This paper outlines the changes in English medium of instruction policy in Hong Kong secondary schools since it became a specially administered region of China on 1st July, 1997. It gives a brief description of the background to the present situation, outlining the special place of English in Hong Kong schools and the reasons for the failure of policy initiatives in the past. The rationale for the present policy changes is critically discussed as are reasons for the resistance to change in certain Hong Kong schools as expressed by the school principals, the staff, parents and pupils. The paper concludes by examining the success of the present policy initiatives and examines the future of English medium education in Hong Kong schools.

Recent mega changes in the social, political and educational context of Hong Kong and the subsequent impacts on language teachers have put great demands on English teachers' effectiveness. Some of these irresistible changes are, for example, the implementation of TOC in primary schools, the proposed benchmark qualification assessment recommended in the Education Commission Report 6, the fast changing diversity in students' needs and ability due to the influx of immigrant children from the mainland, and most important of all, the insistent demands on quality teaching and learning of English despite a declining status of the language due to the change of sovereignty. Working in this changing environment, English teachers very often encounter unexpected challenges and great demands of effectiveness as professional language teachers. Responding to this, the present paper offers an emerging perspective to the perplexing question of how English teachers can function effectively in an age of megatrends. It suggests that to enable these ELF/ESL teachers to be responsive and adaptive to the megatrends in schools, the answer lies in a shift in the paradigm of teacher learning and development. The authors propose that English teachers should embark on self-learning while self-managing their work in schools so as to be able to face new challenges in the ever changing internal and external environment of the school. This paper attempts to apply the self-learning framework developed by Cheung & Cheng (1995 & 1996) to illustrate the concrete stages of how English teachers could engage themselves in an iterative process of self-learning. Cheung & Cheng's (1996) self-learning framework comprises two self-learning cycles: the Major Cycle and the Support Cycle. The Major Cycle consists of five sequential stages: namely, Environmental Analysis, Planning & Affiliating, Developing & Directing, Implementing, and Evaluating & Monitoring. The Major Cycle provides an overall mechanism for practicing

In educational settings, action research can be used in a variety of areas such as (1) teaching methods; (2) learning strategies; (3) evaluative procedures; (4) attitudes and values; (5) continuing professional development of teachers and; (6) administration (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000). Due to various reasons, there are few action research in schools and in higher education in Hong Kong (Li, Yu, Lam & Fok, 1999; Kember & Gow, 1992). Even in other place of the world, action research with empirical data is not much in teacher education (Ross & Bondy, 1996). This study is an investigation in using the KWL method to support teacher educators in conducting action research for enhancing learning of student-teachers as well as in continuing professional development of teacher educators in improving teaching skills, increasing powers of analysis, and heightening self-awareness of one's teaching. Participants comprised 32 student-teachers who were currently enrolled in a three year teacher certificate teacher education programme at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The KWL method can record "what they know (K) and what they want (W) before lesson" as well as "what they learn (L) after lesson". Records of their prior knowledge (K), their expectation (W), their learning (L) can be analyzed to explore the structure of their learning and its changes. All these information together with the data collected in the action research cycle (plan, act, observe and reflect) will give much hints and insights to the teacher educators to reflect on their own teaching.

Student teachers are concerned with discipline as in-service teachers do. The study aims to explore their knowledge of classroom discipline. The study is qualitative, descriptive and narrative in nature. The research method of unstructured interviews was employed to capture their professional knowledge of classroom discipline. Ten student teachers from Hong Kong were involved. Throughout the two-month period of their teaching practicum in Hong Kong secondary schools, three interviews for each participant were conducted. The study illuminates the classroom experience of student teachers and reveals that they found difficult to transfer concepts and skills mastered during their training to the classroom. Further, with the exploration of the convictions and meanings that have arisen from their experience, the initial findings enhance our understanding of their needs regarding classroom discipline. The implications to the professional development, future studies into discipline, and the promotion of positive classroom discipline strategies will be given.