Arabic was taught by learning Arabic grammar which involved learning by rota, Nahw (syntax) and Sarf (morphology). Students would learn the Arabic and Urdu texts of classical grammar manuscripts some of which dated back to over a thousand years. Students were also required to learn and inculcate in themselves the method of translating Arabic to Urdu. Looking back at the course structure it now transpires that the course never really emphasized writing Arabic, in fact one would estimate that in the first three years of study (the course was a six year study) students spent a mere hardly any time involved in creative writing. But nevertheless out of the six former luminaries of Darul Uloom who are presently at study undertaking the 3rd year English in Education Module, 4 of them received As in their A level Classical Arabic Examinations, an examination the vast part of which required students to write stories in Arabic which as the syllabus stated was supposed to be creative and free from error. The remaining two students received a B and a C, marks clearly reflected the competence of the students in their mastering of concepts of grammar.

From the above it can be noticed that a mere strict and rigid study of grammar where in which metalanguage does improve children's abilities to write.

Richard Hudson

This top-down pressure for KAL was further increased by one of the first steps taken by the new Labour government in 1997, the trial introduction of the National Literacy Strategy (extended to all primary schools in 1999). This is a highly focused programme for raising reading and writing standards in primary schools (years 1 to 6); it was paired from the start with a National Numeracy Strategy, and more recently it has fed into the English strand of a National Strategy for years 7 to 9 in secondary school.[1] The government has given this programme very high priority both in terms of publicity and in terms of resources, so schools have been bombarded with guidance and training materials and all serving teachers have had a certain amount of training. Not surprisingly there has been some resistance, but by and large the Literacy Strategy is accepted as part of primary education, and most teachers seem to agree that its benefits outweigh its weaknesses. During the first few years after it was introduced, literacy standards improved dramatically before stabilising at a higher level, but it is hard to separate the effects of KAL from all the other changes that were introduced at the same time.