The article focuses on teacher-based materials development, which encourages teachers to create their own materials to align with the needs of their students. Topics include a case study in which a teacher in Hong Kong created a learning unit for her English as a Second Language (ESL) class, aimed at developing critical thinking, creativity, and cultural awareness; and the purposes of teacher-based materials design are to promote situational interest and affection in food culture. Copyright © 2023 Wiley-Blackwell.

Despite research studies on TESOL materials and textbooks addressing a wide range of pedagogical issues as well as evaluation strategies, reference books for examination preparation have received little attention from TESOL researchers. This study reports an attempt to develop a checklist for evaluating the reference books for the examination for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE, the college entrance requirement for secondary school students in Hong Kong), with a particular focus on books for the English writing examination. The researchers acquired a total of 39 reference books on DSE English writing and examined them against the reports and documents of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority as well as the Education Bureau. After identifying the most concerning issues in the reference books, the researchers developed a checklist for evaluating future reference books using the framework suggested by McGrath (2002), taking into account the Education Bureau's guidelines for local school textbook evaluation. The authors conclude by briefly discussing implications and how their findings could be shared with HKDSE candidates through engaging the Hong Kong government. Copyright © 2023 Wiley-Blackwell.

Immersion education, a variant of content-based instruction, is characterised by the dual curriculum goals of content and language learning. The content and language learning goals become increasingly complex and challenging at the late immersion level. One way to help students achieve these goals is by planning content and language learning objectives that guide the design of content-language integrated learning materials. This article reports how content teachers and an ESL teacher educator in Hong Kong collaborated to design materials to support late immersion students' integrated content-language learning. The learning materials were designed by reference to a pedagogical framework that uses knowledge structures and text structures to link content and language learning objectives. The author presents sample learning materials and explains their design. Student achievements in using the history materials in a collaborative action research project, as well as the students' and the teacher's views of the materials, demonstrate some effectiveness of the design. Challenges to the content-language integration design are discussed.
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*The author reports that secondary school language teachers at Hong Kong International School have adopted electronic mail and an electronic bulletin board system to carry out several classes for multinational students of English. The application of electronic communication for student assignments, assessments, the development of communication and thinking skills, and unexpected difficulties are then reviewed.