The significance of reflective practice (RP) has been widely recognized in both general education and language education. The past years have witnessed an exponential growth of studies in examining how technology can be utilized to promote teachers' RP and video-based RP has been extensively reported as a powerful tool for teacher learning in many…

Microteaching and reflection remains an important technique that pre-service student teachers can use to practice their teaching in a safe environment. However, improvements in teaching are not guaranteed without the support and feedback from peers. Previous studies suggest that a learning community supported by information technology promotes…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore strategies to develop communities of practice (CoP) to improve teaching in a school context. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional questionnaire is developed to collect data from participants in a project that aims to cultivate a CoP to improve their small class teaching skills. A total of…

This study highlights the importance of mentorship focused on reflective practice during preservice teacher education and early years of teaching. Thoughtful reflection about teaching practices during early years of teaching is critical in preparing teachers for a child-centered curriculum. To successfully distinguish between teacher-directed and…

This study explores how adapted action research could act as a catalyst for change in curriculum development and be used as an instructional strategy in a music teacher education programme to enhance the reflective practice of student-teachers. Two cases of in-service, part-time student-teachers of a music teacher programme who conducted an…

In the late 1990s, Hong Kong and Shanghai began placed increasing emphasis on teacher development to raise the overall quality of education. As such, this research is guided by three questions: First, what approaches to teacher development have Hong Kong and Shanghai used? Second, in the views of teachers in the two cities, how have the different…

Advocating dialogue between language teachers and learners has been an area of growing exploration, particularly in the area of reflective practice in second language teacher education. In this brief report, the authors detail the conceptualization and procedures of two online exchange projects conducted in 2008 and 2009, in which they tried to…

In 1999 a critical thinking syllabus was issued by the education authority to all junior secondary school English language teachers in Hong Kong. Different from the earlier curriculum guidelines, the syllabus highlights the importance of thinking in English language teaching and learning, and developing students' critical thinking through the…

This paper attempts to identify the distinctive qualities of successful veteran teachers, referred to as "expert teachers", which separates them not only from novice teachers but more importantly from experienced non-expert teachers. Based on earlier case studies, this paper maintains that the critical differences between expert and…

To ensure their teaching quality, it is important for student teachers to undertake self reflection on their teaching performance after supervised teaching sessions. With the goal of sharpening the teaching competence of student teachers, a dual function system that uses web based and video based technologies is being developed to facilitate self…

The idea of active learning was first introduced to kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong in 1981 when they received their in-service teacher education. In a two-year, school-based project, 60 teachers in five schools were asked to create collaborative videos about models of good practices after sharing "effective" teaching episodes with…

This article explores how dialogue journals and response journals can be used to encourage reflection among pre-service teachers. Thirty-one pre-service English teachers from two Hong Kong universities participated in the study. One group wrote dialogue journals and the other group wrote response journals throughout two semesters on two separate…

This article examines English as a Second/New Language teacher attitudes based on three personal stories and suggests study abroad as a way to foster necessary teacher dispositions. How can a teacher candidate master the array of teacher dispositions required by various sets of English as a Second Language (ESL) and Bilingual/Bicultural Education…

Describes the experiences of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university professors who investigated reflective teaching and professional development by practicing what they preached. Over one academic year they taught their EFL classes utilizing three professional development procedures (journal writing, videotaping, and teaching portfolios).…