This article reports on an exploratory study on developing and adopting a ‘Virtual Go Mode’ feature embedded in a mobile vocabulary learning app, VocabGo, to enhance students’ vocabulary learning engagement. Distinguished from other virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) applications, the Virtual Go Mode is designed for students to practice and consolidate their newly learned words via virtual location-based tasks with 360° Google Street View or pre-photographed panoramas. Google Cloud Vision, using an AI model, is embedded to identify objects and their corresponding tasks for students. A total of 15 primary students in Hong Kong participated in this exploratory study for one week. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. The results showed that students’ vocabulary learning engagement was high when using the Virtual Go Mode. It is suggested that future research focus on empirical studies when designing and implementing virtual location-based tasks supported by VR technologies in class to provide opportunities for students to practice and consolidate newly learned words and enhance their learning engagement after the COVID-19 pandemic. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

As a result of the global presence of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), it has been argued that learners of English should be exposed to a range of varieties of English, rather than a single variety of English, so that they can be better prepared to communicate with other people in ELF communication. However, little is known about second language (L2) learners' perspectives on exposure to multiple accents of English in the English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom. This paper reports on a study that investigated the views of L2 learners of English concerning exposure to different accents of English in the classroom. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey at a university in Hong Kong. The analysis revealed that these L2 learners showed rather ambivalent attitudes towards exposure to different accents of English in the classroom. While many participants seemed to be aware of the value of exposure to different native and non-native accents, there was less than wholehearted support for such a proposal in practice because of a number of pedagogical and practical concerns. Implications of the findings for classroom teaching are also discussed.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2014.936869]

This paper reports on a qualitative multiple case study that examined the implementation of innovations in English language education by three teachers in Hong Kong. Grounded in an analytical framework of teacher identity, in-depth interviews over an entire year provide a longitudinal understanding of the participants' experiences of simultaneously negotiating identity and implementing innovation in language teaching and learning within different schools in Hong Kong. Results point to a mutually constitutive relationship between identity and the implementation of these innovations. It is argued that the implementation of innovation underpinned the capacity of participants to both position themselves, as well as to be positioned by others, as particular types of teachers. The results also suggest that being afforded scope to explore their preferred professional identities, both discursively and experientially, is essential to the implementation of innovation. The analysis highlights that the implementation of innovation can be blocked or restricted if scope for the exploration of particular identities is denied to teachers, and that this may result in the marginalization of the identities teachers are seeking to construct. Implications for schools wishing to foster the implementation of innovation in language teaching and learning are discussed and suggestions for future research considered.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2012.750664]

Learning takes place across different social contexts, and understanding how learners perceive and traverse different learning contexts enables educators to gain a more comprehensive view of their learning processes and to support their learning better. This study examined how undergraduate foreign language learners perceived their learning experiences inside and outside language classrooms, and how they bridged their learning experiences in the two contexts. Individual interviews with 11 undergraduate foreign language learners in Hong Kong showed that the learners perceived in-class and out-of-class language learning contexts as affording different functions, and they acted on the affordances of the two contexts to create complementary and synergetic learning experiences across the two. The study further revealed a list of resource features and learner factors that shaped how the learners perceived and acted on the resources. The findings suggest that educational structures should be set up to reinforce the integration of learning experiences across in-class and out-of-class contexts.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2014.918982]

This paper reports on a study that explored how teachers interacted with groups of university students in learning the target form in a second language. Adopting a sociocultural approach, the data were based on microgenetic analysis of teacher and student discourse in a English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom at a university in Hong Kong, in which undergraduate students were given a rewriting task in teacher–student interaction. The analysis shows that scaffolding is supportive for language learning as appropriate assistance by both the teacher and peers at the right time with the proper focus can mediate learning. The teacher is reported to maintain student involvement in the task by trying to reinforce the comprehension of task demands, contextual meaning, and linguistic features in texts. The study addresses the teacher's and learners' indispensable roles in leading students to focus on the appropriate form and ensure correctness in linguistic production. The combination of appropriate expert and peer involvement in the discourse seems to provide the optimum form of interaction and, therefore, ensure the high quality of mediation in second language classroom.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2011.626858]

The main objective of this paper is to explore how two different intervention programmes that were based on Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System succeeded in motivating Chinese university students to learn English by enhancing their vision of their Ideal L2 Self. One was a voluntary programme at a university in England, whereas the other was conducted within a compulsory credit-bearing English course at a university in Hong Kong. In spite of the differences between the two programmes, including the design of the interventions, the tasks employed, the length of the programmes and the types of students who participated in the study, the findings revealed that both programmes were effective in motivating the participants to learn English and increasing their linguistic self-confidence through strengthening their vision of their Ideal L2 Self, and making their goals clearer and more specific. Lessons learned from the two pioneering programmes and recommendations for future similar programmes will be discussed.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2011.614693]

With a paradigm shift from a focus on product to one on process in language assessment, assessment for learning (AfL) has been gaining currency in educational policy in different parts of the world. While AfL emphasizes the use of assessment for improving learning and teaching, assessment of learning (AoL) focuses on using assessment for administrative and reporting purposes. In L2 writing, assessment has traditionally been characterized by AoL. Although AfL strategies like process pedagogy, formative feedback, peer response, and conferences have been promoted in L2 writing, these strategies are not widely adopted outside North American educational contexts. In English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts, there is scanty research that investigates writing teachers' attempts to bring innovation to their assessment practices through a focus on AfL. Using data from four Secondary 1 (i.e. Grade 7) classrooms in a Hong Kong school, the study aimed to investigate how the teachers' determination to implement AfL in writing influenced their instructional and assessment practices and impacted on students' attitudes and beliefs regarding writing. Results show that the implementation of AfL resulted in a significant change in teachers' instructional and assessment practices, and students improved their motivation in writing. The paper concludes with a few implications for EFL writing.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2010.502232]

The two-year longitudinal case study reported in this paper documents a Putonghuaspeaking mainland Chinese undergraduate student's language learning experiences and strategy use in an English-medium university in Hong Kong. Using a sociocultural approach, this paper focuses on three biographical episodes, which recount how the student attempted to create alternative ways of learning and seek new learning opportunities within the learning context, how she came to realise the limitations of her efforts and withdrew from her early active pursuits, and how she followed other mainland Chinese students in memorising words and attached her own meanings to her memorisation efforts. The paper highlights the social, cultural and political aspects of her strategy use and argues that learners' biographical experiences are an important avenue for us to understand learners' strategy use as a complicated phenomenon revealing the interplay between learners' agency and context.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/illt011.0]

The present study explores the learner stories of two Hong Kong English language students: a returnee student (a native speaker of English) and those of one of his local classmates (a native speaker of Cantonese). With the high level of migration from and to Hong Kong over the last 25 years, the number of children returning to Hong Kong from English-speaking countries has increased dramatically. Many of these returnee children enter the local Hong Kong education system and study English as a foreign language alongside Cantonese-speaking students. Through biographical interviews, this study investigates the complexities of the Hong Kong EFL classroom contexts and the implications on bilingual identity formation. The interview data provide insight on the negotiation of and limitations on bilingual identity formation in educational settings.
[Copyright of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/illt052.0]