Changing educational priorities are reflected both in the literature and the models that seek to describe initial teachers' professional formation and learning. However, do new teachers' experiences conform to these models? A sampling of Hong Kong secondary school teachers over their first year as full-time teachers provides data from…

This study aims to report how Hong Kong teachers handle a seemingly conventional, orderly schooling phenomenon--the teaching of the newly arrived children (NAC) migrated from mainland China. Semi-structured interviews with ten teachers from nine primary schools were conducted. The principal findings are that the teachers are not prepared for the…

This study considered curricular and instructional influences on early Chinese literacy attainment in Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. The participants included 198 pre-school children, their teachers and parents. Children were administered the Pre-school and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale at the age of either two or three years, and again one…

Teachers attending a 5-week in-service retraining course completed a survey asking them to rate their current competencies and training needs in 24 variables (N = 210). Intuitively, teacher competencies and their perceived needs of retraining should be negatively correlated. However, the correlations between teacher competencies and perceived…

This report examines and critiques specific aspects of instruction of two modules of an undergraduate program in Teaching English as a Second Language (BATESL) and describes attempts to transform the curriculum to more effectively foster and reflect applications of theory to the realities of the Hong Kong English as a Foreign Language (EFL)…

The field experience component in the four-year Bachelor of Education programme (Primary) at The Hong Kong Institute of Education offers a number of opportunities for students to observe or teach in a school. The aim of this article is to analyse the learning of the student-teachers and the supporting teachers during the field experience period in…

Changes that occur in teachers' careers are typically conceptualized in research as occurring in several demarcated and sequential stages/phases. This study examines secondary schoolteachers' understandings of their careers and whether they could identify stages/phases in their career development. It is based on experienced teachers' recall of…

The present paper examines the experiences of teachers in teaching children with special needs in mainstream schools and how they see and evaluate the feasibility of the new integration initiatives in Hong Kong. The data are based on individual and focus group interviews with general class teachers, resource class teachers and principals of…

This paper examines philosophical frame factors for English Language Teaching in the Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) classroom. Drawing on the experience of a Native English Teacher in a government-aided Hong Kong High School it pays attention to two related difficulties: the "reality" of English in the classroom and the perceived…