Sufficient conditions for sustainable instructional changes in the classroom: The case of Hong Kong

The present study hypothesizes that both organizational and classroom constraints mediate the chance of making instructional changes sustainable. Behind this hypothesis is an assumption that when people faces impending changes, the level of anxiety tends to increase and creates defenses which block the change. A survey of 1,876 teachers in 65 secondary schools in Hong Kong is conducted and path analysis is employed to look at how constraints in the organization and in the classroom hamper the sustainable implementation of new modes of pedagogy toward constructivism. Findings in the study suggest that both organizational constraints and behavioral problems in the classroom reduce the sustainability of new modes of individual-focused and whole class focused instructional practices, but learning problems in the classroom increase the sustainability of alternative modes of individual-focused instructional practices. The author suggests that the sufficient conditions for sustainable instructional changes within a school are an authentic professional learning community among the teachers, and whole school arrangements to provide a peaceful learning environment in the classrooms and an individualized education program for students in need.     

Learning Chinese characters via mobile technology in a primary school classroom

This paper describes a project, including the design, development, and use of a mobile application (referred to as application hereafter) for learning Chinese as a second language in a bilingual primary school. The application was designed for iPod Touch Apple technology with the purpose to facilitate learning of a fundamental set of 200 Chinese characters. The project was a coordinated effort of experts, including an instructional designer, a software engineer, a Chinese language expert, and classroom teachers to develop an experimental Chinese character learning application for the primary school classroom. This paper reports how the project team explored experiences of teachers and learners in a particular context, developed understanding of teaching and learning needs for Chinese language learning, and how these inform design of the educational application. The final outcomes of the project include a Chinese character learning application and recommendations for design and use of educational applications in Chinese language teaching and other similar contexts.     

HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM AND WESTERN ASSISTANCE IN HUNGARY: THE TEMPUS EXPERIENCE

The TEMPUS programme was started in the early 1990's in a unique political climate in eastern European countries. It was a very considerable innovation as a complex and efficient higher education programme, targeted at the real needs of the recipients. As no higher education strategies existed at that time in the region, TEMPUS was not able to support comprehensive structural changes, at least in Hungary, in the university sphere. Its unique success in terms of efficiency can be traced back to the presence of the European dimension, the professional management of the Programme, and the very appropriate emotional challenge it has presented both in the East and the West.     

数字图书馆中多媒体馆藏与服务的建立

介绍岭南大学开发网上多媒体馆藏,并在香港开拓性地利用多媒体点播技术,通过互联网提供数字图书馆服务的实践。得出以下结论:多媒体技术对数字图书馆的影响无法估量,图书馆界应仔细研究和分析多媒体对数字图书馆的影响,充分发掘其潜能,并在引入多媒体服务的过程中,彼此分享经验,共建共享数字化资源。     

The Exhibition on Catholic Culture: Dialogues and Negotiations at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

The first exhibition in Vietnam to feature Vietnamese Catholics was held from December 10, 2008 to June 10, 2009 at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. The theme of this exhibition was “Catholic Culture as an Intrinsic Part of Vietnamese Culture.” The exhibition was organized by a State‐run museum against a background of difficult relations between the State and its Catholic communities. This article explores how the exhibition was conceived, and how the ideas of the curators were implemented by examining negotiations among different stakeholders involved in the exhibition.     

HUNGARIAN ACADEMIC CO‐OPERATION WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED STATES

Academic co‐operation between higher education institutions in Hungary and those of western Europe, on the one hand, and those of the United States of America, on the other, are compared. Hungarian co‐operation with western European higher education, particularly the European Union countries, has been far more developed than that with the United States. The greater success and scope of co‐operation with western European higher education institutions is attributed to the comprehensiveness of the TEMPUS Programme of the European Union countries and its careful and well‐planned responses to the problems of the central and eastern European region. However, Hungarian higher education could gain a great deal from more intensive co‐operation with American higher education. Efforts should be made to encourage such co‐operation including the greater involvement of American higher education institutions in TEMPUS projects.     

Teachers’ misconceptions and questionable practices when using Putonghua 1 as the medium-of-instruction: a case study of Hong Kong

Immediately after the handover of Hong Kong to China, the teaching of Chinese in Putonghua was promulgated by the Hong Kong SAR government as a long-term goal. However, no clear definition and guidance regarding Putonghua instruction has been provided to teachers to facilitate the smooth implementation of this change. A review of the literature indicates that teachers’ beliefs have great value in assisting them to make sense of changes and govern their thoughts and behaviours. However, little is known about how teachers’ beliefs help teachers to understand the transition to a new medium-of-instruction (MOI). Thus, the aim of this case study is to examine how teachers’ beliefs help teachers to conceptualize the Putonghua medium-of-instruction (PMI) and how these beliefs affect their curricular decisions as well as the implementation of PMI. Data were collected from 10 secondary Chinese Language teachers in one school using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. The findings revealed that since teachers held misconceptions about PMI in the initial phase, the implementation of PMI led to a shift of focus away from Chinese content knowledge. In the second phase, PMI was perceived merely as a code-switching device, and, as a result, only a surface change occurred that appeared unlikely to facilitate effective teaching and deep learning. This paper concludes with the observation that code switching alone is insufficient to achieve a successful transition of MOI if the deeper issue of teachers’ beliefs is neglected.