High-quality teacher-child interactions benefit children’s learning and developmental trajectories. However, professional development (PD) opportunities for early childhood teachers on how to interact with children are typically insufficient. To enhance teacher-child interactional quality in Hong Kong kindergartens, we designed an online PD entitled Chat with Children, composed of 10 units of learning resources and activities. The objective of this study was to explore how this online PD influenced teachers’ beliefs and intentions regarding teacher-child interaction. Participants were 217 in-service Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. Pre-post evaluation was conducted to examine teachers’ beliefs and intentions in the dimensions of Organization of the Teaching Experience, Group Sensitivity, Encouragement of Communication, and Behavioral Support. After taking the course, teachers had stronger beliefs and intentions to organize interactive activities, address children’s needs with sensitivity, and engage children in communications. Furthermore, teachers believed that they should give children more freedom to settle conflicts, rather directing their misbehaviours immediately. This study provides evidence on the potential of online PD to enhance teachers’ beliefs and intentions regarding how to engage children. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Kindergarten teachers’ performance at work has important implications for the quality of early childhood education and the development of children. Therefore, promoting teachers’ work performance is of interest to kindergarten managers and policymakers. Evidence suggests that professional development opportunities may play an important role in understanding employees’ work performance. However, the possible mechanism underlying the relationship between professional development opportunities and work performance remains underexplored, especially among kindergarten teachers. This cross-sectional study examined whether professional commitment and work engagement mediated the association of professional development opportunities with work performance among Chinese kindergarten teachers. Online questionnaire data were collected from 336 kindergarten teachers working in Hong Kong, China (mean age = 31.6 years; 86% of them were women). Kindergarten teachers rated the availability of professional development opportunities and their work performance. They also rated their professional commitment (indicated by affective, continuance, and normative commitment) and work engagement (indicated by vigor, dedication, and absorption). Structural equational modeling revealed that both professional commitment and work engagement uniquely mediated the association between professional development opportunities and work performance. The findings illustrated how professional development opportunities may enhance work performance by motivating teachers at the affective/cognitive and the behavioral levels. The findings also pointed to the potential utility of supporting the work performance of kindergarten teachers by providing them with ample professional development opportunities and promoting their professional commitment and work engagement. Copyright © 2025 by the authors.

The early years of learning and the transition period are important for novice teachers. This systematic review investigated the influence that training provisions for novice primary and secondary English language teachers in Hong Kong have had on their initial workplace experience. From a large body of literature dated between 1980 and 2023, a final set of 20 articles that met our inclusion criteria was analysed using Kumaravadivelu's (2012) model of second language teacher education (consisting of the five modules of Knowing, Analysing, Recognising, Doing and Seeing). The findings were condensed into three thematic strands: (i) teacher authority: novice teachers can feel lost among different authorities (including ideological conflicts between university and school authorities) and their desire to establish their own teacher authority, but must eventually learn to think from the students' perspective to improve teaching, (ii) teacher socialisation: whether obtaining sufficient colleague and mentor support or not would lead to their diverse experiences, and (iii) two weaknesses in teacher preparation that require attention across both university preparation and in‐school training: the novice teachers were under‐prepared in procedural knowledge and in learning to theorize. These findings provide internationally relevant theoretical contributions that can advance the understanding of both novice teacher development and primary and secondary English language teacher training. From a practical perspective, the findings point to areas that need attention in novice language teachers' transition to the workplace and this may be relatable to international audiences. Context and implications Rationale for this study This systematic review aims to reveal how the training provisions in Hong Kong have influenced early‐year primary and secondary school English language teachers' initial workplace experience. Why the new findings matter Our findings will reveal what impact training

It is essential for second/foreign/additional language teachers to develop their digital competence in digital environments. This article explores language teacher development in digital technology integration in terms of exploration, communication, collaboration, and reflection (ECCR). It presents the results of a study that investigated how language teachers explore, communicate, collaborate, and reflect for technology-enhanced language teaching (TELT), how they approach ECCR, how much they engage with ECCR activities, and what support they need to improve their competence in TELT. Data were collected from an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with groups of in-service language teachers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Findings indicate that the teachers in both countries are engaged with various ECCR activities with different interests and competencies in their contexts. They enhance our understanding of language teacher development and provide implications for professional development with ECCR. Copyright ©2024 Online Learning Consortium.

While recent research has examined cross-national curriculum and teacher preparation for second language writing, little research has investigated the influences of the pandemic and other social changes in preparing teachers to teach writing. The purpose of the study was to understand the preparation of teachers to teach writing, the factors that influenced pedagogical practices, and the changes over a five-year period during political and social changes in Hong Kong. Interviews with university professors indicated that there was limited time devoted to writing both at the university level and in primary and secondary schools. Instructors modelled process and genre approaches with the preservice and practising teacher, noting there was an increased focus on prewriting strategies in schools; however, there was little emphasis on providing feedback or revising texts. Language policies and exam pressure continued to influence writing instruction. However, signs of changing writing practices included teachers taking up process writing and formative assessment; a focus on the 21st century skills including technology use learned through the pandemic; and preservice teachers adopting more critical stances. Copyright ©2024 Taylor & Francis.

The presence of non-Chinese pupils has brought to the fore a widening spectrum of learning needs in Hong Kong schools. Curriculum and teaching standards have likewise made clear the importance of creating equitable - with a view of eliminating barriers to - learning. The pathways to these equity goals from a cultural aspect, however, are unclear. This chapter aims to articulate an innovative approach to curriculum for diverse students by considering a more explicit connection between the notions of “caring” and “equity.” It will be argued that the notion of caring provides an important foundation for equity in teaching, especially in a Chinese schooling context marred by pragmatic and neoliberal conditions. These conditions, in part, underlie the integrationist orientation of curriculum responses to Hong Kong’s increasingly diverse student population. These responses often animate familiar policy and curricular rhetoric on ethnic minority learners’ early acquisition of Chinese language that can eclipse the cultivation of culturally inclusive environments. An expanded vision of equity based on caring attitudes will thus be proposed for teacher education to draw closer attention to the cultural dimensions within the curricular emphasis on learner diversity. Copyright © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Huixuan Xu; individual chapters, the contributors.

Teachers generally feel themselves ill-prepared to handle diversity issues and their sense of multiculturalism is rather limited. Their knowledge needs in this particular aspect seem not yet to have been identified. To address this issue, the lived experiences and the reflection on their knowledge needs of 33 native Chinese teachers in Hong Kong were collected. Findings show that although three knowledge areas emerged based on different types of reflection, the social action approach of knowledge, embedded in critical reflection that can foster their multicultural mindset, was not a core concern of teachers studied. Consequently, that has been an obstacle for them to foster their multicultural mindset. Teachers studied were interested in pursuing hands-on knowledge and skills with practical reflection but gave little attention to reflecting on the broader goals of multicultural education with a whole-school approach. Viewing this, an in-service teacher education programme that involves changing personal beliefs and provides an increase of self-awareness based on critical reflection that will lead teachers to enact as cultural gatekeepers is proposed. Furthermore, by identifying and addressing teachers’ knowledge needs, this study may be able to shed light on the global discussion on ways to foster teachers’ multicultural competency. Copyright ©2025 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

香港特區政府近十年積極推動職業專才教育（下稱「職專教育」），以滿足未來社會的人力資源需求。大專院校在港開辦職前幼稚園教師課程已近四十年，持續影響本地幼兒教育與服務的發展。為了探討課程在職專教育下的發展前路，本文透過文獻研究分析，先回顧其歷史發展，然後根據特區政府的「推廣職業專才教育專責小組」檢討報告為基礎，從「資歷級別」、「進階路徑」及「職場學習」三方面審視課程的現況與前路，以給予業界與學界啟示。 Copyright © 2024 教育研究獎勵計劃工作小組秘書處.

This research investigates the academic emotions of pre-service primary school teachers in Hong Kong and the influence of these emotions on professional resilience. It can inform the development of teacher education programmes that address holistic emotional competencies. Applying the community of inquiry (CoI) framework as a conceptual lens, we focused on the cognitive, social and teaching presence of seven first-year Postgraduate Diploma in Education students. Data were collected through reflective journals and interviews and subjected to thematic analysis. We adopted an interpretivist paradigm and used the CoI framework as a scaffold to identify themes related to cognitive, social and teaching presence. The qualitative analysis indicated that the participants’ practicum experiences were characterised by the complex interplay of the three forms of presence, which contributed to professional growth and resilience. They encountered cognitive challenges that elicited strong emotional responses, found strength in their social connections and received guidance from experienced teachers. This study provides valuable insights for teachers, policymakers and teacher educators who aim to enhance support systems and foster professional resilience among pre-service teachers. Copyright © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.