應否選擇國際學校?(唔該俾D意見)

leschelems

It seems like a chicken and egg problem.  I really can't conclude which is cause and which is  consequence.  But I do hope you feel proud of yourself by being able to source the best-fit schooling and/or private tutoring for your boy.

For the rest, I actually have no objections.  

As some IS parents and student have mentioned, the amount of homework is not their concern provided that it serves the student's own good.   

We are not identical.  Some benefit from competition.  Some don't.  If your kid is competitive enough and you want this way, then go for the competitive school.  If it's not what you want, don't go then.   

原帖由 wisekid2007 於 09-7-3 15:49 發表
***The next time, IS parents and DSS parents as a group, when you find your kids are making good progress in academic study, instead of blaming the public school system, you should honor yourselves.** ...

[ 本帖最後由 leschelems 於 09-7-3 16:46 編輯 ]

leschelems

Wow.  The development is so fast that I can't find the original posting of sccc.  Can you help?

原帖由 wisekid2007 於 09-7-3 16:04 發表
Regarding your two questions:

1. I don't think any top elite local schools' level of English (in terms of reading, writing, and communication) is comparable in my boy's school. Of course, there may b ...

bakusensei

原帖由 Riesling 於 09-7-3 11:00 發表
Hi Wisekid2007,

Can you share with me how do you make sure the written and reading Chinese standard of your boy are not too far different from those of the local students? Why I'm asking is that I li ...

yes, wisekid2007, we would be highly appreciated if you would share how to keep your boy's Chinese standard. :)

My husband is teaching in a so-called "elite" and  "traditional" secondary school with more than 100 years' history. He produces lots of As every year. Even though he has good connection in the so-called local "elite" schools, he still prefers putting our little boy in IS. But I am quite concerned about the Chinese issue and still couldn't think of the solution.

Separately, I would like to seek your advice on the social circle of parents in GSIS. My aunt who hold both the British and the Swiss passport didn't put my two cousins to GSIS but to ESF instead as she was afraid if she could fit in the social circle there. I am not sure about the current situation. My sister who has just given birth to a newborn is quite interested in GSIS. Grateful if you would kindly share with us.

Million thanks in advanced.

Wingba

Seems like you just want to be a "devil advocate" here instead of sharing your kid's experience.

You may be a bit outdated now as more and more IS in HK are putting more emphasis on Chinese although they still treat it as second language. Some (or all?) ESF schools are already increasing their Chinese lesson from twice a week to one lesson every week.

Increasing the number of lesson is not the panacea. I will not expect my kid's Chinese proficiency be as good as local school kids as they will have Chinese history and literature to supplement Chinese language but I am sure she can read Chinese fiction without difficulties and can also write a piece of Chinese comprehension without much difficulty.

We cannot just rely on the school we have to send her to tutorial class, reading Chinese books with her, asking her to write diary and short stories etc...

If you think IS students cannot achieve a reasonable proficiency in Chinese it is because you do not make an effort to make it happen - you are too lazy.

原帖由 Reximom 於 09-7-3 19:09 發表


你呢d case我見唔少啦, 小學仲細, 仲會聽你點下攞d中文書睇下既, 到中學開始就唔會聽點, 唔睇中文, d中文程度慢慢退化, 好多IS學生讀上去都係咁, 最後讀完U出呢多數唔識睇, 唔識寫中文. “兼顧中英”, 咪自欺欺人 ...

bakusensei

原帖由 wisekid2007 於 09-7-3 18:34 發表
Firstly, I think we have to tune our mind that once we arrange our kids to study in international schools, it would be very, very difficult and not realistic to expect the Chinese standard (reading an ...

Million thanks for your sharing. :)

Hope u don't mind me asking too much. I am quite nervous though my boy will start his nursery in the coming seminar. As he's still reading the pictures of the book only, even he's holding a Chinese story book, he's still "telling the story" in English. I don't know when I should teach him the Chinese words. Apart from encouraging him to read more Chinese books, what else can I do? When should I teach him to write Chinese words?

I shall convey your sharing to my sister too. Many many thanks :)

mow-mow

To me, the straight comparison of the standard of English (or Chinese) of kids from local schools or IS seems totally pointless as you are comparing one's 1st language with the other's 2nd language.
What would be more interesting is to compare the standard of English of the local school kids with the standard of Chinese of the IS kids (both being their 2nd language).
Any thoughts on this anyone?
(P/S we should also being comparing kids from respective top schools - eg GSIS, HKIS with St Paul Coed, DGS, DBS...etc)

[ 本帖最後由 mow-mow 於 09-7-4 12:05 編輯 ]

sccc

Dear wisekid2007,

Just want to share only. I don't have much information.

I studied under HK local school upto Form. 3 and then continued my studied in Australia. So I am not quite clear about the educational  system in HK. Which one is good?  As a parent of my 2 year old son, I recently try to research more information about educational resurces provided in HK and try to plan for my kid, if possible. I think many mummy in hK also concern that, especially the new 3-3-4 systems.

I know English is important because many knowledge was expressed in English, say law cases in commonwealth countries, accounting concepts from accounting text books in HK and many companies in HK operates in English( i mean documents / working paper).  However, I also know Chinese is getting more important.  One example is Foreign companies / HK companies want to do buisness with Chinese people in China. Besides, if people want jobs in HK Government, I think chinese is a must.

Because my first language is not English but Cantonese, I would like to find a school with more resources for my baby to learn English so he can have fluent english to communicate with foreigners (investors in world). Besides, I would like my kids able to write or read F.5 level Chinese and able to speak fluent mandarin and cantonese. While HK has many resources for kids to learn Chinese, say my kid can talk in Cantonese with grandma or neighbours, watching cantonese / mandarin TV programmes, reading local chinese newspapers. And even I can try to get chinese resources to teach or encourage him to learn Chinese. Or sme mum will find chinese private tutor for their kids.

So International school is my preference because of above reasons.  Besides I want my son to know the importance of learning through ages rather than just for passing exam.

I know IS provides English as 1st language environment so is a good resource for learning english. Besides the classmates are from different nations so english is the only mean to communicate (so cantonese is not allowed in school). I know the importance of the english environment.

However, what i don't know is that "will the local top elite schools also able to offer so much great resources for students to achieve such a high level of english capacity as foreigners". Or the top students for the elite local schools only achieved what they get based on their own effort / telent / or pushing by schools / or training as a machine of working - working on past papers only  by schools.

However, my aunt who has 1 boy and 1 girl graduated in St. George V and Canada IS respectively suggested me to put my son in local school because of 2 reasons:
1) More pressure in local school so can exert more pressure from working in HK firms in future;
2) Foreigners don't speak cantonese and is reluctant to learn cantonese. The peer effect may cause chinese students in IS to refuse to learn Chinese because they as a kid, think Chinese is less important than English.

All the above points, do you agree with me? Or if you have better suggestions, pease suggest me. I am willing to listen.

Besides, You said CIS and GSIS were also your choices but you prefer GSIS. Could you share your reasons with me and other mums there?

Here I try to make some comparative points between 2 IS school: (if other mum have supplemental points, please share)

For me, I know they both have good academic results to get into great universities in hk and outside HK.

I know GSIS has good displine but no idea of CIS.

I know GSIS provide Chinese when students reach 8, or 9. However, CIS provides dual-language program in Chinese and English for kinder and primary. And mainly english in secondary (but still chinese is compulsory).
As said above, therefore GSIS can put more resources on English but CIS less resources in term of English as compared to GSIS ==> Can I conclude that? (Because time is limit resource in economic term) However, CIS also has good result on English subjects in IB courses.
Just wonder??? any opinion share here?

Besides, I saw many students from photos shown on CIS web-sites are black-hair.  How many percentage are western foreigners in the school (i mean the student population)? If the percentage is low, is it a good environments for learning english?

sccc

Hi bakusensei,

As you said" your husband is teaching in a so-called "elite" and  "traditional" secondary school with more than 100 years' history. He produces lots of As every year. Even though he has good connection in the so-called local "elite" schools, he still prefers putting our little boy in IS. "
Could your husband share his view there?

leschelems

The development has gone really fast.  But I feel happy that sccc are also present.  It saves me time in searching his/her original posting.

Regarding to the non-language subjects, apart from looking at their public exam results, such as IB and GCE,  I really don't know any objective comparisons.  Since wisekid2007's view is counterintuitive to me, IS parents can you please share?

For language, I agree that exams can only partially reflect students ability.  After reading your response and sccc's response, I found one commonality that you two agree IS students are generally leading local students in English proficiency.  Your difference lies in the degree of leading.  The problem we have here is that all of us are mere second language learner of English.  None of us can claim our English-teaching knowledge complete to give a big picture.  Can anyone help bring in any native English teacher to comment on it?  

I also hope Blastskull is still here (the one transferred from La Salle to IS).  Please kindly share your transition, like the age when you left La Salle for IS, and more importantly, how long did it take you to close your gap in English proficiency with your IS classmates?

Following the same rationale, I also welcome Chinese teacher, either native Cantonse or Putonghua, to give us more insight on the relative Chinese proficiency.

原帖由 wisekid2007 於 09-7-3 18:09 發表
In international schools, all Chinese kids also have to 兼顧中英. Many of them have also to learn a third or even a forth language too, e.g. German and/or French GSIS and French in most of other ISs.  ...

[ 本帖最後由 leschelems 於 09-7-4 18:05 編輯 ]

foolish.mom

sccc,

Because of the heavy Chinese language content of CIS, pure western foreign students are definitely not the majority. I would say, more than 70% of the students have Chinese origin (pure or mixed).  However, the medium of communication is English, i.e. students use English to communicate among themselves. Some cannot speak Cantonese, and most of them prefer not to speak Cantonese.

almom

原帖由 mow-mow 於 09-7-4 11:45 發表
To me, the straight comparison of the standard of English (or Chinese) of kids from local schools or IS seems totally pointless as you are comparing one's 1st language with the other's 2nd language.
What would be more interesting is to compare the standard of English of the local school kids with the standard of Chinese of the IS kids (both being their 2nd language).
Any thoughts on this anyone?
(P/S we should also being comparing kids from respective top schools - eg GSIS, HKIS with St Paul Coed, DGS, DBS...etc)

I think it is not ONLY whether who is better in which ever language. To most local Chinese families that have chosen IS, they did not choose IS ONLY because IS have better English.

IS and local schools are just totally different. Period.

Local schools students are not encouraged to be independent thinkers. They are not encouraged to be adventurous. They are not encouraged to point out the wrongs of their teachers. They are just not encouraged to be themselves. Local schools students are expected to stay within the square they are provided and should not even try to touch the borders. If you get 100 marks/points out of 100 you are good. And that's all you need to be. Don't be less but don't try to be smart and do more than you are expected.

I have seen so many really talented and brilliant minds being wasted because somehow they have to stick to a local school.

[ 本帖最後由 almom 於 09-7-4 23:58 編輯 ]