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This paper reports on school-university collaboration during an action research project, which aimed to build a writing pedagogy for students with Learning Disabilities in the trilingual, biliterate educational context of Hong Kong. The project was established through interpersonal relationships built from the ground up between stakeholders from a university department and a secondary school. The informal social networks were the locus of innovation and creativity within the project. This paper examines four broad dimensions of collaboration: the relationships created, the resources shared, the action taken and the pedagogy created. We discuss these dimensions of collaboration from the perspectives of the stakeholders. We found that each stakeholder aligned their motivations and expectations with other stakeholders to achieve the common goals of the research and consequently we call such alignments of interests "research networks". Finally, we suggest that "research networks" constitute an important, yet overlooked component of action research.

This article describes a genre-based literacy pedagogy which can be used with English language learners. The pedagogy discussed involves a combination of two explicit teaching methodologies, a genre-based and activity-based pedagogical approach. The pedagogy was introduced in an English Club at a local Hong Kong school, as part of a collaborative research project. In this article, we discuss the approach used and present examples of the students' work. The findings are particularly suitable for educational contexts where the students are low proficiency English as a foreign language (EFL) learners.

Describes the evaluation of a mentoring-based staff development project at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University entitled "Effective English Communication for Teaching and Research." Data from surveys, in-depth case studies of participants, and interviews demonstrate how multiple measures of program effectiveness offer a richer view of the impact. (EV)

Examines the nature of peer exchanges in two partial network-based classes and the conflicts learners face in this situation where all information is text-based and archived. Provides a picture of how learners used the available technology to interact with peers and their comments on how this mode of delivery extended their traditional notions of learning. (Author/VWL)

Describes an exploratory study that investigated the effects of explicit instruction in revision on learners' performance and perceptions about writing. Learners were from a secondary school in Hong Kong. Indicates that explicit teaching of revision strategies has a measurable influence on writing performance. (Author/VWL)

Genre-based approaches to curriculum delivery have been applied to primary, secondary, tertiary, and graduate programs. This article takes this approach one step further and shows how such an approach was applied in conceptualizing a funded staff-development program at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (Author/VWL)

This paper reports an exploratory study of questions about English grammar sent in by a group of Hong Kong English-as-a-Second-Language teachers to a teacher support network, "Telenex." The study examines the questions Hong Kong ESL teachers ask about the English language. (Author/JL)

Examines how six Hong Kong secondary school students of English as a Second Language viewed the roles of teacher and student in evaluating student compositions, and explores the extent to which broader educational context and its belief system shaped these perceptions. Questions viability of notions of collaborative construction of knowledge in the classroom within an examination-driven, accuracy-oriented language curriculum. (MSE)

Describes how a hypertext database "Focus on Writing" was created to assist English language teachers of Hong Kong secondary schools in the teaching of continuous writing. The article delineates the theoretical and practical rationale behind the evolving design of this database and discusses the emerging issues of this technology. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Describes the aims of an evolving teaching resources database, TeleTeach, which is part of a computer-based teacher support network called TeleNex. The article discusses how TeleTeach's unique features may contribute toward building an electronic community of reflective teachers, suggesting that teaching materials are potentially complementary to professional development. (19 references) (Author/CK)

Abstract Portfolios are becoming increasingly popular both in the assessment of writing as well as a mode of assessment to measure teacher learning. In this paper I will describe a [...]

Focuses on how teaching experience at a newly implemented second language writing center contributed towards personal theory development of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writing for three teachers. Combined the literature on teacher knowledge with ESL writing to study teachers' changing beliefs about ESL writers, readers, texts, and contexts. Found all three teachers critically examined and revised their content and pedagogic content knowledge of ESL writing. (Author/VWL)

Describes how classroom intervention, through developing process awareness of reading, helped change students' model of reading with a socially constructed one. Shows the impact the changes in students' reading models had on their literacy experiences in other courses of their degree. (Author/VWL)

This paper reports on school-university collaboration during an action research project, which aimed to build a writing pedagogy for students with Learning Disabilities in the trilingual, biliterate educational context of Hong Kong. The project was established through interpersonal relationships built from the ground up between stakeholders from a university department and a secondary school. The informal social networks were the locus of innovation and creativity within the project. This paper examines four broad dimensions of collaboration: the relationships created, the resources shared, the action taken and the pedagogy created. We discuss these dimensions of collaboration from the perspectives of the stakeholders. We found that each stakeholder aligned their motivations and expectations with other stakeholders to achieve the common goals of the research and consequently we call such alignments of interests "research networks". Finally, we suggest that "research networks" constitute an important, yet overlooked component of action research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a genre-based literacy pedagogy which can be used with English language learners. The pedagogy discussed involves a combination of two explicit teaching methodologies, a genre-based and activity-based pedagogical approach. The pedagogy was introduced in an English Club at a local Hong Kong school, as part of a collaborative research project. In this article, we discuss the approach used and present examples of the students' work. The findings are particularly suitable for educational contexts where the students are low proficiency English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how classroom intervention, through developing process awareness of reading, helped change students' model of reading with a socially constructed, explicit one. It then shows the impact the changes in students' reading models had on their literacy experiences in other courses of their degree. The twenty-five participants were native speakers of Cantonese enrolled in an undergraduate degree in "Contemporary English Language" at a Hong Kong university. They attended tutorials every fortnight to discuss set readings of academic articles and book chapters for a course entitled "Language and Society". Data were gathered by audio recording classes, collating learning journal entries, and conducting in-depth interviews. The data were inductively analyzed to find emerging themes following a reiterative process of substantiating and elaborating the themes. Initially students considered word-for-word decoding the only way to read, and as they were shown how to read selectively and purposefully, students' implicit models of 'good' reading became increasingly explicit in which reading was seen as an active process entailing complex interactions between readers, writers and text. However, data also showed that such process models of reading needed contextual support if they were to have a role in students' literacy experiences outside the sheltered ESL classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an exploratory investigation of a secondary school writing class in Hong Kong. Exploration of the extent to which the broader education context and its belief system shaped six English as a second language (ESL) students' perception of peer evaluation; Findings that self and peer-evaluation of the same composition did not differ substantially in the compositions selected; What led to the conclusion that peer evaluation was not able to bring a real reader's perspective.