English in Asian bilingual education: From Hatred to Harmony a response

Explores parts of the phenomenon of the support for, and hostility toward, the use of English in education in Asian bilingual systems. The article then sketches an educational alternative capable of making the language a shared resource for all its stakeholders. Tsui's response addresses the question of whether educational solutions are capable of resolving language conflicts or not.published_or_final_versio

Distinctive qualities of expert teachers

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 non-expert teachers are manifested in three dimensions: their ability to integrate aspects of teacher knowledge in relation to the teaching act; their response to their contexts of work, and their ability to engage in reflection and conscious deliberation. The paper further addresses the question of why some teachers become experts while others remain experienced non-experts by examining the developmental processes of the experienced teachers in the case studies. The findings suggest that engagement in exploration and experimentation in teaching and learning, in problematizing the unproblematic, and in tasks which challenge teachers to extend their competence are crucial to the development of expertise. The implications for teacher development are discussed. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.postprin

Linguistic paradoxes and cultural domination

Spring (2007) provides an interesting account of the global flow of education ideas and how it has always been largely motivated by a fear of the 'other.' As he points out, the intensified spread of English is a result of choice rather than coercion. In this article, the author focuses on the spread of English and address two aspects in relation to it: first, the linguistic paradox created by the spread of English; second, the cultural domination that accompanies the spread of English.postprin

Gender and conversational dominance in Japanese conversation

A number of studies have been conducted on "dominance" as reflected in spoken interactional features, most of which deal with English. Many of these studies adopt a quantitative approach, examining the amount and distribution of interactional features such as amount of talk, interruptions and overlaps, turn-taking, questions, and topic initiations, and they have drawn conclusions on "dominance" accordingly. The present study explores gender dominance in conversation by analyzing conversational data from eight Japanese dyads by integrating quantitative and qualitative analyses. The quantitative analysis of two dimensions of conversational dominance, sequential dominance and participatory dominance, does not show any obvious gender dominance; however, the qualitative analysis of three of the dyads finds a clear pattern of male speakers' self-oriented conversational style, which is manifested in their storytelling and claiming expertise, and this is supported by female speakers' other-oriented conversational style. Gender dominance therefore is seen as a mutual construction. The conclusion discusses the importance of integrating findings from both quantitative and qualitative analyses in situated contexts to deepen understanding of the complexity of gender dominance.published_or_final_versio

Cultural Contexts and Situated Possibilities in the Teaching of Second Language Writing

Premised on the conception of teacher knowledge as situated and the agency of the teacher in perceiving and exploiting "situated possibilities" in the classroom, this article argues that it is important for teachers to construct local understanding of their work embedded in the local cultural traditions and to explore possibilities for student learning in the context of constraints. The authors report on an investigation of the pedagogical strategies developed by two L2 writing teachers in Hong Kong, which showed that these strategies emerged as the teachers perceived and responded to situated possibilities for learning and that the strategies were rooted in the cultural traditions of the learners as well as the micro-cultures of the classroom. The authors suggest that teacher education programs should provide ample opportunities for teachers to gain a deep understanding of local cultures and to explore opportunities for student learning that build on such cultural traditions. © 2010 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.postprin

Customising Linguistics: Developing an Electronic Grammar Database for Teachers

This paper considers issues in customising descriptions of English grammar in the context of creating an electronic database for secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. In developing the database, we have aimed to incorporate insights from functional grammar and corpus linguistics while keeping the information accessible and relevant to teachers familiar only with traditional approaches to grammar. This has involved exploiting the advantages of hypertext, explicitly foregrounding pedagogical concerns and developing a metalanguage that will allow discussion of areas such as transitivity and theme without alienating the teacher-users. We illustrate the kinds of compromises that are necessary in order to match the linguistic information to the needs and existing knowledge of the teacher-users.published_or_final_versio

Re-envisioning Undergraduate Education

Conference Theme: Research into Practice in the Four-year curriculumPlenary speaker of the keynote addressGlobalization has posed immense challenges to higher education institutions worldwide. In the last two decades, discussions of the attributes that university graduates should have in order to cope with rapid changes on a global scale and the positioning of universities to attract the best talents have taken centre stage in the discourse of tertiary education. In this presentation, I shall examine the ways in which higher education institutions have tried to meet these challenges. I will then examine the rationale behind the 3-3-4 educational reform in Hong Kong as proposed by education policy makers, what it hopes to achieve and the challenges that it has posed, particularly to tertiary the ways in which higher education institutions have tried to meet these challenges. I will then examine the rationale behind the 3-3-4 educational reform in Hong Kong as proposed by education policy makers, what it hopes to achieve and the challenges that it has posed, particularly to tertiarypublished_or_final_versio

Gender and conversational dominance in Japanese conversation

2003-2004 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Which Agenda? Medium of Instruction Policy in Post-1997 Hong Kong

The mandatory use of mother tongue education in Hong Kong after 1997 met strong objections from the local community. While the government put forward a comprehensive educational agenda to justify the implementation of the policy, this paper raises the question of whether the change in language policy was mainly driven by an educational agenda, or whether there were other underlying agendas. To address the question, the history of the medium of instruction in Hong Kong is reviewed, and the experience of three decolonised Asian countries, Malaysia, Singapore and India, is discussed. The paper suggests that the political agenda has always played an important role in language policy formulation and implementation. In view of the important role that language plays in nation building and social reconstruction, it is inevitable that Chinese medium instruction will become more and more important. How the government will balance the need to strengthen the national identity of Hong Kong people and the need to maintain the international out look and economic development of Hong Kong will have a major impact on there view of the new medium of instruction policy in 2001.published_or_final_versio

Manchester Clinical Placement Index (MCPI): Conditions for medical students’ learning in hospital and community placements

The drive to quality-manage medical education has created a need for valid measurement instruments. Validity evidence includes the theoretical and contextual origin of items, choice of response processes, internal structure, and interrelationship of a measure’s variables. This research set out to explore the validity and potential utility of an 11-item measurement instrument, whose theoretical and empirical origins were in an Experience Based Learning model of how medical students learn in communities of practice (COPs), and whose contextual origins were in a community-oriented, horizontally integrated, undergraduate medical programme. The objectives were to examine the psychometric properties of the scale in both hospital and community COPs and provide validity evidence to support using it to measure the quality of placements. The instrument was administered twice to students learning in both hospital and community placements and analysed using exploratory factor analysis and a generalizability analysis. 754 of a possible 902 questionnaires were returned (84% response rate), representing 168 placements. Eight items loaded onto two factors, which accounted for 78% of variance in the hospital data and 82% of variance in the community data. One factor was the placement learning environment, whose five constituent items were how learners were received at the start of the placement, people’s supportiveness, and the quality of organisation, leadership, and facilities. The other factor represented the quality of training—instruction in skills, observing students performing skills, and providing students with feedback. Alpha coefficients ranged between 0.89 and 0.93 and there were no redundant or ambiguous items. Generalisability analysis showed that between 7 and 11 raters would be needed to achieve acceptable reliability. There is validity evidence to support using the simple 8-item, mixed methods Manchester Clinical Placement Index to measure key conditions for undergraduate medical students’ experience based learning: the quality of the learning environment and the training provided within it. Its conceptual orientation is towards Communities of Practice, which is a dominant contemporary theory in undergraduate medical education