally. However, a wide gap still exists between promulgation such as intelligibility over nativelikeness in pronunciation instruction and realities in the EFL classroom. The study investigated pre- and in-service teachers' cognition about accents and the incorporation of different accents in their classrooms. One hundred and sixty-six EFL teachers (89 pre-service and 77 in-service) from Hong Kong and Guangdong (a province in China) completed a questionnaire. Contrary to expectations, the teachers' overall attitude was neutral rather than positive towards General American (GA) / Received Pronunciation (RP)(1) associated with EFL teachers' accents and EFL education. Only two thirds of the teachers were certain about which accents to use and to teach in listening and pronunciation lessons (i.e. as many as one third were uncertain). Also, the participants were neutral about incorporating non-GA/RP accents into EFL lessons, with around one third objecting to doing so. Although no differences were found between pre- and in-service teachers' cognition, additional analysis revealed that teachers' individual background variables, namely teaching experience, self-rated language proficiency, and knowledge of sound systems (IPA for English; pinyin for Mandarin), have significant correlations with their cognition. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

With growing attention attached to young students' social and emotional well-being besides their cognitive development, social and emotional learning (SEL) has been increasingly researched in general school education over the past decades with its positive effects on academic performance reported. However, SEL research has not emerged in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning contexts. To bridge the void, the current research aimed to profile Hong Kong secondary school students' SEL competence level and examine the intricate relationships among the four SEL competence clusters (i.e. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social management) and English learning achievements. The results indicated an overall medium level of SEL competence among 315 secondary school grade level 3 students and suggested a gap between the students' high level of awareness skills and their medium level of management skills. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses confirmed two mediation paths, thus highlighting the seminal mediating role of self-management skills in enhancing the effects of self-awareness and social awareness skills on English learning achievements. Important implications are discussed. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.

This multiple-case study investigated the experience of three preservice teachers who attempted formative assessment (FA) strategies in their English as a second language writing class during their teaching practicum in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Based on data from 17 lesson observations and 24 interviews, the study examined the three teachers' implementation of FA strategies during cycles of pre-, while- and post-writing stages. Also analyzed are the teachers' reflections on and their mentors' and students' evaluation of their FA implementation. The study found the teachers could translate their understanding of FA principles into teaching and assessment strategies appropriately, but the school's accountability culture worked against their innovation. School mentors' open-mindedness and support to their FA attempts were found to be crucial. The findings are discussed centering on key issues in the relational, developmental and contextual dimensions of the teaching practicum and their impact on preservice teachers' practice and attitude. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier.

Understanding the language demands made on students can help teachers provide pedagogical support during critical transition periods, in turn helping English learners make a smooth transition to the next stage in their education. Through multi-stratal analysis of English textbooks in Hong Kong, this paper elucidated the differences in language demands made of students in different grades, particularly in terms of scope and complexity of choices in register and lexico-grammar. The analysis revealed two critical transition periods: the move from primary to junior secondary school and from junior secondary to senior secondary school. Different linguistic demands during these two transition periods require additional pedagogical support. Furthermore, this paper found a close correlation between the registerial progression indicated by the analysed texts and the learning targets for grades in the mandated English language curriculum. The lexico-grammatical progression revealed contributes to understanding the meaning of more complex stressed in the mandated curriculum. Copyright ©2021 Elsevier.

There has been an increasing concern on teachers’ adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in their teaching practices. However, little has been explored about English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ ICT adoption. This study synthesizes the technology acceptance model (TAM), the value-expectancy theory, and a learning perspective to propose a model -for investigating ESL teachers’ continuance intention to use ICT in teaching. In the proposed model, motivational beliefs, ICT learning behaviors, facilitating conditions, and perceptions towards ICT use were put together to see how they worked together to influence continuance intention. Participants were 156 primary school ESL teachers in Hong Kong, who attended a teacher professional development program. Structural equation modeling showed that ICT self-efficacy and facilitating conditions were positively associated with continuance intention through perceptions (i.e. perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness). ICT anxiety had a negative effect, whereas interest had a positive effect on continuance intention. Growth mindset had a positive effect on continuance intention through learning of ICT (i.e. adaptive help seeking). Implications for teachers’ professional development programs are discussed. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

This study was to examine the individual differences in primary school students’ motivation (i.e. growth mindset, self-efficacy, and interest), self-regulated learning strategy use in English writing and the relationships between motivation, strategy use and English writing competence. Participants were 523 4th grade primary school students in Hong Kong. Although the findings showed a general pattern that the high achievers reported higher levels of motivation (i.e. growth mindset, self-efficacy, and interest) and self-regulated learning (SRL) strategy use than the average achievers, who in turn outperformed the low achievers, all the students showed quite a low level of interest in English writing. Interestingly, motivation impacted SRL strategy use very differently for students of different writing competence groups on the whole. Three-group Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) suggested that growth mindset had the strongest and most significant correlations with all students’ use of SRL strategies. However, interest and self-efficacy had different relationship patterns with SRL strategy use among the high, average and low achievers. Interest had no significant relations with the high achievers’ SRL strategy use, while self-efficacy had no significant relations with the low achievers’ SRL strategy use. Implications for English teachers to improve differentiated instruction are discussed. Copyright © 2021 Sage Publications Ltd.

Hong Kong was one of the first public school systems in the world to shift to online learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Primary and secondary school language teachers had to adapt instruction to cater to their students' diverse linguistic and educational needs. Drawing from the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DCE), the current study examines the experiences of primary and secondary school English language teachers' digital competence as they navigated digital resources, teaching and learning, assessment, and empowering learners in an emergency remote teaching context. Using a two-stage design, this study drew from qualitative survey data (N = 73) and follow-up interviews (N = 10). Findings illuminate how language teachers responded to their students' educational and linguistic needs in online environments. Notably, educators adapted their virtual instruction to cater to students with varying English language proficiency levels and leveraged both synchronous and asynchronous platforms to best support student learning. Moreover, the current study sheds light on how the DCE framework might be used as a tool to assess the digital competencies of educators and better prepare them for virtual teaching. It concludes with a call for more research on emergency remote teaching, particularly within primary and secondary language classrooms. • The current study examines the digital competence of primary and secondary school language teachers in Hong Kong. • The study uses a Digital Competencies Framework to understand digital resources, pedagogy, assessments and learners online. • Teachers engaged in strategic decision-making about synchronous and asynchronous technologies for instruction. • Teachers also reconsidered the purpose and process of lesson preparation, student engagement and assessments. • Implications for equipping teachers with digital competence through teacher training and ongoing development are discussed. Copyright © 2021

This study aimed to examine the relationships between motivational variables, self-regulated writing strategy use and writing competence with 511 fourth graders in Hong Kong. The high writing achievers reported a higher level of motivation, i.e. self-efficacy, task values (i.e. interest and utility) and growth mindset in English writing than the low writing achievers. The high achievers also used various self-regulated writing strategies more frequently than their low achieving counterparts. Self-efficacy and growth mindset were found to be almost equally important predictors of strategy use, while the impacts of interest and utility were weaker. The results indicated that self-regulated learning and competence in English writing can be improved through the promotion of motivation. This study highlights the influence of the social-cultural context on motivation. More importantly, growth mindset may emerge as a new research agenda in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) writing. Copyright © 2021 Routledge.

The critical mass of modern educational provision in Hong Kong has long been provided by the private sector. The public education system was created by the charities and religious bodies during the colonial period, though the government was later involved in the management of the system (see Choi & Kan, forthcoming, for the development of educational governance in Hong Kong). Thus, the presence of the private sector in ‘public’ schooling has long been the norm. When the educational privatisation trend, which started in the US and UK in the 1980s, reached Hong Kong, the government opened doors for further privatisation of public schooling, in the form of educational outsourcing. Educational outsourcing soon became prevalent: a document-based study on outsourcing in English teaching in a third of publicly funded secondary schools (Choi, 2018) showed that three-quarters of schools outsourced, with three contracts per year on average. However, the practice did not draw much attention from the public or scholars, in this ‘already outsourced’ education system (Bates, Choi, & Kim, 2019, p. 10). The lack of attention partly came from the fact that the introduction of educational outsourcing was subtle. It was conducted as part of a wider initiative of the privatisation of public services and occurred through system change rather than through legislation or policy. For instance, the Education Bureau (EDB), a counterpart of the Ministry of Education of some countries, instituted the School-based Management (SBM). The SBM allowed for schools to deploy their funds with maximum autonomy. EDB additionally created funds to support schools through outsourcing. Because English is recognised as a crucial social capital for securing higher education and prestigious jobs, schools mobilised the extra funds to purchase English teaching, making it the most popular area for outsourcing (Choi, Walker, Tang, Ko, & Chiu, 2018). Drawing on data collected through three interrelated research projects

Teacher feedback can be useful in helping English as Foreign Language (EFL) students revise their draft writing. Investigating how EFL students respond to various types of teacher feedback in draft revision has been regarded as an important field of study. However, such investigation is time-consuming and labour-intensive, which limits its practical application in EFL writing classes. To address this issue, this study was designed to explore an initiative to use a systematic method in tracking and analysing student revisions in response to teacher feedback. Firstly, an automated tracking method was proposed and applied to examine the technical feasibility of analysing the effects of teacher feedback on student revisions for 75 EFL undergraduate students from two Hong Kong universities. Secondly, the study explicitly sought to explore teachers’ perspectives on the automated tracking method by interviews. The quantitative results suggest that the automated tracking method can analyse teacher feedback and student revision with high accuracy compared to the manual analysis, while the qualitative results shed light on the benefits and limitations of the method. Overall, our findings provide a basis for further research on harnessing the potential of technology to support teachers in developing their professional feedback practice for EFL writing. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.