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“SOW Inspiring” Book Gifting Competition (Learning and Teaching Materials)

Announcement of Results  
The “SOW Inspiring” Book Gifting Competition (the Competition) aims to develop a zeal for reading among students, enhance their language skills, unleash their creativity and foster their development of proper values and attitudes. Students are invited to present a book of their choice as a gift to someone dear to them by writing a message with a saying of wisdom (SOW) taken from the book and creating a piece of two-dimensional (2D) artwork to enhance conveyance of meaning and visual representation of the message.

CDC English Language Education Key Learning Area English Language Curriculum Guide (Primary 1 - 6) 2025

To keep abreast of the latest curriculum development in English Language Education and meet the needs of students, the English Language Education Key Learning Area English Language Curriculum Guide (Primary 1 – 6) (2004) has been updated to reflect the changing educational contexts. The updated ELCG incorporates the recommendations from the Primary Education Curriculum Guide (PECG) (2024) and the curriculum emphases outlined in the English Language Education Key Learning Area Curriculum Guide (Primary 1 – Secondary 6) (ELE KLACG) (2017). It provides the overall direction as well as the learning targets and objectives for the development of the English Language curriculum at the primary level.

English Animation Series "An Inspiring Journey through Chinese Fables and Tales" (Season 2)

The English animation series “An Inspiring Journey through Chinese Fables and Tales (Season 2)" together with the activity booklet is designed to enrich students’ English learning experiences and promote national education. The animations, each lasting for 4-5 minutes, feature three well-known Chinese stories, namely “Sending a Goose Feather from Thousands of Miles Away” (「千里送鵝毛」), “Chai Breaks the Arrows: A Story about Unity” (「阿豺折箭」) and “The Story of a Great Chinese Calligrapher: Wang Xizhi” (「書法家王羲之的故事」). They enable students to learn English in an engaging way. The activity booklet is developed to complement the animations. In addition to developing English language skills, students are guided to respect, appreciate and inherit Chinese culture and traditional values, including integrity, benevolence, responsibility, unity, perseverance and diligence, thus cultivating a sense of national identity in them and fostering their development of proper values and attitudes.

English Language Resource Materials on National Security Education at the Secondary Level
The resource materials consist of four learning units featuring selected reading and multimodal texts that help students explore various topics and major fields of national security. Through engaging reading, viewing, writing and speaking activities, students will gain insights into our country’s latest developments and the significance of safeguarding data security, resource security, food security, and societal security, thereby strengthening their sense of national identity. Suggestions for cross-curricular and life-wide learning activities are also provided to further enrich students’ English learning experiences.

"Developing Students' Listening and Viewing Skills" Video Series

The “Developing Students’ Listening and Viewing Skills” Video Series is designed to support students’ development of listening and viewing skills, and facilitate the integration of values education into the secondary English Language curriculum through engaging multimodal texts. The series comprises four videos of different text types, including a vlog, a TV interview, a poem and a story, which are infused with various proper values and attitudes such as resilience, perseverance and benevolence. 

SOW Reading Posters on “SOW the Reading Seed – Inspire and Be Inspired”: Posters on Selected Sayings of Wisdom under the Four Sub-themes

The four posters feature insightful English sayings from renowned authors, echoing the respective sub-themes “Resilience”, “Empowerment”, “Appreciation” and “Delight” (R.E.A.D.) of the SOW Campaign 2024/25. Each poster highlights three selected sayings to inspire students to gain a better understanding of the sub-themes, and appreciate reading as a vital part of their lifelong pursuit of wisdom and creativity. Schools are encouraged to make effective use of the posters to create a language-rich environment for nurturing proper values and attitudes in students, promoting reading and enhancing English learning.

Posters on “SOW the Reading Seed – Inspire and Be Inspired": A Poster on Reading Challenges

The poster aims to share and recommend a variety of fun-filled reading challenges to support the organisation of the SOW Readathon and other school-based student activities that echo the overarching theme “SOW the Reading Seed – Inspire and Be Inspired” and sub-themes “Resilience”, “Empowerment”, “Appreciation” and “Delight” (R.E.A.D.) of the SOW Campaign 2024/25. Schools are encouraged to make effective use of the posters to create a language-rich environment for nurturing proper values and attitudes in students, promoting reading and enhancing English learning.

Leaflet on "Learning English through News"

Reading news enriches our life and offers great educational values. Covering a wide range of topics at different levels, news provides a rich resource for students to enhance language and personal development. This leaflet aims to introduce strategies for enhancing secondary students’ media and information literacy through promoting news reading and designing a school-based news literacy programme, thereby building students’ solid language and world knowledge foundation and promoting Language and Reading across the Curriculum. The effective practices adopted by two secondary schools in promotion of news reading are also featured in the leaflet for schools’ reference.

A Collection of English Learning Activities for the Promotion of Values Education: Examples from the School-based Activity “Week of Love and Growth”

The webpage captures highlights of the “Week of Love and Growth”, a cross-curricular English week, in which schools organise school-based activities that echo the overarching theme “In Love We Share, In Love We Grow” and the six sub-themes of the SOW Campaign 2023/24, namely “Love Our Country”, “Love the Community”, “Love Our Family and Friends”, “Love Myself”, “Love Learning” and “Love Nature”. It aims to showcase schools’ good practices and effective strategies in creating a learning environment conducive to English learning and the promotion of values education in the English Language curriculum.

SOW Corner Bookmarks

To support the implementation of the territory-wide reading scheme “SOW Readathon” under the SOW Campaign, the SOW Corner Bookmarks have been developed to motivate students to explore various kinds of reading materials with creativity and insight, and foster in students a lifelong love for reading. The SOW Corner Bookmarks are available in two series, one for primary students and another for secondary students. The designs are inspired by fictional characters from well-known classic stories, echoing the overarching theme of the SOW Campaign 2024/25 “SOW the Reading Seed – Inspire and Be Inspired” and the sub-themes “Resilience”, “Empowerment”, “Appreciation” and “Delight” (R.E.A.D.). The bookmarks are available in electronic and print versions.

"In Love We Share, In Love We Grow" Thematic Book Series

The "In Love We Share, In Love We Grow" Thematic Book Series comprises three books based on the English sayings of wisdom, “In love of home, the love of country has its rise.” (Charles DICKENS), “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” (Oscar WILDE) and “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” (Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE). Three sets of activity sheets are developed to facilitate and complement the use of the series. They are designed to engage students in interacting with and responding to the books to enhance their viewing and multimodal literacy skills as well as cultivate their proper values and attitudes. The series is available in electronic and print versions.

A Guide on Self-directed Learning for Secondary Students

Self-directed learning is important for nurturing students into lifelong English learners. This leaflet aims to illustrate key concepts of self-directed learning and offer some useful tips on how various English learning resources can be carefully selected and effectively used to facilitate self-directed English learning.

Animal Photopoetry Creative Challenge

The Animal Photopoetry Creative Challenge, under the SOW Campaign 2024/25, is a cross-curricular activity that aims to enhance students' appreciation of and interest in English poetry, encourage students’ creative and artistic expression through photography and poetry writing and nurture proper values and attitudes in students.

SOW Year Planner 2025

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.” As the new year draws near, it is the perfect opportunity for students to set goals and plan for the year ahead. The EDB has developed the SOW Year Planner 2025 to guide students through setting and achieving their goals. The year planner highlights 12 winning entries of the “SOW in Love” Letter Writing Competition, organized under the SOW Campaign 2023/24 with an aim to enhance students’ language skills and multimodal literacy, nurture their creativity, as well as foster their positive values and attitudes. The SOW Year Planner 2025 also features 12 monthly reading challenges, echoing the theme of the SOW Campaign in the 2024/25 school year: “SOW the Reading Seed – Inspire and Be Inspired”, to motivate students to explore various kinds of reading materials with creativity and insight, fostering a lifelong love for reading.

Resource Kits on the Academic and Creative Uses of English: An Activity Sheets Collection
A collection of three activity sheets is designed to promote the integrative use of academic and creative English. Each activity sheet demonstrates both the use of different academic and creative language features for a specific writing topic and text type, and provides focused practice for students to apply the target language items appropriately.

Campaign on "Promoting Positive Values and Attitudes through English Sayings of Wisdom 2024/25"

Building on the successes of the past four years, the SOW Campaign 2024/25 will continue to feature a variety of student activities and learning and teaching resources to facilitate English language learning by integrating values education into the school English Language curriculum within and beyond the classroom. With the overarching theme “SOW the Reading Seed – Inspire and Be Inspired” and four sub-themes, namely “Resilience”, “Empowerment”, “Appreciation” and “Delight” (R.E.A.D.), the campaign this year aims to:

• cultivate students’ positive thinking;
• enhance their English language skills by developing their reading interest and ability;
• empower them to face adversity; and
• nurture in them a resilient mindset and a grateful heart through reading.

RTHK Radio Programme - In the Common Room

In the Common Room, broadcast at 9:05 p.m. on Radio 3 of RTHK every weekday, is produced by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) with the sponsorship of the Education Bureau (EDB). The programme aims to nurture primary and secondary students’ interest in learning English and widen their exposure to the authentic use of the language through a variety of engaging features. Starting from the 2024/25 school year, In the Common Room has been revamped with new or enhanced features. 

Award Presentation Ceremony for the SOW Campaign 2023/24 

The Award Presentation Ceremony for the SOW Campaign 2023/24 was successfully held on 5 October, 2024 (Sat) to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of schools and students in various SOW territory-wide competitions / student activities organised by the English Language Education Section and the Native-speaking English Teacher (NET) Section in the 2023/24 school year. Around 400 students, teachers, principals and guests of honour were invited to the ceremony officiated by Ms Michelle LI, JP, Permanent Secretary for Education. Our heartfelt gratitude to schools’ support and effort in featuring a variety of learning activities to promote values education in the school English Language curriculum.

The Creative Writing Activity for Upper Primary Students 2023/24  -
An Anthology of Students' Creative Works 

To recognise schools’ active participation in the writing activity and showcase students’ creative works, an anthology has been compiled, featuring selected entries from each of the participating schools.

The animation series is developed to illustrate the overarching theme of the SOW Campaign, “In Love We Share, In Love We Grow”, and the six sub-themes, namely “Love Our Country”, “Love the Community”, “Love Our Family and Friends”, “Love Myself”, “Love Learning” and “Love Nature”. It comprises three animated videos based on the English sayings of wisdom, “In love of home, the love of country has its rise.” (Charles DICKENS), “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” (Oscar WILDE) and “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” (Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE). Three sets of activity sheets are developed to facilitate and complement the use of the animation series. They are designed to engage students in interacting with and responding to the animated videos to enhance their viewing and multimodal literacy skills as well as cultivate their proper values and attitudes.