讀國際学校中文又吾好, 本地学校又大壓力, 仲可以点揀呢?

NLai

Dear SSSPwong,
thank you, actually is for my sister baby.

readers

pls see pm.

原文章由 super8 於 08-4-16 11:21 發表
Readers,

pls pm me as well, if possible.  I'm also starting to make my decision for my baby who just turns 1.  

Thanks.

mummom

I suggest DSS school like Pui Kiu College in Shatin.
They use Mandarin to teach Maths and Chinese from Grade 1 to 6.  I found some "mixed" kids studying there.  They use the canadian curriculum connects in English subject.

you can have a look in their website:
[email protected]

but the school is very new.

原文章由 homers 於 08-4-20 22:59 發表
I am European, while my wife is Chinese. We wish our daughter to be rooted in Chinese as well as Western culture.
Before reading this forum we thought it best to choose an English medium school with u ...

almom

homers,

I know one half-Chinese-half-German family that put their child in a local kindergarten (not the so-called famous ones, but just a kindergarten near where they lived) a few years ago. I lost contact with them since and not sure which primary school the kid is in now.

I know a couple of western families living in Sai Kung now are also putting their kids in local kindergarten to learn Chinese. But, their future plans would be putting the kids back in the international schools for primary education, probably Renaissance College or Shatin Junior, whatever they can get by then.

Unfortunately, English+Chinese is just not the perfect pair for bilingual schooling; and time spent at school is quite limited. If you want more time for Chinese class, then you will have to sacrifice time spent for other classes.

If you are really asking me to give suggestions, you might want to investigate into how ISF might suit you. They put more emphasis on Chinese during P1-P3 (may be 70% Chinese), then gradually swifting the proportion to more English in the secondary school (probably only 30% Chinese). I have a friend with a child in this school for the first year. Things seems to be running OK, exept that the Chinese is really hard for the kid (the kid was from ESF school). It is still too early to say whether ISF would surely be successful in trying to keep both Chinese and English as "important" in their curriculum, since it is a really new school. So it is to see whether you dare to put a bet into this school.

Regarding the curriculum of IS, there are a great many choices. If you are really keen on the Canadian curriculum, then you can choose CANIS and CAIS; if you want American curriculum, you may consider AIS and ICS; and there is the Australian curriculum at AUSIS, British curriculum at most ESF schools up to Grade 11, and the IB curriculum at RC & DC (in fact all ESF secondary adopt IB at diploma level, ie the last 2 years of high school).

As a Canadian, I would surely be proud if the Canadian (or Ontario) curriculum is considered to be good. I personally think that the Ontario Diploma curriculum was great, at least at my times. Students have no problem applying and transiting from high school to any north american universities. However, from what I know, I would not say that the American or Australian curriculum are not as good.

In fact, within the few bigger cities, eg Toronto and Montreal, there are (and will be) more and more IB schools. And what I know is that IB schools are now very popular in those cities and the schools can usually get the best students in the area.

homers

Thank you Mummom, Almon, Readers, Thankful and Wymom for your valuable and extensive replies on our posting concerning a mix child.

I believe the fact that our child is mix is not the issue though. We like her to identify herself later as 100% Hong Kong yan (which means cantonese, not mandarin), while learning to look over the fence being comfortable with proper english and modern style education. University admission is even secondary to that.

The subject line of this forum suggests the need to compromise when choosing education direction for ones child; english medium education (curriculum independent) compromising cantonese exposure and historic rooting vs HKCEE cantonese curriculum with extensive chinese exposure (language as well as cultural rooting) which most agree on is too demanding for the child.

Thank you (several people) for suggesting schools which may in fact bring the best of both worlds while not compromising chinese/cantonese cultural rooting. We will have a close look at the suggestions later and would be very happy if one of those suggested schools is the right one.

Still, we think our idea to send our child sequentially to different medium schools might be a very good option. Indeed cantonese and than english makes most sense (thankful reader; mmkoi). We understand the downsides of such a scenario (every advantage has a disadvantage ^_^).

We believe this sequential approach might be a valid solution for many readers here as well, ensuring Hong Kong cultural rooting while having sufficient exposure to english at a young enough age to become proficient.
We hope to have contributed to finding best solutions when choosing an education for ones child. And we'll check in again later after having studied the suggested schools.

janiceyuen

Hi readers,

Can you pls PM me also?

thanks

原文章由 readers 於 08-4-13 23:45 發表
Pls see PM

mom2twins

Hi readers, could you pm to me too? Thx in advance.

yyvenus

Can you please PM me too?

BUNNYLEE

READERLS PM ME!!!THX!!!

tingtingting

原文章由 almom 於 08-4-23 21:08 發表
Unfortunately, English+Chinese is just not the perfect pair for bilingual schooling ...

I agree to mostly what you said but would like to ask, if English+Chinese is not the perfect pair for billingual schooling, what in your opionion is the better pair for us Hong Kong Chinese?  I ask this because I see a really interesting phenonmenum - a lot of my non Chinese co-workers and friends favour English+Chinese billingual education for their kids in Hong Kong but some of my Chinese friends insists that it is not possible for HK students to be good at both Chinese and English.  Is English so difficult that we have to give up Chinese?  Is English+French or Egnlish+Japanese or English+German really easlier than English+Chinese?

hjm

My own experience, has been Kindy - Eng, Primary - local Chinese, Secondary - Eng (IS).  On the language side my son got the foundations just like that (phonics, reading skills) when he was six...surely without any Chinese learning entering into the local school was a pain about the subjects.  But he picked it up and moved on...he's the lazy kind but did keep up with reading newspaper and "Kam Yung" fiction at P3 or P4...so there you go, he has the foundation of Eng too so has no problem at all during his years at Primary to be top in Eng.  Now he goes to IS and uses his Eng alot.

Probably not the same case for everybody again, but we kind of thought this could be a solution.  Though efforts were never less than putting the kids to any other school.  I do have different paths for my different kids....!

fishfishma

Hi, Tweety Bird,

I am also thinking about Kindy-Eng, Primary-Chi, Secondary-IS for my younger son.  Do you think it really works?  What are your "different paths" for your other kids? Please share.  Thank you.

Fishfishma

原文章由 hjm 於 08-5-11 07:05 發表
My own experience, has been Kindy - Eng, Primary - local Chinese, Secondary - Eng (IS).  On the language side my son got the foundations just like that (phonics, reading skills) when he was six...sure ...

[ 本文章最後由 fishfishma 於 08-5-11 08:54 編輯 ]

tingtingting

Thanks hjm for your sharing.  I still have another year to make up my mind but I may go a similar path.  Your experience is quite similar to my friend's experience.  Her son went to Woodland for kinder, and then to Victoria and then to Singapore International for primary, and will go to another IS for secondary after summer.  Her son speaks perfect English (I mean really excellent English, not the AO's standard of spoken English that Christf mentioned) and excellent mandarin.  I also know a few examples of truly bilingual kids.  Some of them are brought up in local schools and some in int. schools.  It seems to me that parents' language ability is a major factor, which is as important as schooling.  I live in a place where most of our neighbours are kids from foreign countries and my son has a lot of English speaking friends.  I am not concerned about his English.  It is not going to be a problem, I know.  What concerns me is his standard of Chinese.  Headache.

almom

I agree to mostly what you said but would like to ask, if English+Chinese is not the perfect pair for billingual schooling, what in your opionion is the better pair for us Hong Kong Chinese?

你有少少誤會我說的。
首先，因為香港主要係華人，相信 english + chinese 會係主流。我的確認為 english + chinese 難，但即使係難，都冇辦法，作為中國人，又住在中國的地方，唔識中文好似真係講不通。

I ask this because I see a really interesting phenonmenum - a lot of my non Chinese co-workers and friends favour English+Chinese billingual education for their kids in Hong Kong but some of my Chinese friends insists that it is not possible for HK students to be good at both Chinese and English.

我很反對用外國人學中文的風氣，作為 "中文強勢" 的指標。
其實洋人一向都有很多很嚮往中國文化，正如香港人很多都鍾意日本東西，很多人都識講幾句簡單日語，不代表甚麼。
今年北京奧運，的確在洋人社會就更有一鼓中國熱，就正如香港人睇完大長今都話去韓國玩，話要學韓文。
另外，來香港住的外國人學中文，我覺得很理所當然的喇，我們去外國旅遊，也會學幾句當地語言 "傍身"，何況是來住上三五年。
父母來到香港工作，難得孩子有機會，當然會學學中文啦，這是因利成便，到香港住不學中文，就正如去東京住不學日文，去巴黎住不學法文，好像講不通，亦好舐。
洋童學中文，很多只會當中文是 additional/second language 的學，就好似我地香港人學日文韓文，很多都是日常講，可以講得流利，但要寫，恐怕就有點難度了；畢竟，寫作是語文中最難的。
當然都有例外，我孩子學校有些洋童中文很好，與本地孩子一同上課，但有這樣水平的不會很多。其他大部份都是 "中文初階" 水平罷了。

Is English so difficult that we have to give up Chinese?

不。初學語文，種種都是難的。
但其中，我覺得中文是較難掌握，較難維持。
英文是 26 個字母 "變" 出來，讀音亦可以靠拼音估計。
但中文係方塊字，讀音大部份都冇得估，要中文好，一定要多用 ( 包括聽，寫，講，讀 )，如果唔係好快唔記得晒，真係 out of sight out of mind。
以一般國際學校的中文課時間，和校內文化 (包括孩子們愛讀的書，愛聽的流行音樂，等)，英文始終是主流；孩子們可能會講普通話或廣東話，但要他們讀或寫得好，真的不易。
唔係我地想 give up，而係現實環境令孩子們根本太少機會用中文。
如果家長太在意孩子的中文水平，國際學校未必是理想的選擇。

Is English+French or Egnlish+Japanese or English+German really easlier than English+Chinese?

如果是英文為主，當然配都是用英文字母的語文都較易，其中 french，spanish，italian，都是較易上手的。
中文則是配有很多漢字的日語，會較易上手。
"較易" 的意思，只是較易上手；
要語文學得好，有 first language 的水平，始終都是要多用，要浸的。
要有兩個語文都有 first language 的水平，談何容易？

但甚麼易，甚麼難也不重要，我們始終都應該學懂中文。
不過問題是，去到甚麼程度可以 "收貨"，就要看每個家長的要求。
我個人不會要求很高，因為正如我之前說，國際學校放在中文的時間太少，要求太高是不設實際。

[ 本文章最後由 almom 於 08-5-13 19:24 編輯 ]

tingtingting

almon, thanks a lot for the very detailed reply.

fishfishma

謝謝大家的意見,有時我覺得自己好像把大仔做了一隻白老鼠,kindy (IS + no Chinese), P1+2(IS + Simplified Chinese), P3 (IS + traditional Chinese).不過,轉來轉去,始終覺得配合香港的語言環境學習最effective,暫時頗滿意仔仔的雙語發展.

原文章由 tingtingting 於 08-5-14 09:51 發表
almon, thanks a lot for the very detailed reply.