This study, conducted over a one-year period, examined the collaboration practices in a large-scale school-university capacity-building collaborative action research project that was designed to help English language teachers develop the skills needed to deal with the reforms to assessment practices in Hong Kong's school curriculum. The study theorized collaboration as a complex construction that must be understood in the context of the prevailing ideologies shaping professional development practices for teachers. Online data generated from the collaborative action research project were analysed to explore the discursive construction of interpersonal relationships. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine the discursive strategies that were used in the emails of two university researchers and two school teachers to negotiate and manage collaboration practices. It examined the complexities of negotiating collaboration as a social practice in institutional cultures in a non-Western sociocultural setting. The implications of the findings for policy, professional development and future research are discussed.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2014.906386]

The aims of this study were to examine changes in students' English and math self-concepts and to investigate the effects of gender and school ability level on these changes. Self-concept in English and math were measured thrice across three years among a sample of 2618 secondary school students from Hong Kong. Gender and school ability level were included as time-invariant predictors. Results indicated that students' English self-concept slightly increased across time, while math self-concept marginally declined. Gender influenced both the initial levels and rates of change for English and math self-concepts, while school ability level predicted initial levels of self-concept. Implications are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2014.909009]

In recent years, school-based assessment (SBA) has been incorporated into the English Language subject of a traditional high-stakes public examination, the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. As reactions from various stakeholder groups have been mixed, it was necessary to review this new practice. This paper reports on a study of 33 English language teachers who have been frontline SBA assessors. The study aimed to better understand (1) teacher-assessors' perceptions of the English SBA, (2) their professional development needs in relation to implementing SBA, (3) their perceptions of how students could benefit from SBA and (4) the pressing issues arising from the SBA implementation. The study found that, while many participants agreed that SBA could be beneficial to students' English learning, there was much room for improvement in all four aspects investigated. In particular, some problems identified at the very beginning of the implementation of the English SBA have still persisted.
[Copyright of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2014.915207]

Hong Kong's universities have been attracting non-local students to diversify the overall student mix and enhance internationalism in higher education. Mainland Chinese students have become the largest non-local student source in this Western-style higher education sector. The diversity of student body together with the promotion of multicultural experience has created major concerns about provision of high quality learning and teaching. Studies show there have been potential peer interaction obstacles between local and mainland students due to different social, cultural and educational backgrounds. However, research on the role of teachers in facilitating peer interaction is limited. This paper reports an investigation on how teaching strategies used in the English Department had an impact on enhancing peer interactions in the university classroom context. Classroom observation containing textual descriptions and numeric interpretations was used. Solutions were recommended to improve the multicultural learning environment in Hong Kong and other universities with diverse student cohorts.
[Copyright of Higher Education Studies is the property of Canadian Center of Science and Education.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/hes]