Reflecting on emerging modes of collaboration between Mathematics and English teachers in 4 Hong Kong schools

Abstract

The presentations at the colloquium spring from the ‘Learning Circle’ initiative funded by the Education Bureau of Hong Kong. This initiative aims at enhancing Mathematics teachers’ pedagogy and promoting the dual content-and-language-integrated-learning (CLIL) focus through collaboration between Mathematics and English teachers. It involves 4 local mainstream secondary schools spanning across different bandings, having medium-of-instruction policies of their own, with students of a wide range and teachers of varying levels of competencies. Through examining how learning goals are operationalised in the schools, approaches to CLIL, task design principles, instructional practices and their impact on learners will be discussed. Strategies which the teachers describe as “unprecedented” involving curriculum alignment, reading-to-learn methodologies, task design, questioning, ‘Maths talk’ (Schleppegrell, 2007) and strategic use of L1 (Tavares, 2015) will be highlighted. Specifically, the focus is on how the teachers work together to accomplish the goals, emerging modes of collaboration that differ across schools, their challenges, and how these are overcome. The role of digital resources in CLIL will also be examined. The speakers will conclude with a critical reflection on their role as university experts in supporting the teachers in this paradigm shift and raise questions about their conceptualisation of CLIL.