Meanwhile, the English Schools Foundation teachers at Kennedy, who for years have had little official contact with neighbouring local schools, are experiencing the Hong Kong education system first hand.

Visiting local schools has been an enriching experience, they say. 'It has made me more culturally aware,' says teacher Ross Dawson.

Both Dawson and Liu are participating in a Schools Professional Collaboration Project (SPCP) that is bringing together principals, panel chairs, ESF and local primary teachers to swap ideas on English language teaching and learning. Kennedy, the only non-local school designated a resource school by the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) and the first ESF school to be used in an EMB scheme to promote education reforms, launched the programme last September with a $250,000 grant from the Quality Education Fund (QEF).

Helen Yeung Chiu Kwan-sik, EMB project officer, says schools can benefit from ESF teachers' expertise in language education. 'We want to show the language teacher's role has changed from instructor to facilitator,' says Yeung, who approached Kennedy with the idea two years ago.

She has been concerned that innovative approaches are not filtering through to primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. 'Local teachers often depend too much on text books and classes are teacher-centred,' she says.

The SPCP involves workshops, experience sharing days, and a two-week professional development exchange programme, run throughout this academic year. More than 360 local teachers from 150 schools are attending the eight workshops.

Kennedy teachers facilitate the sessions. For example, they may explore a strategy known as 'jigsaw reading' - in which one group of children becomes 'experts' on a subject by reading a text and then shares their knowledge with another group. Michelle Sarjana, deputy principal, says: 'Many of our strategies are taken from recent research into cooperative learning.'

More than 70 local teachers are taking part in the experience sharing days. They spend a day at Kennedy, returning for a half-day session eight weeks later to discuss their experiences using strategies observed during their visit. Meanwhile, 10 teachers have so far participated in two-week exchange, working with Kennedy teachers at a deeper level. Before the visits begin, the ESF teacher will spend a day at the local school to experience its approach. Liu, who attended an SPCP workshop on literacy in Tsuen Wan last month, says that the strategies demonstrated were creative, imaginative and less teacher-centred than those in local schools. 'Students sit in pairs, knee-to-knee, brainstorming ideas,' he says. This gives them a chance to see what they know before the teacher delivers the lesson.

Elsie Leung Wing-see, a teacher at HKMLC Wong Chan Sook Ying Memorial School, says that she too was impressed by student-centred activities. 'In the 'running dictation', students work in teams and dictate to each other from a text pinned on a wall,' she says. 'This is more collaborative than traditional dictations read by the teacher.' Getting pupils to work in groups develops teamwork, confidence and is more fun.

Shirley Duthie Cheung Sha-li, principal of St Stephen's Girls Primary School in Mid-levels, notes the informality of Kennedy classes. 'Our students usually sit behind desks,' she says. 'At ESF, the children sometimes sit on the carpet for shared reading and when the teacher is talking.'

Phil Garner, deputy principal of Kennedy and one of the SPCP co-ordinators, says: 'For some local teachers, this is the first time they visited an international school.'

But it is also important for ESF and international schools to fully understand the local system, he adds. 'Many of our students came from local schools. To help us integrate new students we have to know the cultural background.'

Kennedy's Neil Ringrose says: 'It's not about us telling other teachers how to teach. It's about sharing.' Running workshops and hosting visits has a positive impact on his classroom performance, he says. 'It gives us a chance to reflect on our own teaching.'

Although local teachers are impressed with what they see and hear, they say that changing their approach is not so easy. 'We want change, but it has to take place slowly,' say Liu. They worry, he says, how parents would react.

One principal says that he would be happy if all his staff visited Kennedy, but adds: 'It would be even better if parents could visit an ESF school to experience the atmosphere.'

Kennedy School presents a story-telling workshop at the Teachers Centre today at 11am.