The children are having too much fun to be put off by the setback. Team two calls out number 13 and gets a 'hot spot' card, which means it loses 100 points. The pupils shriek with delight anyway.

Team one calls card 41 and gets on to a winning streak. It correctly offers 'happier' to complete the series: happy . . . happiest, and then removes 'to' from the sentence 'Amy wants to go to shopping'. Its score is now 1,000.

The game is a reinforcement session in an English language bridging course for children about to enter Form One of Shau Kei Wan Government Secondary School.

Next month, the students face the huge hurdle of switching from Chinese-medium primary classes to taking all their lessons in English, and the course is designed to help lift them over it.

Run by private language school English for Asia, it is part of a comprehensive bridging package offered by the Chai Wan Road school to help children make a successful secondary transition.

The move, which involves facing new teachers and intellectual challenges, making new friends, getting used to a bigger school and mixing with teenagers, is a watershed for the children, who may soon also face the emotional turmoil that often comes with puberty.

The upheaval involved can disrupt the academic progress of some children. Switching to English-medium as well just adds to the pressure.

English for Asia offers standard English language bridging courses of 15 to 20 hours over two to four weeks that schools can modify to meet their own requirements, covering language necessary for the daily routine and getting around the school, plus vocabulary, grammar and functional language commonly used in science, maths, history and geography.

Programme co-ordinator Nick Frost said: 'This course uses the communicative approach that encourages students to develop all four language skills; reading, writing, listening and speaking.

'It involves a lot of activities and games that allow the children to enjoy themselves and learn at the same time. We also encourage a lot of peer-to-peer learning. It is a very active, flexible approach.'

About 120 of the 188 students moving up to Shau Kei Wan Government Secondary this year from 22 primary schools are taking the voluntary course, which costs $588 per child.

English teacher Annie Avery said: 'There is a great variation in the level of English among the students. The children with a lower level of English don't have the confidence to speak in class.'

Robin Lui Chun-ting, 11, of North Point, who attended the Building Contractors Association School, was sent on English for Asia and British Council courses by his parents during Primary Six as well as having daily English lessons at school.

'Even so, I think it will be quite difficult to do all my studies in English next month,' he said. 'We really need this summer course to help improve.'

He said the most useful things they had covered were specialised vocabulary for learning different subjects and past and future tenses.

Kelvin Man Ho-kwan, 12, of Quarry Bay, who went to North Point Government Primary PM School, said: 'I think it is very difficult to learn everything in English at secondary school but now I feel nearly ready for it.

'Sometimes, this course is very good fun but, sometimes, it is boring because we are only sitting in the chairs and doing things I already know.'

Christy Hon Sin-yuk, 12, who is moving up from Sai Wan Ho North Government Primary School, said: 'I am a bit nervous about starting secondary school because we are going to be learning in English.

'I will work harder in secondary school to improve my English because it is important for all my subjects now. I would like to be a doctor and it could help me achieve that. I have learnt many new words in the past week such as calculate, Bunsen burner, multiply, decimal, diagram and chart.'

Assistant principal Yung Suk-fun said: 'The English language courses are really helpful. Teachers say that the children who have taken the EFA bridging course are more confident and ready to speak out and ask questions in English. This is very important. It helps them with other subjects and with their learning process in later years.'

Reverend Yuen Tin-yau, executive secretary of the school education division of the Methodist Church, said most children entering English-medium schools were from leading primary schools and their standards of English were quite good.

However, some came from other schools and for them the bridging course was just a first step. They had to improve their English during the first two years of secondary school, a task with which most schools were able to help.

One of the conditions English-medium schools have to meet is that they provide adequate and sound support for students, including transitional help with the switch from Chinese-medium primary education to learning in English.

The government is to reassess all 112 English-medium secondaries to see whether they continue to meet this and two other conditions. HKCEE results for the sector fell 0.4 percentage points this year, while Chinese-medium schools saw their results improve. Schools that fail to make the grade may be required to switch to teaching in Chinese.

Rosalind Chan Lo-sai , chairwoman of the English Medium Schools Association, said most of the 112 English language schools offered bridging courses and the association believed they were absolutely necessary.

'It is subject-specific vocabulary that the children really need to learn in order to be able to swim rather than sink,' she said.

'If I come in to teach maths, the children - from their English lesson - will know the terms for addition, multiplication, subtraction and division.

'Then, during the lesson, we will say: 'This is a parallel line and this is a right angle' and they won't have a clue because they have learnt maths terminology in Chinese.

'If they can learn these things during a bridging course, it will help these children tremendously during the first year.

'But in the first two years of a secondary English-medium school, every lesson is an English crash course. Our teachers teach the nuts and bolts of English in their everyday classes right across the curriculum.'