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The development of efficient and reliable online assessments has become increasingly important in the digital era. We developed a 10-min online word reading assessment of global English based on the existing paper-and-pencil version of our English silent word reading test. The test includes two parts, namely, random word recognition and contextual word reading. A total of 889 participants (437 children and 392 adults; 62.7% female) took part in the study. They were from various regions including mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Poland, the United States, and the Philippines. Reliability and validity analyses on various demographics samples (by age and country/region of origin) demonstrated that the WordSword Test is highly reliable and valid (e.g., the correlation of this test with other English reading measures were above.80). Education level was positively correlated with test performance, while the correlations between age and test performance were not consistent. Ninety-seven children participants also took the paper-and-pencil version of the WordSword Test. The correlation between performances on the online and paper-and-pencil versions of the test was.879, one year apart. With more children and adults taking the WordSword Test, we ultimately hope to establish norms by area, grade level, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: How university students write from sources has been an issue of long-standing interest among researchers of advanced academic literacy. Previous research in this regard in the context of L2 writing has tended to focus on novices'' textual borrowing; less attention has been given to exploring the potential light that theories from other intellectual domains may shed upon students'' process of source-based academic writing. The study to be reported in this paper used activity theory as an analytic tool to examine three ESL students'' activities of fulfilling a policy paper assignment at a university in Hong Kong. In the paper I present a description of the activity system concerned and its internal contradictions, characterize the sequences of actions that constituted the individual students'' activities, and analyze the students'' source-use practices in terms of their efforts to address a set of source-bound systemic tensions. At the end of the paper I propose a few lines of future explorations using activity theory as a heuristic to study literacy activities in academic contexts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Much of academic publishing research is conducted with professors and with postgraduate students majoring in science. There is less published research on how EFL postgraduate students specializing in applied linguistics reflect on their publishing activities. Little is known about what challenges these students face in writing journal papers and how they perceive support provided by their universities with regard to publishing. The present study fills this gap by investigating six Hong Kong postgraduate students to understand their challenges in publishing refereed journal papers and their perception of institutional support for research publication. The interview data highlight that lack of motivation and lack of confidence are challenges faced by the interviewees in writing journal papers. Despite the fact that Hong Kong universities provided support to help doctoral students develop research publication, the majority of the interviewees had not fully benefited from such existing support. It is concluded that lack of confidence could be attributed to the students' non-native English speaker status and insufficient formal instruction in academic writing, while lack of motivation could be explored with reference to the socio-cultural context in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The site of this study is English as a second language speaking center at a university in Hong Kong. One of the center's services is presentation consultation, in which students can practice giving a presentation in English and receive a tutor's feedback. This study focuses on how the tutors and students coordinate understanding using the students' PowerPoint (PPT) slides as situated objects. Detailed analyses of their interactions reveal that the participants make use of PPT slides as a referential resource in identifying problems in the student's production and initiating repair, and as an essential object in solving problems of understanding. The paper shows the precise nature of the troubles in understanding that arise in these consultations, and how the participants make use of the slides as an interactional resource in coordinating their understanding. The paper discusses implications for L2 consultation sessions, particularly in regard to multimodal practices in solving understanding troubles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts where high-stakes testing prevails, Hong Kong students are highly exam-oriented and expect teachers to teach to the test. Because there is no direct assessment on literature in the English language curriculum, many teachers find it challenging to balance CLT through literature and exam preparation. To address this issue, this article describes an innovation of teaching ESL through songs by 'packaging' it as exam practice to engage exam-oriented students in CLT. A series of activities derived from the song Seasons in the Sun was implemented in the ESL classrooms in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Based on the author's observations and reflections informed by teachers' and students' comments, the students were first motivated, at least instrumentally, by the relevance of the activities to the listening paper in the public exam when they saw the similarities between the classroom tasks and past exam questions. Once the students felt motivated, they were more easily engaged in a variety of CLT activities, which encouraged the use of English for authentic and meaningful communication. This article offers pedagogical implications for ESL/EFL teachers to implement CLT through literature in exam-oriented contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This research is inspired by the challenges encountered in interpreter training, changes in learning needs in the technological era, the educational paradigm shift caused by the COVID‐19 pandemic, the lack of studies on combining virtual reality (VR)_and mobile technologies, and literature gaps in the field of the incorporation of technology in interpreter education. Objectives: This research aims to develop a mobile‐based VR application for bi‐directional English‐Chinese and Chinese‐English interpreting learning named 'Virtual Interpreting Practice' (VIP) based on an interpreting competence model and to investigate its impact on students' self‐rated language and interpreting proficiency levels as well as their declarative knowledge and operative skills as reflected in different interpreting modes (sight and consecutive) and language directions (English‐Chinese and Chinese‐English). The VIP app contains learning resources, including 13 learning modules covering both interpreting modes, practical topics and contexts, video lectures and demonstrations, fully immersive VR and non‐VR practice, glossary lists, source texts, translated texts and an online feedback platform. Methods: Thirty‐one native Chinese‐speaking English as a second/foreign (ESL/EFL) undergraduate students used the app for self‐directed learning. The data were collected by the pre‐study and post‐study questionnaires as well as the pre‐test and post‐test. Results and Conclusions: The results indicate that the use of VIP significantly raised the students' self‐rated language and interpreting proficiency levels as well as their interpreting performance in both modes and language directions. While the students performed better in sight interpreting and Chinese‐English interpreting, they achieved a significantly higher improvement rate in consecutive interpreting and English‐Chinese interpreting. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: A number of studies have demonstrated the use of virtual reality (VR) provides users with senses of multiple presence, enhances learner engagement and motivation, and facilitates collaborative, situated, immersive and experiential learning that is not often available in traditional learning environments.The increasing availability of VR has created new opportunities in the area of mobile‐assisted language learning (MALL), paving the way for a new research area called VR‐assisted language learning (VRALL).Using VRALL, numerous benefits in various language skills have been identified, such as listening, speaking, writing and vocabulary acquisition. What this paper adds: While blending VR and mobile technologies may play a more significant role in education settings and create more advantages, the impact of this combination for interpreting learning has remained an unexplored area in higher education. This paper has addressed the research gaps in which there is a lack of VR language learning apps that are bilingual, mobile‐based and specifically designed for interpreting practice in highly immersive learning environments.The results indicate that the use of VIP significantly raised the students' self‐rated language and interpreting proficiency levels as well as their interpreting performance in both sight and consecutive interpreting and language directions (English‐Chinese and Chinese‐English).While the students performed better in sight interpreting and Chinese‐English interpreting, they achieved a significantly higher improvement rate in consecutive interpreting and English‐Chinese interpreting. Implications for practice and/or policy: The results have implications for the roles of students and teachers. The app developed in this study shifts the teacher‐led approach to student‐centred learning. While it allows more learning autonomy, its effectiveness may largely depend on students' ability to self‐regulate and engage.It appears that the effectiveness of VRALL depends on a number of individual and contextual factors, e.g. the design and functionality of the apps, availability of the internet connection and smartphones as well as learning needs and motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of studies have explored the ways how teachers contingently respond to students' unexpected responses or a lack of student responses in second language classrooms. From a sociocultural perspective, teacher contingency involves a departure from the lesson plan in local response to the unexpected or unforeseeable actions in the classroom interactions (van Lier, 2001). This study adopts translanguaging as an analytical perspective in order to examine how a teacher employs various resources to contingently respond to students' initiatives and reformulate his utterances in order to prompt student participation. The data are based on a larger linguistic ethnographic project in a Hong Kong English-Medium-Instruction secondary history classroom. This paper reconceptualizes the notion of teacher contingency and argues that the process of how the teacher contingently responds to the unexpected outcomes that arise in real-time interactions is a process of translanguaging. Such a process requires the teacher in orchestrating the available linguistic and multimodal resources to construct pedagogical actions on the spot, instead of being planned in advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdisciplinary research on foreign language learning has important implications for learning and education. In this paper, we present the Repository of Third Language (L3) Spoken Narratives from Modern Language Learners in Hong Kong (L3HK Repository). This database contains 906 audio recordings and annotated transcripts of spoken narratives in French, German, and Spanish that were elicited from Cantonese-speaking (L1) young adults using a wordless picture book, "Frog, Where Are You?". All participants spoke English as the second language (L2) and learned the target language as a third language (L3). We collected their demographic information, answers to a motivation questionnaire, parental socioeconomic status, and music background. Furthermore, for a subset of participants, we collected their L1 and L2 proficiency scores and additional experimental data on working memory and music perception. This database is valuable for examining cross-sectional changes in foreign language learning. The extensive data on phenotypes provide opportunities to explore learner-internal and learner-external factors in foreign language learning outcomes. These data may also be helpful for those who work on speech recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since the outbreak of COVID‐19, universities in Hong Kong have implemented online and hybrid teaching modes, making computer‐assisted language learning (CALL) a primary way for English learning. Research on English learning motivation and self‐regulation has seldom considered learners' emotions (satisfaction and preparedness) and the synchronic online courses in a CALL context. Objectives: This study analyses the relationship between Hong Kong university students' motivation and self‐regulation by considering their emotions in computer‐assisted synchronic online English courses. Methods: 311 Hong Kong university students were invited to complete two questionnaires that investigated students' motivation and self‐regulation in computer‐assisted online English courses. SPSS 26 was employed for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to extract factors and exclude unsuitable items, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to verify the results of EFA. One‐way ANOVA was conducted to detect the impact of personal emotion on motivation and self‐regulation. AMOS 26 was adopted to construct a structural equation model (SEM) to explore the relationship between motivation and self‐regulation in the CALL context. Results and Conclusions: The results show that satisfaction and preparedness positively correlate with online English learning motivation and self‐regulation. Instrumentality‐attitude significantly predicts all factors of self‐regulation via SEM and goal setting significantly predicts all factors of motivation. With feasible English learning goals, Hong Kong university students are more proactive in learning English online where they actively interact with teachers and peers. Implications: Based on the L2 self‐system (Dörnyei, The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition, 2005) and self‐determination theory (Barnard et al., Internet and Higher Education, 2009, 12, 1–6), this study clarifies the relationship between motivation and self‐regulation in the CALL context, expanding the application scope of the two theories. COVID‐19 has changed the teaching mode greatly, calling for a revolution in language education and learning. This study provides significant pedagogical implications that benefit both learners and teachers in CALL post‐COVID‐19. Lay Description: What is currently known about this topic: Motivation and self‐regulation greatly affect learners' performance in online English learning.There is a correlation between L2 learners' motivation and self‐regulation.Preparedness and satisfaction are related to learners' learning anxiety and motivation and directly affect learners' online learning achievement. What this paper adds: Satisfaction and preparedness positively correlate with online English learning motivation and self‐regulation.Instrumentality‐attitude significantly predicts all factors of self‐regulation via SEM and goal setting significantly predicts all factors of motivation.With feasible English learning goals, Hong Kong university students are more proactive in learning English online where they actively interact with teachers and peers. What are the implications of our topic for practitioners?: Learners and teachers must highlight the importance of satisfaction and preparedness in online English courses.Learners and teachers should attach great importance to the instrumentality‐attitude in the CALL context, and teachers can appropriately reduce the difficulty of English learning and design study content according to the needs of different students.Teachers should assist Hong Kong university students in formulating reasonable and feasible short‐term and long‐term learning goals at the beginning of online English courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the previous research concerning student plagiarism has been conducted in Anglo-American settings. The present paper reports a case study of academic staff's perspectives upon student plagiarism at a university in Hong Kong. Based on interviews with 16 instructors, the study focused on the teachers' views and pedagogical practices, including their use of Turnitin. The paper ends by noting certain areas that need to be addressed in tackling student plagiarism and by proposing a few lines of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents findings of a qualitative inquiry into international students' experiences and perceptions of their language use in an English-medium international university in multilingual Hong Kong, with particular attention to the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in relation to other languages. Based on data collected from in-depth interviews with a group of international students, the study found that the participants embraced a pluralistic conceptualisation of ELF. While they emphasised the importance of ELF for their academic and social integration in the university, the perceived resistance against the use of ELF by local students means that the language norms operating in the university cannot be pre-determined. It was also found that the participants expressed monolingual ideologies with respect to the use of ELF as a result of their concerns about social exclusion and linguistic disadvantage. Meanwhile, multilingual language practices and multilingual ideologies in relation to the use of ELF were also found in the participants' accounts of language experiences and perceptions. The findings also point to the tensions arising from the language choice between ELF and the local language, as well as the co-existence of contradictory language ideologies concerning monolingualism/multilingualism in the international university context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is written out of a conviction that there is a need to explore issues occurring within the English language creative writing classroom vis-a-vis some of the conditions pertaining to contemporary literary scenes in Singapore and Hong Kong. In this paper, the authors' experience of learning and teaching in the creative writing classroom is a prism through which we explore issues pertaining to the pursuit of creative writing in these two Asian societies. The first part of the paper draws on the first author's experience of attending creative writing classes as an undergraduate in Singapore. It also looks at some of the works of the younger generation of writers in Singapore whose works emerged in the 1990s. The second part of the paper draws on the second author's experience as a student of creative writing in Hong Kong. It then looks at some of the issues germane to the literary scene in Hong Kong. The last portion of the paper then outlines the implications of the above for the teaching of creative writing in Singapore and Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study of the computer essay-scoring program BETSY. While the use of computers in rating written scripts has been criticised in some quarters for lacking transparency or lack of fit with how human raters rate written scripts, a number of essay rating programs are available commercially, many of which claim to offer comparable reliability with human raters. Much of the validation of such programs has focused on native-speaking tertiary-level students writing in subject content areas. Instead of content areas with native-speakers, the data for this study is drawn from a representative sample of scripts from an English as a second language (ESL) Year 11 public examination in Hong Kong. The scripts (900 in total) are taken from a writing test consisting of three topics (300 scripts per topic), each representing a different genre. Results in the study show good correlations between human raters' scores and the program BETSY. A rater discrepancy rate, where scripts need to be re-marked because of disagreement between two raters, emerged at levels broadly comparable with those derived from discrepancies between paired human raters. Little difference was apparent in the ratings of test takers on the three genres. The paper concludes that while computer essay-scoring programs may appear to rate inside a 'black box' with concomitant lack of transparency, they do have potential to act as a third rater, timesaving assessment tool. And as technology develops and rating becomes more transparent, so will their acceptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the major English-language tests that are considered to have a significant impact on Hong Kong's educational system and society. It also presents a survey of the status of the English language in Hong Kong. A look on the recent evolution of Hong Kong's English language assessment at different levels and for various purposes with the region's changing socio-political and socio-educational field is provided in the article. It also considers pressing issues arising from the implementation of new testing and assessment procedures in the region.

This paper presents data for a tightly controlled recognition and production study of English language intonation in reading by speakers of British English and second language learners of English in Hong Kong. We demonstrate a relatively high correlation between the scores for the two studies when data are separated by utterance type (statement, echo, WH-question, etc.). Our finding that this cohort of English learners performs better at production of nuclear tones than in the corresponding recognition study when both are judged by a template for British English adds support to the claim that the perception-production link, a theory that production is contingent on perception, is not borne out by the empirical study of learners of World Englishes. Data collected for the British English speakers give insight into a changing intonational phonology, while Hong Kong data indicate differences in intonational categories, a different distribution of tones, and possibly tonal innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research on university undergraduates' struggles to master English for academic purposes (EAP) has been undertaken, yet little attention has been paid to the motivational needs of this specific learner group, or the fulfilment of such needs in university EAP courses. This study examines motivational strategies used by teachers of undergraduate EAP classes, student-perceived ineffective characteristics of the strategies, and students' suggestions for better strategy implementation, together with the relationships between the strategies and the ineffective characteristics/suggestions. Reflective journals were collected from 69 first-year undergraduates who were enrolled in EAP courses offered by a Hong Kong university. The major findings are: 1) The adopted motivational strategies correspond closely to those endorsed in an influential framework; 2) the student participants reported ineffective characteristics pertinent to difficulty, relevance, expected learning outcomes, fairness, and interest; 3) the main suggestions were increased strategy use and provision of more assistance, encouragement, and examples; and 4) most of the suggestions appear to be non-strategy-specific, so they can supposedly be applied to a wide range of motivational strategies. The findings confirm the overall effectiveness of motivational strategies in undergraduate EAP courses, as well as informing university EAP teachers of possible ways to further improve their motivational techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rapid growth of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education, little research has been conducted to pinpoint the challenges faced by students. This quantitative study explored the challenges posed by the secondary–tertiary transition to first-year students with different English proficiency levels in EMI higher education institutions. In addition, we also investigated students' perception of the usefulness of supplementary and mainstream education in preparing them for those challenges. 91 participants studying at two tertiary institutions in Hong Kong completed a 52-item questionnaire. The questionnaire included items in relation to three major aspects of challenges: 'academic studies and skills', 'socialization', and 'college/university life adaptation'. It was found that students with low proficiency regarded all three aspects as significantly more challenging than the high proficiency ones in their first-year studies. However, despite the different proficiency levels, students similarly perceived mainstream education to be significantly more useful than supplementary education in preparing them for those transitional challenges. The findings together suggest that more English support is needed for low-proficiency students at the tertiary level and argue that mainstream education plays an essential role in assisting students in this secondary–tertiary transition. Implications are discussed in terms of the benefits of having a general English course as perquisite for low English proficiency students before they enroll in English for Academic Purposes courses, and the development of a variety of tasks with more emphasis on communication and collaboration at the secondary level to support them in this transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the impact of home literacy environment (HLE) on the acquisition of English as a second language (L2) and reading skills in Chinese-speaking kindergarten children. The sample was 354 kindergarten children (mean age: 60.37 months, SD = 7.25; 186 boys, 52.5%) in Hong Kong, China. Mothers completed a questionnaire measuring family socioeconomic status (SES), parent-directed HLE, and child-initiated HLE in learning English. Children were assessed on their English language and reading skills: phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, word reading, and rapid naming. After the role of family SES was controlled, child-initiated HLE instead of parent-directed HLE was found to uniquely predict phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming, which jointly contributed to English word reading. Family SES was also a significant correlate of cognitive-linguistic skills and English language skills. The findings highlighted the importance of child-initiated HLE in promoting children's English language learning as L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I review the four articles in this special issue, elucidate the main challenges faced by bilingual teachers when helping their Cantonese-dominant students learn both the content and target language (English) through content and language integrated learning-compatible pedagogies, and give a critical appraisal of their respective contributions to good practices and theory-building in research on translanguaging or classroom code-switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Displaying a strong competence in English as a second language (L2) is a major advantage for university graduates in personal development and career advancement. There are limited studies that have explored how the implementation of English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) in non-Anglophone universities can affect students' academic English proficiency. This mixed-method study explores how both the learners' variables (motivation and L2 learning strategies) and the medium-of-instruction policy implemented at secondary and university settings can contribute to students' success in academic English learning at a bilingual university in Hong Kong. The findings of a large-scale questionnaire reveal that the effect of medium-of-instruction in students' secondary school education is not a significant predictor of students' academic English language proficiency at university. The findings suggest that university students who previously attended secondary schools which adopt medium-of-instruction other than English tend not to be disadvantaged in improving their academic English proficiency. Institutional factor (i.e. provision of EMI lectures at university) and learners' variables, including students' L2 strategy use and motivation, are statistically significant predictors of the student's English language proficiency. The implications for higher education policy in Hong Kong and worldwide will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature has been gaining growing attention in second language (L2)/foreign language (FL) education globally. In a number of places such as Hong Kong, literature has recently been given greater emphasis in the L2/FL curricula. This article reports part of a large‐scale study examining learners' views of two English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language (EFL) modules on literary genres recently incorporated in the EFL curriculum, namely short stories (ShS) and poems and songs (P&S), from curricular and assessment perspectives. A total of 1190 secondary school students in Hong Kong completed a questionnaire, yielding quantitative and qualitative data; the 2347 comments collected explained their perceptions from multiple angles. Overall, the participants held positive views of the ShS module being incorporated into the curriculum, but only neutral views of the P&S module. When considering assessment, the respondents demonstrated ambivalence towards the modules; they were mostly against these genres being examined and if unexamined, they were generally not interested in studying them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of popular culture into English language learning has recently been formalised in the Hong Kong New Senior Secondary curriculum, with the development of critical reading indicated as one of the key objectives. Whether and how students respond to popular culture texts is, however, under-researched. The present paper reports findings from a study that investigated how a group of 33 senior secondary (Grade 11) students from three schools representing different levels of academic performance in Hong Kong conducted reading of an authentic print English advertisement. In small groups, the students articulated in Cantonese, their first language, an analysis of the text including its purpose, target audience, and intended impacts. Insights from Stuart Hall’s three major decoder positions (dominant reading, oppositional reading, and negotiated reading) were drawn on to conduct a qualitative content analysis of the students’ reading. The findings showed that three-quarters of the students irrespective of their English proficiency levels displayed evidence of critical consumption of the text, but many seemed to have constructed oppositional or negotiated reading positions due to their failure to appreciate linguistic creativity, and spontaneous evaluation of the visual images. The authors argue that language curricula in schools should strengthen students’ critical multimodal literacies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social diversity is now commonplace in many communities in today’s globalised world. This diversity can be seen in any classroom of learners, and international studies have shown the complex ways in which disabilities, race, ethnicity, gender and social class can determine a child’s opportunity to succeed or fail in the education system. In Hong Kong, like in many educational contexts around the world, teachers are grappling with increasing diversity amongst their students, including teaching students with special educational needs (SEN) and non-Chinese speaking students (NCS) living in Hong Kong. This paper examines how three primary TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teachers are constructing identities as inclusive practitioners as they grapple with enacting the inclusive education policy recently introduced into Hong Kong schools. The data are drawn from a small-scale collaborative reflective inquiry for teacher professional development. Drawing upon a sociocultural and critical framing of identity theory, we trace the three teachers’ identity construction as EFL teachers and inclusive education practitioners. We view the role of discourse, self-positioning and social context as key processes in teacher identity formation. Implications for furthering the development of inclusive education in EFL classrooms are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares pre- and post-1997 attitudes to the learning of English in Hong Kong. It is based on surveys conducted in 1980,1992,1995 and 1998, and also on newspaper reports. The data confirm the strong instrumental, career-related motives of the learners, which has been previously reported not only for Chinese learners but for Asian learners generally. Although the recent data show a strong movement among both parents and teachers to preserve English-medium education, as an essential means of achieving English proficiency, the realities of economic and demographic integration with China make it likely that English in Hong Kong in the years ahead will increasingly take on the features of a foreign rather than a second language, both in education and in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that Hong Kong is now a part of China, there are differences between Hong Kong and the mainland, especially in terms of the education system, school environment, teaching and learning culture, and learner proficiency level of English. Based on interviews with ten secondary school teachers, the paper discusses the difficulties caused by the recent influx of children from China into Hong Kong. Firstly, there are difficulties for the immigrants themselves. They have to search for a school that will accept the children, and the children are often rejected because their English is not good enough. Secondly, there are difficulties for the classroom teacher. Added to the problems of teaching through English, there are now additional problems with the Chinese children, such as different first languages and no single lingua franca. And there are difficulties for the schools, for example, caused by the lack of systematic admission procedures, and insufficient support for schools and teachers in this respect. The paper makes a number of observations and recommendations that may help to alleviate the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way in which different cities teach children to read in Chinese may have an impact on the skills they later utilize to acquire English word reading skills. This study examined the relative contributions of several cognitive–linguistic measures to English word reading for Chinese students learning English as a second language in two Chinese cities, one whose school system teaches Pinyin (Beijing) and one whose school system does not teach Pinyin (Hong Kong). Students in grades 2–3 completed measures on Chinese morphological awareness (MA), Chinese phonological awareness (PA), Pinyin writing, and English word reading. In the Beijing group, it was found that PA (β = 0.334, p < 0.01) and Pinyin (β = 0.257, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of English word reading. In contrast, in the Hong Kong group, only MA (β = 0.263, p < 0.05) was found to be a significant predictor of English word reading. The difference in predictors could be due to the availability of a phonological tool (Pinyin) for the Beijing students when learning Chinese, while the Hong Kong group may have relied more heavily on learning using MA and rote memory techniques. Overall, the results from this study provide data supporting the benefits of having a phonological tool like Pinyin for Chinese children when learning to read in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationships between struggling writers' motivation (i.e., interest, self-efficacy, and growth mindset) and their use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies (i.e., planning, text-generating, self-monitoring, and collaborative learning) and writing competence in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Participants were 368 primary students in Hong Kong who scored 15 or less out of 48 marks in a writing test. They reported a generally moderate level of motivation and lower medium level of SRL strategy use. Especially, the participants reported a low level of interest. Results of structural equation modelling (SEM) suggested that growth mindset had the strongest positive correlations with the struggling EFL writers' use of SRL strategies. Both self-efficacy and interest also had positive correlations with the students' SRL strategy use, but only self-efficacy had significant and positive relations with their writing competence. Implications for English teachers to improve instruction for struggling EFL writers' in order to promote their motivation and SRL strategy use are provided and suggestions for future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In content-based instruction (CBI) programmes, students learn content subjects through a second language (L2), so that they can incidentally learn the language. To further facilitate students' L2 development, the collaboration between L2 and content subject teachers has been strongly advocated. Previous research on such kind of collaboration mainly focused on how it may be realised, and on identifying potential obstacles, while its effectiveness remains under-explored. This paper reports the findings of a small-scale project conducted in a Hong Kong secondary school in which CBI is practised. Teachers of English, Integrated Humanities and Science collaborated in the design and teaching of several units for Grade 8 students. With data collected from teacher meetings, lesson observations, and students' performance on the pre- and post-tests, this study evaluated whether and how cross-curricular collaboration contributed to students' L2 learning. The findings show that students in classes where cross-curricular collaboration was practised demonstrated a better understanding of the targeted grammatical items. This could be attributed to enhanced teachers awareness of students' needs, a more suitable curriculum and changes in teachers' pedagogical foci in lessons. This study thus suggests the potentials of cross-curricular teacher collaboration and provides important implications for further enhancing the effectiveness of CBI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In learning mathematics through English, one of the major challenges facing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners is understanding the language used to present word problems in mathematics texts. Without comprehending such language, learners are not able to carry out the targeted calculations no matter how familiar they are with the mathematical concepts behind. As many researchers have pointed out, distinctive combinations of certain vocabulary and grammatical structures are often found in the mathematical register. It is therefore important for teachers to discover, analyse and provide guidance on how learners can best tackle those linguistic challenges. This paper attempts to achieve this goal by first identifying and classifying, from word problem examples, the potential linguistic challenges at the word, phrase, clause and discourse levels. It then proceeds to suggest specific linguistic and multimodal strategies with good potential to help EFL learners overcome such challenges, with reference to the relevant literature and examples. It concludes by reiterating the importance of mathematics teachers' active engagement with the language used in word problems and suggesting possible collaboration between them and English language teachers in promoting EFL learners' awareness of the language of mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an excerpt of teacher–student interaction in an EFL junior secondary science classroom in Hong Kong is analysed using the conversation analytic method of sequential analysis. The fine-grained analysis reveals that in the teacher's effort to engage her students in the co-construction of a scientific proof, the students' familiar everyday discourses (e.g. students' examples and experiences as expressed in their familiar language) need to be allowed to play a significant role. It also shows how translanguaging can be well-coordinated with multimodal practices (using blackboard drawings, gestures) to facilitate students' meaning-making in the inquiry-based teacher–student dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the call for using assessment to promote effective learning, most language teachers remain underprepared to conduct classroom-based formative assessment and interpret the summative assessment information for improving instruction as well as learning. Drawing upon a survey of programme and government documents, interviews, student assessment tasks, and teaching evaluation, this paper aims to explore the overall language assessment training landscape in five Hong Kong teacher education institutions against the backdrop of assessment reforms in primary/secondary school contexts. It specifically attempts to investigate the extent to which two assessment courses may facilitate and/or inhibit the development of pre-service teachers’ language assessment literacy in one teacher education institution. Findings indicate that language assessment training in Hong Kong remains inadequate and selected language assessment courses are still unable to bridge the theory-practice gap within the assessment reform context. Implications and recommendations for promoting language assessment literacy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While there have been reviews over the past decade of studies examining second-language (L2) acquisition and also emergent literacy development, these related bodies of knowledge have not generally been considered together in relation to the education of very young English-language learners. This paper attempts to do so in a selective manner by proposing a preliminary conceptual framework for second language emergent literacy development, thus paving the way for future research. The literature on the emergent literacy of native English speakers is first outlined, followed by a discussion of the general effects of bilingualism and cross-linguistic transfer, with the special case of Hong Kong children serving as an illustrative example. Finally, potential environmental influences are explored, with a focus on the home literacy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the needs and challenges of using English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong universities, where oral Cantonese and written Chinese are the more dominant local languages. It then presents one way of trying to address the needs of the students in these institutions by reporting on the Scaffolding Literacy in Academic and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project, which was an attempt to adopt a genre-based approach to literacy teaching at a large English-medium public university in Hong Kong. Drawing on work done by the Sydney School genre theorists (Rose & Martin 2012), the SLATE team first profiled the literacy needs of students in particular disciplines. They then used these field-specific understandings of language to develop pedagogical material to scaffold students from non-English speaking background into developing discipline-specific understandings of language. This material was embedded into literacy support for the students within the core units of study of the discipline. In embedding this support, the SLATE team adapted the Teaching Learning Cycle (Rothery 1996) to an online context. In order to do this, they theorised feedback as Negotiated Construction and used it to help students understand some of the features of academic writing. The project described here demonstrates the viability of adopting genre-based approaches to language and literacy teaching in online environments to support the needs of non-English speaking students in institutions where English is the medium of instruction in Hong Kong and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a qualitative case study of a collaborative project between an ESL researcher and a history teacher teaching in a late immersion school in Hong Kong. The project aims to help a Grade 9 class to write history essays on their own instead of copying from the textbook, which is a common phenomenon in Hong Kong schools. The researcher and the history teacher collaborated on the design and teaching of four writing activities during a semester. The design of the writing activities was guided by a pedagogical framework for integrating content-language learning in late immersion, where content learning is increasingly complex and abstract and the language use is correspondingly more complex and specialized. The project was successful in helping students to write on their own and in improving that writing, particularly in terms of text structure. A major contribution to this success was the collaboration between a content specialist and a language specialist. Challenges faced in the collaboration between the content and language specialists and future directions for collaboration are shared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with reading, writing and listening, there has been a paucity of empirical data documenting learners' experiences of speaking English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language (EFL) in different learning contexts in spite of the fact that developing the ability to speak in a second or foreign language is widely considered a daunting task for most language learners. This paper reports on the findings of a questionnaire survey of the English speaking difficulties experienced by two Chinese populations: one group of university students from mainland China and one group of university students from Hong Kong. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the students' perceived difficulties are analysed in relation to linguistic deficiency, oral language processes, conversational skills and academic speaking conventions, affective influence as well as affordance of opportunities to use English for spoken communication in the students' learning contexts. Important implications of the results for pedagogical practices that foster development of ESL or EFL speaking skills are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While it has been proposed that language teachers’ beliefs could filter the way they perceive their teaching and influence their practice, few studies have investigated how their beliefs interact with their teaching decisions and why some beliefs override others. When EFL teachers adapt the Western-based Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) model to Asian contexts, tensions between beliefs about different traditions of language teaching begin to surface and influence their perceptions and practice of new teaching methodologies. Therefore, exploring how EFL teachers’ beliefs interact with their teaching decisions could shed more light on EFL teacher development. This paper reports on the interactions between a pre-service EFL teacher’s beliefs about CLT and her teaching practice in a one-year postgraduate teacher education programme in Hong Kong. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, belief-inventory questionnaires, researcher’s field notes, classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews at different times in the programme. It gives an interpretive account of the participant’s reactions to conflicting beliefs and the impact on her learning process. This is followed by a discussion on several characteristics of belief development, which facilitated CLT adaptation and/or hindered teacher development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the introduction of the English Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers in Hong Kong, local English teachers' performance in the assessment has been in the spotlight. Among the five papers in the assessment, teachers' scores for the writing paper, a composite of two tasks¾expository writing and error correction and explanation, have consistently recorded the lowest since the implementation. One recurrent comment is teachers' insufficient understanding and use of metalinguistic terminology. It is against this background that the present study was conducted. It aimed to explore the extent to which local English teachers in primary schools were aware of English metalinguistic terms at different structural levels. 20 in-service primary English teachers participated in an English grammar metalanguage test, modelled on Andrews (1999), and their performance revealed three key patterns: (1) the lowest mean score in the explanation component, (2) recognition of examples of grammatical functions being much harder than that of grammatical forms, and (3) errors at the word level being more readily to be corrected and explained than those at the phrasal and clausal levels. Their performance also suggested one possible discrepancy between primary English teachers and the secondary counterparts, where the primary teachers were better at the lower level of metalanguage application (e.g., recognition of examples for metalinguistic terms) and the secondary teachers at higher-level applications (e.g., error correction). The paper concludes with a suggestion that systematic micro-metalinguistic input be integrated in teacher training courses and be used more actively among in-service teachers in their teaching context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University instructors' classroom assessments play a central role in and inevitably influence their teaching and their students' learning. This paper reports on a comparative interview study conducted in a range of three ESL/EFL university contexts in Canada, Hong Kong and China. Six major aspects of ESL/EFL classroom assessment practices were explored: instructors' assessment planning for the courses they taught, the relative weight given to course work and tests in their instruction, the type of assessment methods (selection vs. supply methods) that they used, the purposes each assessment was used for, the source of each method used, and when they used each method. University instructors were also asked to indicate what they saw as the advantages and disadvantages of the methods they used, and whether they took into account prior student knowledge when making decisions about what assessment methods to use. The findings contribute to a better understanding of ESL/EFL university instructors' classroom assessment practices at the tertiary level in a range of three ESL/EFL university teaching contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at some attempts by advanced learners of English in Hong Kong to identify words while transcribing song lyrics. It includes a number of misinterpretations recently dubbed 'mondegreens'. Although interest in this phenomenon among native speakers has been primarily for its amusement value, the words chosen by second language speakers show evidence of a serious attempt to create order out of the chaos born of an inadequate awareness of the full range of English phonological distinctions. Implications for the teaching of English, especially phonology and listening skills, are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science fiction in language classes can be very motivating for students. The stories frequently contain social dilemmas and conflicts. Such reading demands personal responses from readers. A college EFL course using science fiction texts and films can help students whose imminent concern is not only language proficiency, but also the culture of an English-speaking world. This paper presents two responses in the author's EFL classes on helping students find joy in reading and thereby enhancing language skills through different activities, including the use of films. It was found that a lecture approach would not favour some Hong Kong students who have not had any literature training. On the other hand, a more student-oriented approach which values students' opinions made a significant difference. Such information is useful to other EFL programmes in English-speaking countries, and to an introductory literature course where there are EFL members in class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyse pupil-teacher dialogue, in a mixture of English and Cantonese, from a segment of a Form 2 (Grade 8,13-14 yrs) English reading lesson. The lesson was videotaped in a working-class school in Hong Kong, and the excerpt is taken from a larger corpus of similar lesson data videotaped in the class over three consecutive weeks. The analysis shows how these Cantonese children, with limited English, succeeded in subverting the reading lesson, which was based entirely on information extraction tasks. Instead, they negotiated their own preferred comic-style narratives by cleverly making use of the response slots of the IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback) discourse format used in the lesson. Thus they achieved genuinely creative responses, in spite of the curriculum. The implications for teaching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Japan and Hong Kong seek to enhance the English standard of their secondary school students by implementing a native-speaking English teachers scheme, named the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Programme in Japan and the NET (Native-speaking English Teachers) Scheme in Hong Kong. However, the implications of these programmes seem to be sociopolitical more than educational. As for Japan, JET is a consequence of an explicit political strategy to promote international relationships. The Japanese Government is keen to bring up a generation that is able to understand other countries yet retain Japanese national consciousness. On the surface, the Hong Kong NET Scheme seems to be a more straightforward language improvement programme. However, the Japanese experience suggests another level of analysis. The Hong Kong Government is never as explicit as Japan as to what it wants to achieve through the NET Scheme. Though NET is claimed to be a language improvement scheme, there is no evidence to show how effectively this kind of programme can work in local Hong Kong secondary schools. With a special interest in the ideologies behind the two language improvement programmes, this paper attempts to explore their sociopolitical and cultural meanings beyond their educational surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a qualitative study investigating the teaching experiences of ESL teachers of ethnic minority students from South Asian countries. Eight ESL teachers from two secondary schools in Hong Kong were interviewed. Informed by the concept of neoliberal governmentality, this study explores the shaping effect of neoliberal education on these teachers' professional development, their negotiation with the current examination-oriented educational policy, and the overall neoliberal discourse in education. The teachers were found to be ambivalent in their contradictory positions regarding whether to encourage or prohibit the use of heritage languages in English learning, whether to conform to the curriculum or develop new materials and try out new ways, and how to unravel social responsibility for ethnic minority groups' development. This study has implications for the importance of awareness of the impact of macro-level neoliberalism on micro-level educational practices among teachers, principals, and policy makers, and for the necessity of developing teacher education programmes to prepare teachers with a particular concern about the well-being of children (especially those in underprivileged communities), and enable them to think critically about scripted curriculum packages and to work within more diverse and challenging contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present a (co)reflexive analysis of the multiple adaptations of an English as a Second Language reading curriculum for primary students in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic through our partnership as a practitioner-researcher and an external researcher. Adopting the principles of interactional ethnography, we examined the actions, considerations, and challenges in undertaking five curriculum adaptations over an academic period via an ethnographic case study. The ongoing conversation facilitated a (co)reflexive analysis of relevant data in two phases of analysis. In the first phase, we aimed to understand the reading program and set the stage for the second phase, which was to unpack the five curriculum adaptation processes across the academic year. Findings revealed that the curriculum adaptations were driven by data, instructional time, and varied teaching delivery modes. Three principles of curriculum adaptations were derived from the findings: prioritizing personalized learning, systematic orchestration of learning activities, and purposeful integration of theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the compositions of Hong Kong English as a second language (ESL) learners and English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Mainland China in terms of lexical and syntactic features. A program based on the CoreNLP was developed and used to analyze written language texts, and differences in tags of parts of speech and syntactic dependencies between the two groups of texts were compared statistically to examine differences in the lexical and syntactic features of the learners’ written language. The results show significant differences in the lexical and syntactic features of learners’ writing. Specifically, in EFL learners’ writing, there is a salient group pattern of higher lexical diversity, whereas ESL compositions are more flexible in vocabulary use with higher information density, in that they use more syntactic phrases and content words. In terms of syntax, Hong Kong ESL students use more adverbials and adverbial clauses, which is advantageous in syntactic simplicity and readability over their counterparts, whereas Mainland China EFL students prefer using more specific expressions to demonstrate syntactic relations. Compared to EFL compositions, ESL compositions are more informative, coherent, and grammatical in lexical features and more readable in syntactic features, which require more attention and further improvements in terms of EFL teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology plays a crucial role in modern second/foreign language education. Enormous changes in technology and the growing emphasis on 21st century skills raise a concern about English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' competencies in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) more than ever. In response to the mounting concern, this study investigates pre-service EFL teachers' readiness in the use of CALL in the Hong Kong context. It explores the experiences and self-efficacy of participants with respect to the evaluation of the current English teacher education curriculum for CALL at a university in Hong Kong and factors affecting the participants' acceptance and willingness to use CALL. In-depth interviews were conducted with six pre-service EFL teachers to reveal the reality of the teachers' attitudes, perceptions and experiences regarding the use of technology. Findings provide insights into the significance of language teacher education in CALL and ways for fostering pre-service EFL teachers' knowledge and skills in the implementation of CALL. Practical implications are made for effective teacher training for CALL in EFL contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on positioning theory, this paper investigates the identity issues involved in an English as Lingua Franca (ELF) interaction in a multicultural university in Hong Kong. The findings indicate that the ELF participants' institutional roles are culturally determined, and are not fixed but vary in different phases of the discourse. This study suggests that the interlocutors move beyond language use in specific interactional context, and draw on their own histories and cultural knowledge to define and re-define the different positions of English language varieties in a broader context, so as to position their own English varieties at a privileged or advantageous position in the micro-interactional context. Despite the subtle negotiation of power relations they undertake, the ELF speakers in this study attempt to achieve alignment when a face-threatening episode occurs. It is found that ELF communication provides a context for interlocutors to see themselves through the lens of their embodied history and subjectivity and that of others, and to create new relationships and identities. The implications of the findings and future research direction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]