SUE ELLIS IS THE Co-Director of the British Centre for Language in Primary Education. It is a high-powered job, but recently she found herself sitting in front of a class of Hong Kong students answering questions about her life as a frog. 'What is it like to be a frog?' one boy asked. 'Oh well, it is wet and slimy and I catch insects on my long tongue,' she replied. Ellis had not lost her sanity, but was acting out the type of role that is part and parcel of a primary teacher's job. In this instance, she was playing the role of the Frog Prince from Jon Scieszka's book The Frog Prince Continued in a model lesson conducted by her advisory teacher colleague Clare Warner. The lesson was drawn from the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) introduced into English primary schools in 1998. Hong Kong is not alone in being concerned about declining literacy standards, real or otherwise. In England, the NLS was developed as a response to perceived shortcomings among pupils. It was intended to formalise and spread the best practices of the most successful schools, focusing in particular on lesson structure and content to lift standards of reading, writing, spelling and grammar. Warner and Ellis were invited to Hong Kong earlier this year by the British Council to spread the word about the strategy. International schools that use the British National Curriculum are already familiar with it, as will be any teacher who has recently arrived from Britain. Parents, though, may be less aware. Ruth Woodward, deputy principal of Hong Lok Yuen International School, is keen to dispel the impression that it is about promoting a reading culture. 'It is much more than reading. It's about becoming literate: speaking, listening, writing and reading. Extended stories would be done, but outside the literacy hour,' she said. The concept of the literacy hour, in both the language used and the form it takes, is not unique to Britain. Woodward has found that very similar strategies have been adopted in New Zealand, Australia and Canada - New Zealand claiming to have been the first. 'It has been transferred to other countries. Everyone is drawing on each other's expertise,' she said. In Britain, literacy hour is statutory, though this is more flexible than it sounds. The hour can be taken in periods across the school day. Teachers use texts, which they can choose, to teach specific learning objectives set down by the framework; anything from how to use full stops, capital letters, metaphors and similes to how plays are written. 'On the board should be the learning objectives of the day, for English and maths. We make that very explicit, so children know what they are going to learn: it is not some mystery voyage of discovery,' Woodward said. She finds the structure useful. 'The basic structure of learning objectives that are progressive is very good, but teachers have to be confident first, otherwise they may stick to the letter and not be flexible,' she said. It has, she added, led to a radical change in teaching culture. 'Gone are the days when we used to go into class and say 'um, what shall I teach today?'' The English Schools Foundation has also taken the strategy on board. Curriculum leaders from the various schools agree that a common framework improves co-operation between schools and provides more consistency across the system. The strategy also echoes some initiatives being used in local primary schools, as seen when it was used as a model lesson given in the HKIEd Jockey Club Primary School at the teacher training institute's Tai Po campus. More pioneering English teachers here are using big books to share texts, and phonics to aid reading and spelling. But the approach may still have only limited application in the local classroom. 'Though many of the recently-trained teachers are using similar techniques to those in the literacy strategy, for example the use of big books to explore texts, the overwhelming dependence on text books means that these are a far from common practice,' said Jenny Tyrrell, a lecturer in the Hong Kong Institute of Education's English Department. The content of daily literacy hour is laid out in the 'Framework for Teaching', with teachers using texts for shared reading and writing. 'It has broadened the range of books children are introduced to at an early age, from traditional stories and poetry to non-fiction,' Ellis said. At the British Council, students were asked to fill in a speech bubble imagining what the prince was saying to the princess. Responses ranged from 'I wish I didn't have to live with this irritating woman,' to 'I kissed you and you're still like a frog'. Having used direct teaching to draw attention to language at text and word levels, teachers work with children individually, in pairs or in groups, to apply their literacy skills to meaningful reading and writing tasks. Warner is pleased with the outcome. 'The strategy provides discrete time for literacy teaching, there in its own right. It takes a lead from early years' practice and makes the whole process explicit. Now all the complexities of reading a dense text are made very clear.' During the plenary at the end of each session teachers and children reflect on and assess what has been learned, again through talk, and think about how to develop what they have learnt further. The strategy is, in effect, compulsory in Britain. 'Although the NLS is not statutory, it might as well be,' Ellis said. But she also stressed that an increasing number of schools were being flexible and adapting various elements to suit their own circumstances. 'The strategy provides a basic foundation though it is not always necessary to stick rigidly to the hour,' she said. Some ESF schools follow this example. Jenny Johnson, a class teacher at Kennedy School, said: 'The NLS has many advantages, but we must be very careful as lots of the suggested texts are Anglo centric. We need to combine it with the best of other strategies. Then it has a place in our schools.' The latest of a series of four annual reports on the strategy by the Office for Standards in Education suggests it is having a significant impact on attainment, increased understanding of phonics, improvements in continuity, as well as in leadership and management. Figures published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority earlier this year also indicate that literacy standards achieved by students by the end of Key Stage Two (age 11) have improved. But the prescriptive nature of the strategy has been controversial. Critics worry that too much emphasis is placed on short-term targets, paperwork and tests. Ninety children's authors recently wrote to the Times Educational Supplement to complain that figures for the standardised attainment tests showed improvement over a narrow range of skills. Reading for pleasure was being squeezed by the relentless pressure of testing. They said: 'We think children's understanding, empathy, imagination and creativity are developed best by reading whole books, not by comprehension exercises on short excerpts.' Nevertheless, Warner is encouraged by evidence of synthesis with the other major curriculum initiative in England, the National Numeracy Strategy. 'Both emphasise good quality planning and teaching and the supporting of independent learning,' she said. On the evidence of one lesson conducted with a random collection of Hong Kong students the NLS has something to offer Hong Kong schools. But that is because it is by no means an exclusive embodiment of good practice. Rather, it provides yet more food for thought. During a one-hour session held in an open space the group progressed from nervous reticence to eagerly volunteering to read aloud the results of ten minutes of independent writing. Children used small hand-made books to record their own ideas as to what happened next to the Frog Prince. 'You are all real authors now,' Warner told them. For more on Warner's work visit www.clpe.co.uk
