Background: Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore are the top five cities/countries with the cheapest fixed line broadband as proportion of monthly income. It is interesting to know that several decades ago, they were still among the list of developing nations, struggling for survival and relief. However, they are climbing to the top in ICT development now.
Aims: This paper reviews the ICT development in school education of Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore with respect to their social, geographical, and economic backgrounds. Johannessen's three orders of benchmarks are proposed for the comparison.
Method: Literature reviews on recent reports, research articles, books and internet data were used to understand the current situation of the ICT development in education for Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.
Conclusion: It is clear that these three cities' determination and relative amount that had invested in the development of ICT in education were enormous when compared with the US investment. Among these three cities, the investment of Singapore has been much larger than the other two. Singapore's apparent leading in the development of ICT in education is not an accident, especially for the first benchmarks. For the second and third benchmarks, Macau lags behind Hong Kong and Singapore, this is partially due to Macau education system is comparatively much liberal than the other two.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Association is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

Background: There has been a lack of research on exploring how beliefs about language learning (BALLs) and out-of-class language-learning activities are related. BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities play an important role in influencing the learning behaviours of learners and learning outcomes. Findings of this study provide useful pedagogical implications for English teaching in Hong Kong.
Aim: The aim of the study is to gather information on the BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities of young adult ESL learners in Hong Kong.
Sample: Convenience sampling is adopted in this study of 324 ESL (English as a Second Language) learners undertaking vocational education in Hong Kong.
Methods: Surveys on BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities. Results: Findings indicate that learners held mostly positive beliefs. Watching films and television, reading, listening to English songs, music and radio channels, formal learning and practising speaking with others were the out-of-class language-learning activities reported by subjects that they carried out most frequently. There is an association between BALLs and the implementation of activities. Learners who regarded out-of-class language-learning activities as useful were found to possess more positive beliefs regarding their English learning in terms of BALLI (Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory) items. Learners who implemented out-of-class language-learning activities were found to have more positive beliefs in terms of two factors, "Perceived value and nature of learning spoken English" and "Self-efficacy and expectation about learning English."
Conclusion: The contextual influences of English being a prestigious language in Hong Kong and being attached with tangible rewards and power are suggested to contribute to the prevalence of instrumental motivation among ESL learners in Hong Kong. These influences, together with notion of modesty and the fear of losing face

Background: In PISA 2009, seven East Asian countries rank high among the 65 participating countries, but some of the differences among the seven countries are small to be of substantive meaning.
Aims: This paper is an attempt to fine tune the comparisons for better understanding of the situation in East Asian. Sample: Data of the seven East Asian countries were pulled from the PISA 2009 report and re-analyzed.
Method: Pair-wise comparisons were made by way of effect size on Reading, Mathematics, and Science.
Results: The overall patterns of differences show that Shanghai-China is definitely ahead of all the others. Korea, Hong Kong-China, and Singapore are similar in performance and form a cluster. Japan, Chinese Taipei, and Macao-China are similar and form another cluster at the lower end of achievement.
Conclusion: Instead of ranking the seven countries with seven different ranks, it is more meaningful to cluster them into three groups to avoid spurious precision. In other words, league tables should not differentiate where there are no meaningful differences.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Association is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

Deliberative mode of curriculum development has been hailed as one effective way of developing schoolbased curriculum. Its participatory, egalitarian and discursive characteristics have helped to generate the much-needed synergy and ownership feeling among the curriculum team members that lead to curriculum success. Nevertheless there is little such research in Hong Kong and thus very little is known as to the what, why and how in doing deliberative mode of curriculum development. Aims: This study intended to examine the patterns of curriculum development of a local primary school and how they had evolved over the span of four years. Method: The case school was selected due to its successful curriculum innovations over the years. Two site visits were made to the case school, one in 2003 and one in 2007. Eight teachers and the principal were interviewed and some lesson observations were made. Results: It was found that the success of the school's curriculum development pattern is similar to Decker Walker's 'naturalistic model' which is premised on the notion and practice of deliberation. It is also found that the school's ethos, organizational arrangements and professional relationships contribute to the success of the school's deliberative mode of curriculum development. Conclusion: With the knowledge gained in this study as to the what, why and how of doing a deliberative curriculum development, it is hoped that it will illuminate for local teachers, school administrators and school curriculum development personnel the kind of personal, organizational and social context in order that deliberative curriculum development can thrive and sustain.
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Association is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

Background: Media education is the study of the media with the aim of cultivating people’s media literacy. In the past four decades, media education has rapidly developed in school systems and communities all over the world. Each country has its own developmental trajectory. With the rise of the interactive new media, media education is going to have a paradigm shift, bringing media education study into a new era.
Goals: This paper discusses the rationales, definitions and approaches of media education. It also provides an overview about the global development of media literacy training.
Results: Although different countries define media education in different ways, they share the common goal of training media literate people to deal with the media in an intelligent and responsible way. Media education has been well developed in the West but in recent years Asia regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China and Japan are gaining their momentum. With the emergence of various new media devices, media education is regarded as playing a more important role in cultivating wise prosumers in the 21st century.
背景：傳媒教育以傳媒為研習對象，目的是培養人們的媒介素養。過去四十年，傳媒教育在全球的學校及社區迅速發展，每一個國家都有它獨特的發展軌跡。隨著互動新媒體的興起，傳媒教育也進行範式轉移，將媒介素養的研習帶進新紀元。
目標：這篇文章的目的是介紹傳媒教育的重要性、定義及教學取向，它更為傳媒教育在全球各地的發展提供總覽。
結果：雖然不同國家對傳媒教育有不同的定義，但其實它們都有共同的目標，就是培育具有媒介素養的人，讓他們能精明及負責任地和傳媒打交道。傳媒教育在西方發展得很好，近年它在亞洲地區如香港、台灣、中國大陸及日本都有蓬勃的發展。由於各種新媒體不斷湧現，傳媒教育比以往更有迫切性去培養二十一世紀的「傳媒消費製作人」。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

Background: Almost three decades have passed since the Grunwald Declaration on Media Education was issued by the representatives of 19 nations at UNESCO’s International Symposium on Media Education in Germany (UNESCO 1982). Cycles of information revolution and education reform over this period have led to significant changes in the sectors of media and education. The new media environment has seen the rise of “prosumers” who contribute to the proliferation of “user-generated content”. In the education sector, policy makers have proposed various reforms to address the ills of the present schooling system, and learning theories have developed from behaviorism and cognitivism to social constructionism. Communication technologies now provide a more enabling environment for audiences to engage in media prosumption, and the shift in focus toward knowledge construction highlights the importance of learning motivation. With such dramatic changes on both sides, it is pertinent to examine how media education practices will be affected.
Aims: Armed with the same goal and a belief in the potential of a pedagogy of inquiry, this study started with the basic “ingredient” in any inquiry: the question. The aim was to determine what questions learners would most want to ask when assigned to conduct an independent inquiry study about a media issue.
Method: A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire on media use was distributed to 649 sixth-formers in 11 secondary schools in Hong Kong between December 2008 and February 2009.
Results: The findings identified a general concern about media ethics among young people, but also their inadequacy in the ability to formulate inquiry questions.
Conclusion: These findings have significant implications for both the media and education sectors. For the media sector, the credibility crisis has become an issue that requires substantial and serious attention; whilst educators must carefully consider the limits of inquiry learning

以三個地區的兩歲兒童為對象，給予兩年的雙語 (父母各操一語) 教育，並檢視其結果，以驗證Ronjat的理論。

調查香港和新加坡中學生，以比較不同文化下父母行為模式對子女性格發展的影響，再進而和美國、墨西哥比較。

利用Parent-Image Differential Test，探討父母親對子女學業成績的影響。對象為200名英中學生。

討論各工業學院自1969年以來，在課程、收生和課外活動等方面的發展，及所遇到的困難。