Vocabulary learning strategies play an indispensable role in assisting foreign language learners in expansion of their lexicon albeit efficaciousness of each strategy largely contingent upon preferences of individual learners. The present pilot study aims at investigating gender difference in preferences for second language vocabulary learning strategies. Self-report questionnaires on frequency of usage of distinct vocabulary learning strategies were distributed to 15 Thai learners of English at tertiary level. Male students were discovered to employ form-focused strategies as well as metacognitive monitoring and evaluation strategies more frequently whilst female students were found to adopt meaning-focused cognitive strategies and metacognitive planning strategies more frequently than their counterparts do. Such gender difference may illuminate instruction on vocabulary learning strategies in foreign language classrooms by encouraging teachers to take gender of students into consideration whilst planning vocabulary lessons in a bid to maximize pedagogical efficacy.

increase in the sample size, a more-in-depth analysis of data, more detailed focus group interviews, and the incorporation of quantitative analytical tools to further illuminate the potentials of the two social media platforms for news broadcasting.

Attributed to disparate goals as well as tenets of prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar, disagreement exists between the two in that prescriptive grammar rules may be violated in descriptive grammar; one concrete instance is subject-operator disagreement in English existential constructions. The present study aims at following up antecedent studies on subject-operator disagreement in English existential constructions produced by native English speakers, identifying any changes in patterns of subject-operator disagreement in recent years, and looking specifically into subject-operator disagreement in English existential constructions in Hong Kong English. A quantitative research design was exploited, and data of American English and Hong Kong English were collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the PolyU Learner English Corpus respectively. It was discovered that subject-operator disagreement in English existential constructions was rare amongst American English speakers yet more frequent amongst speakers of Hong Kong English. Rarity of subject-operator disagreement in English existential constructions produced by American English speakers possesses a disposition to suggest that language use of those speakers is still influenced by the prescriptive rule of subject-operator agreement in English existential constructions while pervasiveness of subjectoperator disagreement in English existential constructions produced by speakers of Hong Kong English indicates disparities between those speakers' language use and prescriptive rules..

Multiple conceptualizations of the interrelation between assessment and learning yield three notions of assessment: assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning. This paper aims at uncovering roles and obstacles of assessment for learning and assessment as learning in English language classrooms in Hong Kong. Grounded upon the theory of constructivism and the notion of learner autonomy, assessment for learning and assessment as learning play vital roles in supporting students' learning and nurturing autonomous learners in English language classrooms in Hong Kong, respectively. In particular, assessment for learning provides students with achievement targets prior to assessments, communicates assessment results with students by means of descriptive feedback, and guides teachers' future lesson planning whilst assessment as learning equips students with abilities to set personal learning goals, monitor their own learning process, and conduct self-assessment in the course of learning. For all their desirability and perceived pedagogical efficacy, seldom are these two assessment practices operationalized in the implemented curriculum in English language classrooms, where assessment of learning prevails; such actualities can largely be attributable to local teachers' lack of motivation to modify their existing assessment practices out of their conservative conceptualization of assessments, low metacognitive awareness as well as level of English proficiency of local students, and large class sizes in local classrooms, which are construed as local contextual factors hindering implementation of the two assessment practices. The aforementioned obstacles ought to be overcome so that the two assessment practices can be promoted and implemented in local English classrooms in distinct year levels for the sake of students' language learning.

Task-based language teaching, which is a language teaching approach where tasks constitute the bedrock of planning and instruction, is a learner-centred and experiential pedagogy popular in the field of second language acquisition and promulgated to second and foreign language classrooms all over the globe in recent decades. This paper elucidates influences of three forcescentral agencies, textbook publishers, and teachers-on implementation of such pedagogy originated from the West in English language education in Hong Kong. It is discovered that the intended English language curriculum in Hong Kong is in favour of such pedagogy and highly advocates incorporation of communicative tasks into the implemented curriculum albeit partial realization of the essence of task-based language teaching in locally produced instructional materials, which comprise more integrated tasks than form-focused tasks. Moreover, English teachers in Hong Kong may not be receptive to such pedagogy out of their concern about the examination-oriented education system in Hong Kong as well as worry about plausible occurrence of disciplinary problems in task-based lessons. Suggestions targeting those three prominent forces influencing curriculum decisions on teaching methods are eventually put forward to illuminate and facilitate implementation of task-based language teaching in Hong Kong English language education.