Given the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices, it is critical to understand how pre-service teachers' past school experiences impact on their beliefs about teaching. There is a growing recognition of the influence of preservice teachers' prior mathematical experiences on their beliefs regarding mathematics instruction in the primary school classroom. This qualitative study aimed to investigate Hong Kong primary pre-service teachers' past experiences in learning mathematics and their beliefs about the teaching of mathematics. Nineteen primary pre-service teachers who had selected mathematics as their major in a teacher training program participated in the study. Each participant was required to complete three beliefs tasks in the individual interview in order to recall the teaching of their best mathematics teachers, articulate their memories of learning mathematics, and uncover the kind of primary mathematics teacher they planned to be. The results provided a valuable insight into the effects of pre-service teachers' prior mathematics class incidents on their espoused pedagogical beliefs. While both positive and negative learning experiences of mathematics had a positive impact on interviewees' beliefs about mathematics teaching, most demonstrated their willingness to learn from the past and realised the need to establish better learning environments for their future primary school students. Copyright © 2021 International Journal of Instruction.

This study examined the use of first language in English reading lessons and the perceptions of teachers and students towards it in three Hong Kong Chinese-medium secondary schools. The data comprised three teachers and sixty-three Form 2 students' participation and responses in (i) 3 classroom observations about how L1 was used in actual teaching and learning settings, (ii) survey forms gathering the frequency of participants using L1 teaching and learning strategies (based on the three teachers and nineteen selected students from the pool), and (iii) subsequent in-depth interviews concerning their perceptions about using L1 in English reading lessons. The findings revealed that (i) the use of L1 bottom-up language focused teaching strategies and condition-oriented teaching and learning strategies were effective for teaching and learning in English reading lessons and (ii) there was a negative relationship between students' proficiency in English and the use of L1. The study concluded that the use of first language in English reading lessons brought positive effects on the second language learning in English reading, especially when students' English proficiency and teaching contexts were taken into consideration. Copyright ©International Journal of Instruction.