Supporting teacher leadership and growth is vital as it empowers teachers to take ownership of their professional development, enhances instructional practices, and cultivates a positive and collaborative school culture, ultimately benefiting student achievement. This keynote speech will explore the significance and benefits of teacher leadership, the essential characteristics and roles of effective teacher leaders, models of teacher leadership commonly found in the education field, and practical strategies for developing teacher leaders. The speech will also shed light on the transformative potential of teacher leadership and its positive impact on the entire educational community. Participants will gain valuable insights into fostering teacher leadership and promoting growth within educational institutions, providing an opportunity to enhance their understanding and contribute to the advancement of teacher leadership practices in kindergartens. Copyright © 2024 The Education University of Hong Kong.

Considering the essential role of language teacher educators in shaping the views and practices of future generations of language teachers, the limited attention that has been given to how these educators construct their professional identities is surprising. This article reports the results of a qualitative study that contributes to addressing this gap in knowledge by exploring how three experienced language teacher educators construct their professional identities in Hong Kong. Drawing upon elements of career construction theory, the study used in-depth interviews to investigate the responses of these educators to the complex and challenging demands they encounter in research, teaching, and institutional service throughout the pursuit of their professional identities construction goals. Results suggest that the three educators value career adaption and operationalize adaptability as the willingness to both constrain their concerns and accept the necessity for compromises and trade-offs. Implications for leaders of higher education institutions concerned with supporting language teacher educators' identities construction are discussed. Suggestions for future research are also considered. Copyright © 2024 TESOL International Association.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global workforce, including higher-education professionals, experienced substantial changes in their working conditions. Responding to the crisis, universities swiftly adapted their operational modes, thus inevitably impacting the work–life balance (WLB) of their staff. This study examines the WLB factors and their outcomes for higher-education staff, among both teaching and non-teaching staff, in Hong Kong and Thailand, during the initial stages of the pandemic through the lens of the job demands and resources model (JD-R model). The results of 1800 questionnaires completed by respondents from government-funded universities in both locations revealed a significant difference in the WLB between the two cases, with the Hong Kong respondents reporting lower levels of WLB compared with their Thai counterparts. The Hong Kong teaching staff exhibited a higher utilization of family-friendly policies (FFPs), whereas the non-teaching staff reported significantly lower levels of both policy utilization and overall WLB. The results also revealed significant differences in terms of how work, family, and personal-resource and demand factors were correlated to the WLB outcomes. This study advocates for tailored adjustments in university policies, basing the policies on the specific staff category and emphasizing the need for targeted support. In the Hong Kong context, attention should be directed toward enhancing WLB and FFP utilization among non-teaching staff. In contrast, in Thailand, a focus on refining the policies to better support the WLB of teaching staff is recommended. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools have been argued to have transformative potential in education; yet existing literature suggests that language teachers generally lack the abilities to leverage these tools effectively and critically. Conducted in an initial language teacher education programme at a Hong Kong university, this mixed-method intervention study aims to explore the effects of explicit training for using GenAI tools for language teaching in rising pre-service language teachers’ professional GenAI competence (P-GenAI-C). 54 M.Ed students took part in an 11-week course intervention aiming to enhance the five aspects in the P-GenAI-C framework. Analysis of pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, which encompassed a mix of open and closed items to gather participants’ knowledge and perceptions of utilising GenAI tools, as well as the follow-up interviews, revealed that the intervention was effective in stretching all aspects of pre-service teachers’ P-GenAI-C. While there was greater evidence of improvement in participants’ pedagogical competence and critical awareness of GenAI tools deployment, there was less evidence of development in other aspects, such as teachers’ capacity to guide their students to use GenAI tools effectively and responsibly. This discrepancy might be attributed to the lack of such content in the course intervention. Implications for incorporating elements of P-GenAI-C into teacher preparation courses and programmes are discussed. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study that used in-depth interviews to understand the experiences and perceptions of six pre-service teachers as they engaged in microteaching at a tertiary institution in Hong Kong. Using a framework grounded in dialogism and positioning theory, the study describes the ways in which different discourses offer, as well as deny, positions to the pre-service teachers as they planned and implemented microlessons. The results suggest that competition between these discourses to position pre-service teachers can result in microteaching being associated with negative emotional experiences, such as disappointment, isolation, and frustration. This emotional dissonance is shown to lead some preservice teachers to question the efficacy of microteaching. The paper therefore argues that it is imperative for teacher educators to support pre-service teachers’ engagement in microteaching by revealing the presence of these discourses and by exploring how the latter can exercise agency by accepting, resisting, or rejecting the positions made available to them during their microteaching experience. Suggestions for future research are also considered. Copyright © 2023 Edith Cowan University. All rights reserved.

This study examines in-service teachers’ attitudes and teacher self-efficacy in implementing inclusive practices in Hong Kong classrooms. The predictors of teachers’ attitudes and teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practices were also investigated. Participants of the study comprised 1110 primary and secondary in-service teachers. Results reveal that Hong Kong in-service teachers had slightly positive attitudes towards inclusion. Teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practices was moderate and had a positive impact on teachers’ attitudes. Prior experience in teaching students with disabilities, confidence in teaching students with disabilities, level of training, years of teaching experience, self-efficacy in inclusive instruction and collaboration were significant predictors of teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education. Knowledge of legislation and policies, confidence in teaching students with disabilities and teachers’ beliefs and their feelings were determined as the significant predictors of teacher self-efficacy. Recommendations and the limitations of the findings are discussed in light of these results. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In today's increasingly diverse educational landscapes, the professional lives of first language (L1) teachers are undergoing significant transformations. This chapter explores the concept of ‘transprofessional identity’ as it pertains to the changing self-definition of L1 Chinese language teachers in increasingly multilingual, multicultural school settings. While prior research extensively examined the translingual identity of second language (L2) teachers in multilingual contexts, the unique transprofessional experiences of L1 teachers have been overlooked. This research fills this gap by analyzing the narratives of two L1 Chinese language teachers' professional trajectories. Ms. Au, a long-standing L1 teacher in a Hong Kong public school, faced the challenge of instructing South Asian ethnic minority students due to demographic shifts; Mr. Bao transitioned from teaching L1 to local Hong Kong students to L2 to multicultural learners in an international school. This chapter delves into the complexities of their transprofessional identity negotiation, encompassing pedagogical approaches, student diversity, and evolving institutional contexts. The analysis reveals the multifaceted, boundary-crossing negotiations undertaken by the two teachers. This chapter challenges the conventional notion of language teacher professionalism, which rigidly segregates L1 and L2 teaching as distinct subject areas. Copyright © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Sin Manw Sophia Lam, John Chi-Kin Lee and Chung Mou Si; individual chapters, the contributors.