讀 RC 的小學生中文是否比 SJS 學生較好一點？

Miclint

Since both are international school, both teaching all subjects except Chinese in Englih, both spending only one Chinese session each school day, do you think RC can really make a difference to the students' average Chinese level? If yes, is the difference significant?

Any SJS parents here would you kindly share your experience of how to help your child learn Chinese out of school?

Thank you.

宏媽

RC is a billingual school, they have a higher expectation towards students' chinese level (as far as I know).

My sons go to SJS, they have repeatedly reminded parents that they are an English school. (No buy 1 get 1 free for languages), although they have different pathways of different Chinese levels, the exectation is still rather low.

What I do to help my sons is:
1. Teach them to work on some local Chinese exercise by myself, to help them with writing.

2. Use materials from mainland, such as VCD and CD-Rom to help them grasp the correct pronunciation.

Hope these information will help

原帖由 Miclint 於 09-1-21 11:10 發表
Since both are international school, both teaching all subjects except Chinese in Englih, both spending only one Chinese session each school day, do you think RC can really make a difference to the st ...

almom

原帖由 宏媽 於 09-1-21 13:35 發表
RC is a billingual school

RC is not a bilingual school. It has never marketed themselves to be one and will not be one.

almom

I do not want to compare the schools. There have been many similar comparisons in the past at BK, and things turned out quite ugly.

The level of a student depend very much how the family supports the child and how the child is inspired.

Even within RC, the Chinese level of students vary a lot. There are quite some western kids that are learning Chinese at first language level and are attending the highest level classes. There are also quite some local Hong Kong Chinese kids that are unwilling to learn Chinese with more serious attitude and seem to be giving up on Chinese. So it is obvious that some children may seem to benefit from the seemingly more structured Chinese program at RC, but some children are totally blur and do not seem to have learnt much at all.

Regarding the learning of Chinese, it appears to me that most non-Chinese families, or non local Chinese families are in fact more willing to put more effort with their children's Chinese. A lot of western kids do have after school Cantonese or Putonghua classes.

My way of helping my kids is that I respect the learning of Chinese. I respect the Chinese language and respect Chinese culture. I am very surprised to see that in Hong Kong, many local Hong Kong Chinese families are not speaking Chinese to their own children. According to some of my local friends, they think that many local families believe that by avoiding the use of Chinese (ie reading Chinese, speaking Chinese, etc) in daily life, their children would have even better English level. With such mentality, I think children would never respect their own identity as a Chinese and let alone have good Chinese level. And, unfortunately, using less Chinese does not mean having better English. I have seen so many local Hong Kong Chinese children, that are attending various international schools, with very poor English. They are limited to good spoken English, but are very poor at writing and reading.

I like the respect we can get at RC with the learning of Chinese. RC is probably still not (or in fact will never be) that strong in Chinese, but we do get a reasonable dose of Chinese cultural activities at the school. All I can say is that, if you are merely looking at the actual Chinese level, you might be quite disappointed because it is probably still a long way behind most average local schools, or even other IS's that are known to have strong Chinese (eg CIS, SIS, or even YCIS). However, I think the school is trying to experiment with reaching a reasonable balance and a good dose of the Chinese teaching. Whether such "balance" and such "dose" meet your needs, is for you to investigate and decide.

AAA-Mom

I have only one concern in SJS regarding chinese lessons. I do not like the school teaching simplified chinese characters. Actually long from history, the traditional chinese characters should be the original chinese. As all know, chinese characters are developed from 象形文字 and that we can understand how the words are form. However, as some of the school principals I know, they also think that we should teach our kids in traditional chinese instead. The leaders in China are also using traditional chinese in some formal agreements and all of them have learned the traditional chinese. I believe if I really want my kids to learn chinese, they should be learning the traditional chinese for better understanding of the characters and the language.. Does anyone know why there is simplified version? It is because the leaders were 文盲, so they developed a simple version... however, some characters lose their original meaning such as 愛，in simplified version, the 愛 is written with a 心, how can it be "love" without "heart"? We should respect 古人created the words in the past. Therefore, I will let my girl learning chinese in traditional version.

almom

原帖由 AAA-Mom 於 09-1-25 01:27 發表
I have only one concern in SJS regarding chinese lessons. I do not like the school teaching simplified chinese characters. Actually long from history, the traditional chinese characters should be the  ...

Traditional VS Simplified.....
This is probably going to be a long discussion.

My way of seeing it. If.... If your child is in an international school and still enjoys Chinese classes (and surviving them), then you should already be happy. I myself would take any chinese characters at all, if my children are learning good chinese.

hhy2007

Maybe you'd like to read the following article to have more knowledge on the simplified Chinese.

[size=+0]简体字的由来

[size=+0]     汉字从甲骨文、金文变为篆书，再变为隶书、楷书，其总趋势就是从繁到简。隶书是篆 书的简化，草书、行书又是隶书的简化，而简体字正是楷书的简化。楷书在魏晋时开始出现，而简体字已见于南北朝（4－6世纪）的碑刻，到隋唐时代简化字逐渐 增多，在民间相当普遍，被称为“俗体字”。我们今天使用的许多简化字，在这时候就已经开始出现。宋代以后，随着印刷术的发明，简体字由碑刻和手写转到雕版 印刷的书籍上，从而扩大了简体字的流行范围，数量大大增多。1909年，陆费逵在《教育杂志》创刊号上发表论文《普通教育应当采用俗体字》，这是历史上第 一次公开提倡使用简体字。
[size=+0]     1922年，钱玄同在国语统一筹备委员会上提出《减省现行汉字的笔画案》。它提出的八种简化汉字的方法，实际上也就是现行简体字的产生依据，影响深远。
[size=+0]     1932年，国民政府教育部公布出版国语筹备委员会编订的《国音常用字汇》，收入不少简体字，并指出：“现在应该把它（简体字）推行，使书写处于约易。”
[size=+0]     1937年，北平研究所字体研究会发表《简体字表》第一表，收字1700个。
[size=+0]     1950年，中央人民政府教育部社会教育司编制《常用简体字登记表》。
[size=+0]     1956年1月28日，《汉字简化方案》经汉字简化方案审订委员会审订，由国务院 全体会议第23次会议通过，31日在《人民日报》正式公布，在全国推行。以后这个方案根据使用情况而略有改变，1964年5月，文改委出版了《简化字总 表》，共分三表：第一表是352个不作偏旁用的简化字，第二表是132个可作偏旁用的简化字和14个简化偏旁，第三表是经过偏旁类推而成的1754个简化 字，共2238字（因“签”、“须”两字重见，实际为2236字），这就是今天我们所使用的简体字标准。

原帖由 AAA-Mom 於 09-1-25 01:27 發表
I have only one concern in SJS regarding chinese lessons. I do not like the school teaching simplified chinese characters. Actually long from history, the traditional chinese characters should be the  ...

AAA-Mom

Totally disagree. Why should we need to simplfly the traditional chinese? I have seen  胡錦濤 writing traditional chinese in the news... actually there are more traditional chinese books are selling in the book store in china...some friends of mine in beijing are learning traditional chinese as it is becoming more popular. Sometimes the contracts they may use either traditional or simplied characters.

Yes it is a really long topic would be. Even in mainland people are debating quite often. But anyway, it is only my personal opinion.