Hong Kong Secondary 1–3 | DSE English Jumpstart Program (2/3)

Read part 1 before this

Start with part 1 of the Secondary 1–3 jumpstart: two learning paths, and two very different results.

Senior secondary can patch holes. The junior years are when the base is laid. This note is the training mix, how it is run, and how much time it takes in a week. The schedule is at the end, in one view.

EHLA’s test for any plan is simple. It has to be something a student can do, something you can measure, and something that happens on ordinary days. Another block of lessons does not qualify.

An IELTS routine is not a DSE or IB education

Whatever the diploma — DSE, IB, iGCSE, or A-Level — junior-secondary English in Hong Kong is aiming at academic English near a native level.

Drop an IELTS drilling habit, or a “come to class and we will raise you” camp, onto DSE or IB, and the result disappoints, because they are not the same kind of exam. IELTS tests foreign-language proficiency. DSE tests academic thinking in English. A lighter routine does not win a heavier fight.

If class-and-drill worked, Chinese-medium students who have been tutored since childhood, in schools that drill every day, would not still be missing Level 3 — the university threshold — at the rate they do. In 2025, Chinese-medium candidates’ DSE English pass rate, as a share of all Hong Kong candidates, sat only a little above 30%.

Writing, dimension one: language for real scenes

EHLA’s writing system is built from what has held up in practice.

Weight: highest

Dimension one matters most: a wide store of language for the scenes students actually have to write. The store is sentence-level English for many topics, kept alive in short daily sessions.

• About ten minutes a day
• About five interactive sentences a day

Scenes covered

• Inner life and emotion
• People, including the self
• Sensory detail
• Hong Kong places, atmosphere, and setting
• Public manners, responsibility, and conduct
• Action, including things that go wrong

Without sentence-level language for those scenes, a skills lesson spins in the air.

Dimensions two to four: reading aloud, a native-speaking teacher, and real writing

Dimension two｜high

Widens range and builds a feel for English by reading strong essays aloud. It is not interchangeable with silent study.

• Model essays read aloud: about five minutes a day
• One writing-topic vocabulary set a week, so the words for that theme grow with the reading

Dimensions three and four

A one-to-one lesson with a British or American teacher, plus writing that is actually done. A typical month is about four online lessons of about 40 minutes.

Hong Kong does not immerse students in English, so at least one native-speaker conversation a week is the floor:

• Thinking and phrasing in English
• Real communication
• Guessing when you miss something, and answering at once
• Saying something that has a point

A writing task goes in every two weeks, is marked, and is rewritten.

The reading gap: too few words, and no weight on the text

Too few words, and there is no reading improvement to discuss.

EHLA’s progress system runs a daily vocabulary check-in, with tracking, review, and memory management.

Students who are fine with straightforward magazines or subject textbooks still stall on advanced English prose. The gap is real. Only a gradual increase in difficulty crosses it. That has to be daily, across levels, not a one-off push.

Junior-secondary syllabuses in Hong Kong barely touch this. The texts are narrow. Complex prose is rare. What students practise is ordinary writing, hunted for answers. Without a staged step up in what they read, most of them never cross.

Do not let drills replace reading

The rule: read, do not hunt for answers

About 15 minutes, two or three paragraphs, a little too hard, read closely and understood in full.

• Each paragraph is taught in both languages: craft, rhetoric, what the writer is doing, and the advanced sentences and phrases
• After a week with the whole piece, the student answers questions
• Reading vocabulary is tracked against a target

Not recommended as the whole plan

A timed scan for the answer. In that hour, reading never happens.

• Long sentences stay closed
• New words are not kept
• Style is not absorbed, and the format itself kills motivation

Almost nobody moves from that to advanced English journalism.

EHLA’s reading library is academically supervised by Oxford linguists, for the quality of the English and for how hard it makes you think. That supervision is part of the programme, not a slogan.

The week, in one view

Monday to Friday, every day

• A chosen vocabulary check-in, about 20 minutes
• Interactive sentences for writing scenes, about 15 minutes
• About 15 minutes with an advanced paragraph: the analysis, plus looking words up
• About five minutes reading a model essay aloud

Each week

• One online one-to-one with a British or American teacher
• A writing task after class, every two weeks, at the weekend
• One advanced reading comprehension, at the weekend
• Topic vocabulary for writing, at the weekend

Grammar diagnosis and listening sit where the week allows. An EHLA teacher checks, nudges, and adjusts, and stays in touch by phone.

The non-negotiable is still the daily immersion. Students use the progress system at home, because Hong Kong will not supply the English environment. The one-to-one lessons put a real person back into that routine.

A progress system that does not leave a willing student stuck

The point of the system is that a student who is trying does not hit a wall.

• Advanced paragraphs can be rewatched, with bilingual teaching
• Wrong reading answers come with bilingual coaching
• Grammar errors are explained, the weak point is named, and a repair exercise follows
• Reading aloud includes a model, a score, and a correction
• Scene sentences are interactive, with bilingual guidance
• Vocabulary has a dictionary, automatic tracking, automatic review, and memory management

If the student is willing, the practice itself should not be the obstacle.

Who wrote this: EHLA

Rooted in Oxford.

EHLA studies what actually changes English learning, then turns that research into programmes schools and students can run. We work with individual learners and with mainstream Hong Kong schools. More than 300 schools have taken part in EHLA pilot programmes.

“My colleagues at the University of Oxford and I met EHLA in Oxford, and I was completely fascinated by what EHLA is doing…” — Prof. Furlong, former Dean of the Department of Education, University of Oxford