David Carless

Student  feedback  literacy  denotes  the  understandings,  capacities  and dispositions  needed  to  make  sense  of  information  and  use  it  to  enhance work  or  learning  strategies.  In  this  conceptual  paper,  student  responses to  feedback  are  reviewed  and  a  number  of  barriers  to  student  uptake  of feedback  are  discussed.  Four  inter-related  features  are  proposed  as  a framework underpinning students’ feedback literacy: appreciating feedback; making judgments; managing affect; and taking action. Two well-established learning activities, peer feedback and analysing exemplars, are discussed to illustrate how this framework can be operationalized. Some ways in which these  two  enabling  activities  can  be  re-focused  more  explicitly  towards developing students’ feedback literacy are elaborated. Teachers are identified as playing important facilitating roles in promoting student feedback literacy through curriculum design, guidance and coaching. The implications and conclusion summarise recommendations for teaching and set out an agenda for further research.

In this chapter, I seek to elaborate on new ways of thinking about feedback by exploring the role of trust in developing dialogic forms of feedback. Trust is an important but underexplored factor impacting on teaching, learning and assessment. Trust is of great relevance to feedback processes because of the relational, affective and emotional sides of feedback. Assessment and feedback experiences can arouse negative (eg anxiety or anger) or positive (eg pride or satisfaction) reactions.

Whilst there is a body of research evidence on task-based language teaching (TBLT) with adults, less is known about its suitability for implementation in secondary schools, particularly in Asian contexts. This study uses interview data from a purposive sample of 12 secondary school teachers and 10 teacher educators based in the Hong Kong context, a setting in which task-based approaches have been adopted since the 1990s.

This paper analyses the extent of communicative activities in a Year Four primary school class in Guangdong, where a national task-based innovation has been mandated. The framework guiding the study uses a continuum of communicativeness of activities, developed by Littlewood. The research methods comprised 12 classroom observations and 17 interviews.

Abstract This article draws on an interview study with teachers and teacher educators on the topic of the feasibility of task-based teaching for implementation in schools. It focuses on a single theme from the study: student use of the mother tongue. A number of dimensions are addressed: the extent of classroom interaction in English in the context under review; informants' perspectives on mother tongue use; strategies for encouraging use of the target language; and relevant implications for teaching methodology.

Task-based teaching has a high profile within contemporary ELT, yet there are few analyses of the appropriateness of task-based approaches for school contexts. This paper aims to analyse the suitability of task-based teaching for Hong Kong secondary schools; and to derive some suggestions for the development of a version of task-based approaches feasible for this and other comparable school contexts.

Although task-based teaching is frequently practiced in contemporary English language teaching, it is underresearched in state school settings. This article contributes to filling this gap in the literature by using qualitative case study data to explore how a task-based innovation was implemented in three primary school classrooms in Hong Kong.

This paper uses detailed qualitative case study data to explore the implementation of task-based teaching in three primary school classrooms in Hong Kong. It reviews six issues which were found to impact on how teachers approached the implementation of communicative tasks in their classroom. The themes to be addressed are teacher beliefs; teacher understandings; the syllabus time available; the textbook and the topic; preparation and the available resources; and the language proficiency of the students.

Abstract This article draws on qualitative classroom observation data from case studies of three EFL classes in Hong Kong primary schools. It analyses four themes relevant to the classroom implementation of task‐based learning with young learners, namely, noise/indiscipline, the use of the mother tongue, the extent of pupil involvement, and the role of drawing or colouring activities. For each of these issues, strategies for classroom practice are discussed.

This paper focuses on collaboration between native-speaking English teachers (NETs) and local English teachers (LETs) in Hong Kong secondary schools. It examines some of the strengths and weaknesses of NETs and LETs documented in the international literature. It reviews, in various contexts, schemes where team teaching has been carried out.

ABSTRACT Within the region, a number of countries have viewed the importation of native speakers of English as a means of enhancing English language teaching in schools and promoting internationalization or cultural exchange. In this paper, I make some comparative observations about four such schemes, EPIK (English program in Korea), JET (Japan exchange and teaching program) and from Hong Kong, NET (Native-speaking English teacher) and PSED (Primary school English development).

Considerable effort and interest has been invested in the teaching and learning of English in Hong Kong, due both to its historical status as a former British colony and the instrumental power of English as the international language of business, commerce, technology and academia. With its geographical location at the southern tip of China and its historical links to both Britain and China, Hong Kong is a rich and fascinating sociolinguistic entity, of interest to researchers and practitioners both within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region.

Team teaching between native English speaking teachers and local L2 English teachers has become an increasingly common phenomenon in schooling in the East Asia region. The relevant literature reports some positive impacts of team teaching and also highlights some of the challenges or conflicts which arise. The aim of this paper is to focus on reporting and analysing good practices in intercultural team teaching.

Abstract This paper discusses an innovative programme of collaborative EFL teaching in Hong Kong primary schools, involving team-teaching shared between imported native-speaking English teachers and their local counterparts. First it analyses the way in which the scheme has evolved from previous experiences. The paper then draws on an open-ended questionnaire survey, email and face to face interviews, and classroom observations of team-teaching in action.