AIS or CAIS~~PLEASE HELP

mtot

Do you mean Australian IS?
In terms of school fee, AIS is more expensive than CAIS and AIS requires debenture.
AIS offers Mandarin lesson everyday but CAIS only have Mandarin lesson every 2 days.
The facilities of AIS are very good, while CAIS has religious belief which i think is very good for children.

agneslth

Dear Minty,

My son studies in CAIS (G2), I think it is a very good school in both academic and discipline aspects, the teachers really work as a team, and the learning atmosphere is like a warm family. The students are mostly very well behaved. CAIS is excellent in students' spiritual development, I really think that it is one of the best Christian IS in Hong Kong.

If you are a Christian and wish that your kid can be upbring with strong faith and good Christian values in God, CAIS would be a very good choice.

Minty 寫道:
Which one is better? AIS or CAIS?  
Both of them accept my application of K3/Reception, but I still can not make the dicision.
May anyone give me some advice or comment on these two IS, especially the discipline of their student

Thank you very much

mtot

Dear Agneslth,

May I share how you decide when you consider IS (or CAIS) given that chinese learning is limited with such expensive school fee?  I am still struggling on this issue..   Mandarin/Chinese is important and becoming more and more important in the society.  I am not sure the standard.  But I just heard that kids will regret if they don't know chinese when they are grown up.  

Thanks for your sharing.

mtot

Dear Agneslth,

May I share how you decide when you consider IS (or CAIS) given that chinese learning is limited with such expensive school fee?  I am still struggling on this issue..   Mandarin/Chinese is important and becoming more and more important in the society.  I am not sure the standard.  But I just heard that kids will regret if they don't know chinese when they are grown up.  

Thanks for your sharing.

agneslth

mtot & Minty,

As a Chinese, I do struggled a lot on the issue of learning Chinese.

I choose IS for my boy not only because I think that the English standard of IS is far more better than local schools, but also because the way of learning is more interactive in IS. One may not possibly develope a creative mind out of a "spoon feeding" learning enviorment in local school setting, right? I think to maintain a kid's learning passion for life is a very important thing to consider.

I think it is also important to note that CAIS is a "truly" IS, not only the fact that all lessons are conducted in English (except french/mandarin of course), but also because of the school rule that students are not permitted to speak in Cantonese at school, INCLUDING recess time or lunch time, that is why the kids of CAIS can speak really fluent English. They have many English lessons (language Arts) a week , they learn grammar, phonics, writing and literature...that is one of the key reason why the English standard of CAIS is so good.

If you choose to have Mandarin lessons (actually my boy have chosen French instead of Mandarin), you will get 3 periods out of a week. Don't expect two much from these lessons, even for IS like RC or ESF which provide more lessons in Chinese, the standard of Chinese is still far lower than local school students.

I used to be a Chinese history teahcer in local secondary school, I don't worry much about the Chinese standard of my boy, as we are living in a city as Hong Kong, there are so many ways to come across Chinese everyday.

Don't forget one important issue, IS kids get far less homework to do, that means you still get plenty of time to learn Chinese everyday after school! You can read books or even newspapers with them or even ask them to write dairies or book reports in Chinese...if you are a very busy parent you can let your kid join the 公文中文課程 (kumon Chinese ) which I think the course material is pretty good so that you your kid can learn both Chinese and Putonhua in a more systematical way. You may even hire a private tutor (this is my case) to teach your kid Putonhua once a week for around $150-500/hr, depends on the experience and qualification of the tutor.   

Last but not least, if you decided to choose an IS for your kid, start to communicate with them in a BILINGUAL way as EARLY as possible (ie. when they learn a new term, try to make sure that they will learn both the English and the Chinese term at the same time), NEVER stress only in English,  NEVER talk to them only in English, (or even worse, half English half Chinese within one sentence, ie. 你件衫有冇wet呀？) Try to talk to them ONLY in Chinese at least half an hour a day, and read them a Chinese book or an article from the newspaper a day...

For my case, I let my boy listen to the news from the radio every morning when I drive him to school, and I read at least one Chinese book to him everyday, so far he can speak fluent Chinese (and okay  Putonghua), can write and read in Chinese as well (despite the fact his English standard is still a lot more ahead of his Chinese standard=p).

In the far end, may be he may miss the chance of being admitted to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (香港中文大學), for this is the only U that consider excellent Chinese standard as one of the minimum entrance requirement , other U like HKU or  HKUST, intake CAIS students every year.

Minty 寫道:
agneslth,

Thank you very much for your reply which is very useful.  Yes I worry about the chinese learning as well, would you mind recommending any chinese class for us?

Your kind assistance is really appreciated.

MarcusD

agneslth

Thanks for your sharing,

"you said: (actually my boy have chosen French instead of Mandarin)"

How is the French class in school? is it good? How many student take it?

MarcusD

KaKaYa

Austrialian International School = AIS HK
American International School = AIS
how about the different of the facilities and others?

mtot 寫道:
Do you mean Australian IS?
In terms of school fee, AIS is more expensive than CAIS and AIS requires debenture.
AIS offers Mandarin lesson everyday but CAIS only have Mandarin lesson every 2 days.
The facilities of AIS are very good, while CAIS has religious belief which i think is very good for children.

agneslth

Dear Marcus,

Most students chose mandarin, less students choose French. I think about 1/3 students take French (20 children per class)

My son enjoys the French lessons pretty much.

MarcusD 寫道:
agneslth

Thanks for your sharing,

"you said: (actually my boy have chosen French instead of Mandarin)"

How is the French class in school? is it good? How many student take it?

MarcusD

MarcusD

Thanks A lot!


MarcusD

agneslth 寫道:
Dear Marcus,

Most students chose mandarin, less students choose French. I think about 1/3 students take French (20 children per class)

My son enjoys the French lessons pretty much.

[quote]
MarcusD 寫道:
agneslth

Thanks for your sharing,

"you said: (actually my boy have chosen French instead of Mandarin)"

How is the French class in school? is it good? How many student take it?

MarcusD

[/quote]