ISF or CDNIS?

112200

Dear all parents ,

what do think about SIS  ? SIS vs ISF vs CDNIS  offer which one you will take  ? please advise.

annie40

回復 simpleway 的帖子

I could have used the wrong words.  Sorry!   

ISF is a good school with many good teachers.  However, they focus on Chinese very much.  The overall English level is not as good as  proper IS or elite LS.  The insiders have the same opinions.  Please try to check it up.

112200

Dear all parents ,

what do think about SIS  ? SIS vs ISF vs CDNIS  offer which one you will take  ? please advise

bobbycheung

simpleway 發表於 12-6-22 18:17
Annie40,

I don't know any insider of ISF, but the limited no. of ISF kids I met, they all can speak ...

I wonder if there are any parents out there who had kids changing from ISF to another IS school.  These parents could then tell us if there is any difference in the English levels.  

HKTHK

回復 annie40 的帖子

Which are the elite LS that you would consider has such high levels of English?

Jane1983

其實大家係EK討論，最緊要係肯講真心話，分享睇法。只要吳過份，吳係誹謗、人身攻擊就ok，如果個個講客氣說話有咩意思！

annie40

回復 simpleway 的帖子

simpleway,

Thank you again for reminding me to behave myself.  You're right that it's not fair to judge a young school when everything is so green. Time flies!  We make choices at all times.  No matter good or bad, just keep going to work it out.  From my writing you can see how broken of my English that could be a joke to give comment on English levels.  Anyway, I truly believe ninetendo and bobby's point of view.  I hope parents would think it deeper.  

Good luck!

annie

hkparent

Could I know if ISF upper students can speak native English (not just fluent). Kids from elite local schools can speak very fluent but not native English. A good combination may be: real IS (like Cdnis, Gsis, Hkis) plus relatively intensive Chinese/mandarin tutorials. We can't train up kids with native English by taking tutorials.

iamfine

Interesting. Seems that some of our fellow HK parents can go really Hongkish.  I've lived in the UK, Taiwan, Singapore, and very briefly in Swiss and Japan. Never have I come across such zombie-like parents who are so troubled by or obsessed with a foreign language as simple as English that they have to send their kids to a so called real IS to learn the language. My $0.02 to those who love to belittle ISF or its mode of education, stay away from it.  It's an acquired taste. Chances are that you are not ready for it.

Atticus

iamfine 發表於 12-6-26 20:16
Interesting. Seems that some of our fellow HK parents can go really Hongkish.  I've lived in the UK, ...

Haha!  A bit blunt but well said.

As far as I understand, none of nintendo, annie40 or bobbycheung's kids are attending ISF, so why keep questioning ISF students’ language competence?  You guys seem obsessed with this topic.

To be honest, I simply find nintendo and annie40's biased and ill-informed comments plus their judgemental and reckless attitude offensive.
As for bobbycheung, I don't quite understand where he is coming from.
From his comments, he seems a very reasonable guy but why won't he listen to other people's comments or go and find out for himself?

It seems to me that he is only looking for the answers that he wants to hear and refuses to believe that ISF students are truly bilingual.

bobbycheung

Atticus 發表於 12-6-26 23:20
Haha!  A bit blunt but well said.

As far as I understand, none of nintendo, annie40 or bobbycheun ...

I don't think I have ever said that ISF students are not bilingual.  I know they are because I heard a few of them speaking perfect English.  I raised my question solely because of the ISF principal's claim that "by the time the students graduate from ISF, their English will be as good as other international schools' students".   (I take it he didn't mean oral English only but English level in general).  As I said, I don't understand how ISF students could spend so much less time and yet achieve the same English standard as those other IS students who spend infinitely more time on it.  I just ask WHY and HOW it could be done and I thought it's a fair question.  Yes, I have heard many parents saying it's indeed the case.  But it's the end result and it's not what my question is directing at.  I am rather interested in HOW they could do it.  So far only HKTHK has offered me an explanation that it might have something to do with the class size difference.  I also offered 2 possible explanations myself, that is "ISF's teachers and teaching are better than those of the other IS and /or its students are better than than those in other IS."   Anyway, if any parent thinks that I am defaming ISF, I would restrain myself from pursuing my question any further.  But before I go, may I ask the ISF parents this one last question.  Wouldn't you want to find out why and how as well?

HKTHK

bobby>  I would like to know!  I suspect class size is one factor and the other one that I can think of is the diverse student base.  There are native speakers of both English and Mandarin in a class (at least 20% each?) and I think that does rub off the other students.  Imagine learning a new language at the age of 5 in a setting where only this language is used in classrooms and playground.  And then to repeat over next 12 years?  Reminds me of learning English myself.  Didn't realize how poor my English is until I studied abroad and started using English everyday for class and social interactions.  [Which is why I am a bit shocked that annie40 thinks so highly of some of the elite LS English level.  Based on my own personal observation, I haven't seen any LS students with what I would call good English unless they have studied abroad.  But things may have changed and hopefully improved since I went to college.]  These are just my speculations anyway and it is too early to tell.  The first class is just graduating this year.  What gave me the most comfort is that my kids seem to be heading in the right direction.  And if one combines this with Annie's attitude that "No matter good or bad, just keep going to work it out", I am sure any problems can be overcome.

hkparent>  My observation is that most of the kids are like native speakers (no different from my sister who went to HKIS) with the exception of those who are from Mandarin speaking families.  But this is only in the lower grades.  Not sure about the Mandarin speakers in higher grades.

hkparent

It seems that ISF is an ideal school.  By the way, is there any daily Chinese homework and how long will it take?  What is it about? Reading passage and doing worksheet? Is parental support necessary? Thanks.

Atticus

原帖由 bobbycheung 於 12-06-27 發表
本帖最後由 bobbycheung 於 12-6-27 01:01 編輯

To Bobby:  Point noted.  My apologies for overreacting a bit but I just got fed up with reading repeated groundless snide remarks about ISF and its students' language capability.

To other Education Kingdom users:  Please act like responsible adults and be considerate when you make comments about a particular school or its students.  Comments based on facts are welcome but please stop making groundless derogatory comments on matters that you don't know or care about.  Other parents whose kids are attending ISF, are going to attend ISF or are thinking of applying to ISF would be seriously troubled by these irresponsible remarks.

HKTHK

回復 hkparent 的帖子

I am not sure if there is a thing as ideal.  I value fluency in Mandarin and English and I am sure other parents value other things.  Experience is around 1 hour per day.  We spend more time on reading books though.

HKTHK

回復 bobbycheung 的帖子

bobby>  I know this thread is from some time ago but I am digging it up since I may have find another answer to the question of how and why a school, like ISF, can claim their standard of English will be on par with other international schools eventually.  The answer seems to be bilingual immersion(or sometimes called two-way immersion).  Have only started reading up on this but here is a piece of meta-research on this topic.  (http://www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report63.pdf) It is a bit long but covers many of the relevant issues.  
Here is a brief summary from the report:
Two-way immersion (TWI) is an instructional approach that integrates native English speakers and native speakers of another language (usually Spanish) and provides instruction to both groups of students in both languages.


One of the bullet points in the Conclusion of the whole research:
"Student academic outcomes are generally favorable in that both language minority students and language majority students tend to do as well or better on standardized achievement tests than their peers who are educated in alternative educational settings, such as general education, ESL, or transitional bilingual programs. Moreover, both groups of students demonstrate progress toward the goals of bilingualism and biliteracy development."

As with all things in life, there are criticisms on bilingual immersion and will try to read up on those as well.  Something else that I would like to learn more about is how would this apply in a Chinese/English immersion context (as opposed to mostly English/Spanish immersion in the research).  

Shootastar

回復 HKTHK 的帖子

Thanks for your sharing.

FattyDaddy

HKTHK 發表於 12-11-26 16:46
how would this apply in a Chinese/English immersion context (as opposed to mostly English/Spanish immersion in the research) ...

Chinese / English bilingual immersion would probably be much the same as any other bilingual immersion programmes as far as listening and speaking are concerned, but would be very different when it comes to reading and writing.

With Spanish / English, their writing systems are essentially the same. Both share the latin alphabet and their pronunciations don't differ that much, so once you have learned one system, picking up the other is not so difficult.

When it comes to Chinese / English though, their writing systems are completely different, you simply have to learn both from scratch, and because reading and writing Chinese are much harder and require much more time and effort to learn, many children would simply give up if they are left to their own choosing. That is why many IS students could learn to speak Cantonese and/or Mandarin very well but they are much weaker when it comes to reading and writing Chinese, even if they are ethnic Chinese themselves. I'm not saying this is the case in ISF, but it is the general scenario for IS students, those who could learn to read/write Chinese well are the results of much coercion and perseverance at home or school or both.

HKTHK

回復 FattyDaddy 的帖子

That would be my "guess" as well but that is not borne out by research.  I just find a specific document on Chinese English immersion and the results seem to be the same (http://www.lindholm-leary.com/present&handout/ISTP_BilSymposiumOct08_4web.pdf).  This lady is one of the few who has done several large scale research on two-way bilingual immersion so I would assume she is a credible source.
As for your comments on IS, I think it is worthwhile to look at the definition of various immersion.  One-way immersion education has the following features:

- students spend part or all of their instructional day studying through a second language other than their native English

- the second language is used to teach academic content (e.g. math, social studies)

- the second language is used for at least 50% of the instructional day

- teachers use specialized strategies to make sure students understand content

For IS that has Chinese lessons, I am not even sure if they can be called one-way immersion as it is unclear that they teach academic content in Chinese or that the use of Chinese exceeds 50% of instruction.  Only ones that come to mind are CIS, CKY, ISF, Victoria, [KCIS?] but it would be great if others can point out schools that also have one-way immersion.


In two-way immersion education, there are the same requirements as one-way immersion but in addition, native speakers of the second language is added to the native English speakers.  From another source, I read that the ideal mix is 50%/50% but that native speakers of either language should not fall below 30%.  Two-way immersion is supposed to deliver better results than one-way though I have not seen an exact quantification.  ISF is quite close to getting to this though a little short as native Mandarin speakers is only about 20% to 25% and English speakers about 40-45%.  I am not sure about other schools but it would be great if other parents who have the data can share it here.  Would be especially interested to see CIS's mandarin speaking %.


There are also different structures of two-way immersion programs.  Most commonly seen ones are either 50/50 or 90/10 meaning the non-English language would receive 50% or 90% of instruction time in the early years.  Interestingly, the 90/10 programs achieve better results without sacrificing proficiency in English.  I know CIS is structured as a 50/50 program and ISF is structured as a 70/30 program.  Does anyone know if CKY is 50/50 as well?