Dear children, parents and the general public,

Action and Expression

This project celebrates hybrid forms of action and expression that are uniquely found in creative, modern and traditional poetic texts. Poems are full of glee, gusto, imagination; they delight us, they charm us, they move us. Poetry-reading activities involve interpretation and speaking skills, and poems are particularly suitable for introducing the interfaces among words, intonation and expression. A digital tool should enable engagements with poetics and praxis in multimodal manners. The creation of a poetry app for Hong Kong’s young learners enables both innovative and traditional aspects of poetic texts to be explained and accessed at ease, with a swipe and a tap of the fingertips.

Process and Production

This website introduces you to the process and products of this HKBU-led project. This project benefits from the benevolence of the Innovation and Technology Bureau of the HKSAR Government. Their generous support enables the project team to build bridges among communities across age groups – Hong Kong English teachers who recognise the educational value of English poetry, tech-savvy young learners who enjoy learning and playing on their mobile devices, and IT architects who will combine innovation and tradition to construct a multi-channel poetry e-corpus (iOS, Android and WebApp) that balances utility and user experience. The current collection of children’s poems will be transformed into school-based activities during the project’s second and third year.


Joshua Chan (Senior Lecturer) & Jane Lo (ex-Language Centre colleague)
Language Centre (https://lcsystem.hkbu.edu.hk/newmain/)
Hong Kong Baptist University