The participants in the this study were 16 student teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education degree programme, majoring in English language teaching (BEdEL), at a Hong Kong university. All the participants were females, and spoke Mandarin or Cantonese as their mother tongue. Pseudonyms were used throughout the paper to protect anonymity of the participants. In the current BEdEL programme, 60 per cent of the courses on the programme focus on the English language, while 40 per cent focus on pedagogy and other areas. An overwhelming majority of the English language–related courses deal primarily with areas such as English literature, theories of language and language learning, and grammatical and phonological systems of the English language, with an emphasis on increasing the knowledge and awareness about the systems of the language rather than the ability to use this knowledge in real communication. Pedagogy-related courses include curriculum and assessment, the English language curriculum in Hong Kong, English language teaching skills, catering to learner diversity, classroom management, as well as a teaching practicum in a local Hong Kong school. In the first semester of their third year in the BEdEL programme, students undertake a one-semester period of international experience – typically referred to as ‘‘immersion’’ (Bodycott & Crew, 2001) sponsored by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSAR) – at an overseas university. The teaching practicum in a local Hong Kong school is undertaken in the second semester of the third year, and lasts eight weeks.