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教育王國 討論區 國際學校 ISF or CDNIS?
樓主: liu_cmc
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ISF or CDNIS?   [複製鏈接]

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267
21#
發表於 12-5-18 15:17 |只看該作者
type409 發表於 12-5-18 15:12
He didn't say that in a public event (and i bet he won't say that in a public event) but just to a f ...
He actually said it in front of 400+ parents at the parents' meeting when the kids had their 1st interview...

Rank: 4


561
22#
發表於 12-5-18 15:30 |只看該作者
Bravo.
I just tried to cover him up as i think i should not post sth what he said to me in person.

If he had already said so in public, then fine :)

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10361
23#
發表於 12-5-18 16:34 |只看該作者
本帖最後由 nintendo 於 12-5-18 16:44 編輯
bobbycheung 發表於 12-5-18 15:10
回復 nintendo 的帖子

大哥, 如果講 "their english standard is below those study in IS and chinese is ...

朋友個仔在 isf  讀過,聽過學校教學情形
如果講語文環境,基本上係 local school 一樣 :小學行中文,中學先多 d 英文
講真,真係要比,英文未必比嬴 dgs dbs spcc 呢類學校;
至於中文,esf 好多學生 ibdp 係讀 chinese a,基本上水平同 local school 一樣
不過,可能好多家長唔會咁理智咁分析,而且,選擇學校,都有好多其他因素
最緊要係家長滿意,仔女開心

最怕人 sell 野時用其他 product 比,好冇大將之風,我會反感,唔會幫襯
未聽過法拉利 "sell 屎",懶叻咁話比人聽佢地架車快過 civic 仔
但有 d  車就成日話自己同某架 xxx  一樣咁快
呢 d 真係舐氣



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267
24#
發表於 12-5-18 17:12 |只看該作者
nintendo 發表於 12-5-18 16:34
朋友個仔在 isf  讀過,聽過學校教學情形
如果講語文環境,基本上係 local school 一樣 :小學行中文,中 ...

That actually is not a fair comment.  What the prinicipal said was because the lower school students (Foundation Year to Grade 2) do 70% Mandarin and 30% English, so naturally their English standard will lag behind in the early years but by the time they get to Year 3-4 English and Mandarin will become 50:50 and by Year 6-8 English will be 70% and Mandarin will be 30%.  Hence, by the time the students graduate from ISF, their English will be as good as other international schools' students but with a stronger Mandarin/Chinese capability as Mandarin/Chinese is not being taught as a second language at ISF (as in other international schools).

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10361
25#
發表於 12-5-18 17:41 |只看該作者
回復 Birkin 的帖子



你係講緊一個完美的狀態
可惜,大部份人都唔可能真係可以後來 catch up  英文
香港有部份學校小學都係英文教,但有幾多上到中學英文真係同 IS 有得比?
我估敢話中英都好的都係個幾間最 top  的學校,最 top 的一批學生
但人地係精英制度下栽培 (谷) 出黎
isf 在小學, english exposure  比 dgjs 更少,點解可以咁肯定呢班學生,上到去英文好果 dgs  先?
我唔係話 isf 唔好,不過唔好講到咁神奇

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267
26#
發表於 12-5-18 17:51 |只看該作者
回復 nintendo 的帖子

But that applies to all schools and students, even native English speakers.  I know a lot of gweilos who can't spell and write proper English... >.<

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10361
27#
發表於 12-5-18 18:01 |只看該作者
回復 Birkin 的帖子



咁當我多口,都係唔搭咀

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1987
28#
發表於 12-5-18 19:34 |只看該作者
I did go to the open day of ISF in March, and the hard selling of chinese culture by the gweilo principal (speaking gweilo accent mandarin) did put me off quite a bit. However, the students at least those i saw are really quite smart. True that some upper form students do not speak engish with perfect accent (having transferred from local schools), but the lower forms especially those starting from foundation year do speak with very good accent. Of course, i couldn't tell if they learn it at school, or are really from non-purely local families.

The insurance saleman type of selling of chinese culture is indeed weird, but i heard the school is very popular among the riches and professional in upper middle class.

Seems so odd, any genuine ISF parents giving some true advices?

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4564
29#
發表於 12-5-19 01:56 |只看該作者
本帖最後由 bobbycheung 於 12-5-19 09:37 編輯
Birkin 發表於 12-5-18 17:12
That actually is not a fair comment.  What the prinicipal said was because the lower school student ...

Birkin,

I think you are talking about this timetable.  
http://www.isf.edu.hk/en/academics/putonghua-english-mastery/

I have this question.  Let's say there is a school which says it does 30% Chinese and 70% English in the lower school.  It gradually shifts to 50% Chinese and 50% English in Grades 4 and 5.  During Grades 6 to 8, it does 70% Chinese and 30% English,  In Grades 9 to 10,  it becomes 80% Chinese and 20% English.  Now let's compare it with another school that does 100% (or almost 100%) Chinese throughout the 10 odd years,  Would you expect the 1st school students' Chinese to be as good as those from the 2nd school by the time they graduate in Grade 12?   Of course, the 1st school students' English is miles better than those from the 2nd school.  There's no doubt about it.  But they spend so much less time on Chinese than the 2nd school students, wouldn't there be a gap between the Chinese level of the 2 schools?   I deliberately made a switch from English to Chinese in this example because I think people can see where the difficulties lie more clearly.  Now let's go back to ISF.  A yearly difference of 70% to 20% may not sound a lot.  But if we translate it into school hours, the figure might be quite significant especially when we are talking about a period of 13 years from Foundation Year to Grade 12.  I am not saying ISF is no good or anything. I am just wondering how the students there could manage to catch up with the other IS who spend 100% (or almost 100%) of their time in English. By the way, we haven't even taken into account the time they spend on doing the Chinese or English homework (as the case may be).

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299
30#
發表於 12-5-19 09:23 |只看該作者

回覆:21Ckid 的帖子

Hi, I think it will be more fair if we step back and look into the matter.

Every principle sells his/her school on different aspects no matter it is local or international schools.  This is natural.  Why should one be serious about this?  Whether you like or dislike the selling point is purely subjective.  One may simply live the campus regardless of the curriculum.  While on the other hand, some parents may like the sports facilities in the school.  Even some parents may choose a school because certain celebrities have kids there.

I think most importantly is that whether the whole school fits what you want for your kid, both academically and person as a whole.

You are bound to hear pros and cons for every school.  Going back to ISF and CDNIS, I personally love these 2 schools.  CDNIS has a nice campus and the average IB score is quite ok.  There are more non-Asian there.  ISF is stuck between local and international school, even though it is considered as the latter.  It is not running on certain country's curriculum.  Yes, this year its first batch of IB students will come and I am sure the school will amend the curriculum accordingly in the future.  

No one can really help you choose a school.  I think students in CDNIS may have less homework than that in ISF.

Hope you find the information helpful.



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296
31#
發表於 12-5-19 09:30 |只看該作者

回覆:ISF or CDNIS?

Was in Shanghai and Hangzhou for business. Got stuck in Hangzhou airport yesterday because of flight delay. There was a group of ISF kids there (12-15 years of age I guess). A lot of them speak perfect English and Putonghua. By perfect I mean perfect - indistinguishable from a Beijing kid or gweimui. (By the way, I lived in London over 13 years and know what good English is. )



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21738
32#
發表於 12-5-19 16:51 |只看該作者
I won't comment on the "selling" of ISF as I don't think that is relevant to the language issue we are talking about here.

Nintendo>  I think you should go check out ISF's Open Day and see for yourself.  Most of the kid's English are on par with other IS and that is confirmed by test results (comprehension and writing).  I say most since I do think families who speak Mandarin at home are at a disadvantage since they simply get less exposure.  I can also say from personal experience that the spoken English is significantly better than good local schools.  As for written English, I am not sure how to compare in this case.

On their Mandarin, I don't think it is a fair comparison with either LS or IS since they spent so much time on it.  And for those kids who start in Foundation Year, they are miles ahead of other schools.  I think a lot of it is because in FY, all the kids start learning pinyin and given the small class size, all the kids will have to recite 唐詩 、 第子規 individually for the homeroom teacher.  As a result, they all have really good pronunciation to such an extent that I feel embarrassed speaking mandarin in front of my kids   Just go to the Open Day and speak with the non-ethnically Chinese kids or those from HK families.

I actually don't think their disadvantage is in language but rather in mathematics.  Haven't done a comparison myself but doubt they will be ahead of LS.

Having gone through LS and then went abroad myself, this "我估敢話中英都好的都係個幾間最 top  的學校,最 top 的一批學生" I completely disagree with.  Even for people I know personally who made it to the best US universities directly from LS, their English are below average.  Can't comment on their Chinese though.

bobbycheung>  interesting construct but in this day and age, I think it is all a question of how much time you allocate to each of English vs Mandarin vs Cantonese.  Doubt any HK parent like myself would just pick one of the three
今日佳句: 我以往也以為國際板的家長也有質素,但現在才知deal with 一些麻煩家長也不易!  

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21738
33#
發表於 12-5-19 17:12 |只看該作者
On Mathematics, they are certainly behind LS but have not tried to compare with other IS.  Would be interesting if someone has looked into that.
今日佳句: 我以往也以為國際板的家長也有質素,但現在才知deal with 一些麻煩家長也不易!  

Rank: 4


616
34#
發表於 12-5-19 18:00 |只看該作者
Dear iamfine
The kids are on their excursion this week.

Dear 21Ckid and elock
I think the "positioning" of ISF is not actually an international school but a bilingual school. Though not all parents may be interested in this positioning, this is what the school is doing and I believe they are pretty on track.
Before my daughter joined this school I was also kind of skeptical about the school. Then I talked to Ms Jew their director of language immersion. I told her that we are Cantonese speaking family and my daughter is neither native speaker in English nor Mandarin; and asked whether it would be a problem. She told me it's exactly the right choice for us to speak mother tongue at home, because mother tongue's not just about language development. At that moment I really felt "what a relief!" because her thought aligned with my belief. Later on I attended the school's parents' workshop about bilingualism by Dr Gao their director of chinese language. He talked about how to develop bilingual kids, which gave me some insights too.

What I am trying to say is, while the speeches of the principal may sound quite hard selling (I feel the same!), it is not their gimmick but something they are really trying to do.

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1987
35#
發表於 12-5-19 19:56 |只看該作者
Honestly, except the princpal, i like many aspects of the school. The bilingual approach was properly designed to challenge CIS (whose students i heard still prefer english much more than chinese which does not suit many parents), but how well does it work out?

Rank: 4


561
36#
發表於 12-5-19 20:27 |只看該作者
本帖最後由 type409 於 12-5-19 21:17 編輯

I wondered why many people in BK like to criticize on ISF...
HKTHK: why do you think ISF's math level is inferior to those of LS?

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4564
37#
發表於 12-5-19 23:34 |只看該作者
本帖最後由 bobbycheung 於 12-5-19 23:50 編輯
type409 發表於 12-5-19 20:27
I wondered why many people in BK like to criticize on ISF...
HKTHK: why do you think ISF's math leve ...

I am not criticizing ISF and I have no intention to do so.  ISF emphasises on the importance of both English and Chinese.  There are other IS schools that do so eg SIS, CIS....   I myself also think that both languages are important and that's why I sent my kids to one of these "bilingual" schools too.  I raised the question only because according to Birkin, the principal of ISF says "by the time the students graduate from ISF, their English will be as good as other international schools' students".  It's a bold claim that (to me at least) is pretty hard to achieve.  Putting aside those very few that have natural talent, I believe how good you are at something (eg English, Chinese, swimming, football....) really depends on how much time and effort you put into it and how good the teaching/coaching is.  I assume that the last 2 factors (ie. effort and teaching/coaching) are no different between ISF and other IS, the fact that the students spend so much time on Chinese makes me wonder how they could catch up with the other IS in English.  I am aware it could be a sales pitch.   But then it seems that a lot of parents believe and affirm that's indeed the case.  I wonder how it could be done.

Rank: 4


616
38#
發表於 12-5-21 10:18 |只看該作者
Dear Bobby and 21Ckid,
I can't say whether my daughter's English standard will be comparable to graduates from other IS. But judging from her progress in this year I am confident that her English will be far better than what she may possibly attain in local school. I am talking about my daughter's own case and NOT about comparing with other students in local school.
The school is doing well in developing the reading habit of students. The school library is more like a public square and crowded with students after school. The circulation is so big that they are always understaffed.
On the other hand, the school is Chinese focus and pro-Chinese culture. Parents need to consider whether it's your cup of tea. Furthermore, they believe in homework and they will never tell you that you only need minimal effort at home but still you will be very smart. It's quite the contrary. However, they are not exam oriented and the assessment is rather child centered.

Rank: 3Rank: 3


355
39#
發表於 12-5-22 21:34 |只看該作者
My son is going to ISF fundation class next Sept, the reason i chose ISF is because my husband is not Chinese. But I want my son to have stronger Chinese. Learning Chinese is harder than English therefore it makes sense to start young. English become more important in upper grades becuase they run IB and most of the students will go to western countries (US/Eng/Aus/Can) for university. Therefore english becomes more important. Most important is their interest in learning life long.

Rank: 4


563
40#
發表於 12-5-23 17:10 |只看該作者
type409 發表於 12-5-19 20:27
I wondered why many people in BK like to criticize on ISF...
HKTHK: why do you think ISF's math leve ...

I believe "criticise" might not be the right word for describing their attitude.  I think they are more like being skeptical that ISF seems to have achieved something (i.e., true bilingualism/mastery in both Mandarin/Chinese and English) that not even the more established, popular and well-known international schools (e.g., CIS and SIS) are able to fully achieve.

My suggestion is don't take others' words for it, go and see for yourselves.  Do go to ISF's open days if you have the time and talk to as many students (not just the showcase/star students) as possible to check out whether ISF's students are on average really as good as some parents claimed to be...
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