新聞透視 --- 學位有多荒

oooray

回覆 ikerberg 的帖子

If everybody can enjoy top-class education, the privileged group will no longer have any privilege.
100% politic issue.

poonseelai

回覆 ikerberg 的帖子

My hubby's company joined a programmer to let F5 students experience what a work place was like. He did a presentation at the end of the day. A student from TSW asked whether they really used Eng in the office or just for the presentation. I felt really pity for him. For them Eng is only a subject they learned at school and like say history or chemistry that they thought they would never apply in daily life.

shadeslayer

原帖由 ikerberg 於 13-12-20 發表
本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 13-12-20 09:40 編輯

i just pitty all those HK parents who wish to send the ...

Not only education, these people probably spend their own money on private prenatal check up and deliver babies in private hospitals. They are also likely to go to private doctors for all medical needs. Not to mention they do not qualify for any government housing benefits.  Yet they are just employees having to withstand huge stress and pressure.

nintendo

過多兩年，等 esf  停 subvention (for new student)，肯定申請 esf 人數會少好多。其實，印像中，我又唔覺真係唔夠學位，以國際幼稚園為例，好多小朋友都最終入到國際小學，只係未必係 first choice。
過去幾年，因為 nss 而多了人走去國際學校，好多家長都想搭尾班車入 esf ，但一旦 esf  冇資助，我相信有好多家長就唔會再 consider 。
另外，國際學校亦越開越多，供應多了，應該學位冇咁緊張。
還有，好多人話冇位，但我覺得有 d 根本只係 "考唔到"。
我有個鄰居，成日想入某國際學校，但考了多年，由考小學，到而家考中學，都係考唔到，考完又考，你話個 applicant pool  唔多人就奇。

Ruby1219

but I think some international schools would restrict the number of times you apply.  like you can only apply twice for GSIS

ikerberg

回覆 poonseelai 的帖子

Our examples are just the tip of the iceberg.  

The sad truth is the only chance they are in touch with English is English lessons.

But, you know what?  English in English lessons is not taught in English.  OMG.

Even if you have the talent of Shakespeare's, you still can't fly high with sooooo limited exposure!

16 years after 1997, English is still the main (if not the only) medium of communication in work, gov't or business, and this trend will not cease in the foreseeable future.

oooray

nintendo 發表於 13-12-20 12:29
過多兩年，等 esf  停 subvention (for new student)，肯定申請 esf 人數會少好多。其實，印像中，我又唔覺 ...

你鄰居係咪係waiting list等緊就當"考唔到"?一般人考過一兩次唔得會放棄；或考第間；同一間考完又考又有點奇怪......

Ruby1219

but the English of some top local schools is excellent and even better than that of IS students!  especially in writing,  grammar and comprehension.  but I personally like the learning approach and attitude of IS more.

nintendo

回覆 oooray 的帖子


世上幾奇的事都有，佢都係申請了四次，佢話唔憤氣，冇理由考唔到，因為唔係名牌熱門學校，考唔到學校咁瘀，冇理由講大話卦，我覺得佢地黑仔 d 啦，小朋友未至於好差

ikerberg

回覆 Ruby1219 的帖子

I never meant all IS students' English is better than all local students'.... Given the total no. of local students >> IS students, it is no wonder some elites from local schools are better than some IS's.

Surely, I won't doubt the English standard of those from the elite schools -- such as Co-ed, DB, DG etc....

But, just for your information/interest, because of my work, in recent years, I had chances to interview with some elite fresh graduates from the local universities...and I must point out that the general standard of spoken English as I observed was far from desirable.

Even though I had no doubt that they were smart and they could express themselves very well in Cantonese, when they switched to the English channel, they could not express their ideas clearly owing to their limited vocab base.  They had difficulty in picking up the right words to say what they really had wished to mean.   The fluency was also far from satisfactory, generally speaking.

What made myself so attracted/addicted to my chosen IS was a few years ago, when I went to the OpenHouse of that IS, I was stopped by a boy requesting me to listen to his presentation [great courage/confidence, boy!].  He used powerpoint prepared by himself to present a topic ==> "Overfishing" [<--- kind of topic you would read in magazines like "Time" / "The Economist".]   In the presentation, his confidence and his English fluency so displayed, I can say, was better than many many HKU graduates.   

Finally, I asked the boy == "How old are you?"  and he replied "Eleven".

Ruby1219

I agree with you.  
similarly,  I have experience teaching the local university students and found their English even lower than the primary school kids in IS.  
on the contrary, when I saw the presentation from the year 3 (8 years old) students at my son's IS,  I was so impressed!  by their confidence and courtesy, not only their native fluent English.

ikerberg

The main concern for the educators nowadays shall be how to equip the kids with the skills, manner and mentality of being a future global citizen (or a global leader if you aim higher), but not feeding them with hard/cold facts [knowledge] which one could easily find by just checking the key words with wikipedia / google....

that is, the core competencies that have to be developed through education:

(1) language skills (at least English & Putonghua close to native levels)
(2) public speaking /presentation skills
(3) skills to work as a team member/leader
(4) creativity / critical thinking
(5) integrity / empathy / awareness & understanding & respect of cultural differences
...etc...

The above are just my personal views that I wish to share in the fruitful discussion of this thread.  

Surely, different ppl have different views...

Ruby1219

I totally agree with you

shadeslayer

原帖由 ikerberg 於 13-12-20 發表
本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 13-12-20 14:20 編輯

回覆 Ruby1219 的帖子

I saw a year 8 history homework not long ago regarding "why do I think the reform of the Roman Empire was not necessary" or something to that effect.  Without  reading further, I thought to myself, wow, that is deep.

shadeslayer

原帖由 ikerberg 於 13-12-20 發表
本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 13-12-20 16:10 編輯

The main concern for the educators nowadays shall be h ...

It does not matter what time are we in, we still need professionals like doctors and lawyers. And for them hard cold facts are still important.

shadeslayer

While I agree with most of what you guys said here, I am a bit more optimistic on local education. The local system focuses on gaining knowledge and is good at producing professionals. It is just that the journey to acquiring knowledge is quite tough.

Jules_S

What about this kind of local school?

The School-based Internationalized Curriculum (I.C.)

www.cms.edu.hk

Will that be an option?

English instruction
learning Chinese via mandarin
multi- culture environment
Local school = free