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International or Local

  1. #17
    Vrindavan is offline Registered User
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    Sales Tax on Education Spending

    http://www.geobaby.com/forum/thread119264.html

  2. #18
    Hagrid is offline Registered User
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    I'm so torn by this question and kept changing my mind for the past year. Now that my son is 2, I really need to decide...

    I'm more inclined to the local route and run4fun has made a pretty convincing case from someone who has been there. I have heard a lot of good comments for KCS but we'll need to travel for about an hour if I want to send my son there. On the other hand, there is an ESF just 15 min from home. I now understand why people relocate to get closer to a good school network.

    The other concern I have is that if I send my son to a local school now and later decide it doesn't suit him, is it difficult to get him a place in ESF? My son speaks pretty good english already but neither myself or my husband graduated from ESF and I worry that the other international school would be too expensive. Any comment would be much appreciated!


  3. #19
    Blee is offline Registered User
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    I heard most local schools now put a lot of emphasis on Mandarin as well (i.e. the Chinese language classes are taught in Putonghua instead of Cantonese).

    We have been debating whether to send our baby to local school vs international ever since he was born. We still haven't completely decided but we are more inclined to send him to the local stream. I think learning Chinese in school is probably much better than us teaching him at home. I haven't really seen any successful case where a kid goes to international school and still manage to learn Chinese very well at home. My niece and nephew both goes to English school and now they only want to speak English. But they are 100% Chinese and born and raised in Hong Kong! It is a bit absurd that they feel embarrassed to speak Cantonese!

    For parents who are not fluent in Chinese, you can always hire a tutor. It is not so hard to find Chinese tutor who moved to Hong Kong from Mainland China. They can teach in Mandarin and their Chinese standard is much better than local Hong Kong people anyway.

    On the other hand, it is much easier to increase the kids' exposure to the English language. Esp. if you send them to study overseas later on, they will pick up the language easily. My husband didn't go to the US until he finished high school (local school) in Hong Kong. But after spending several years there, he now speaks fluently without any Hong Kong accent at all.

    Anyway, I think it is such a big decision and I hope to make a good one for my baby. So it is really great to hear all the comments from parents so I can get different opinions. Thanks!


  4. #20
    mrs momo is offline Registered User
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    after some more discussion with my husband and friends who work for the EMB, we will most likely put our son thru the local stream. however i still have the following questions and i hope some of you can answer them.

    1) is the local curriculum much more difficult then most overseas curriculums. the reason why i have raise this question is because i remember friends who used to fail badly in hk (eg in maths and science particularly) did very well when they got to australia. i remember this from high school.

    2) if we decide to switch back to international, is it easy to get into if we have the $$$. Ii have always belived that as long as you have the $$$ you can definitely get a place. i know ESF will be harder but other international schools seems to be very $$$ focused. pls correct me if this is a misconception.

    3) for international schools, i also have the belive that some of the kids are not that fluent in english and their cantonese is way better than their english. is that another misconception?

    thanks!


  5. #21
    Vrindavan is offline Registered User
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    >>friends who work for the EMB

    can you share what insights they give to you ?

    2) Vacancy & English level

    3) If you are not satisfy with the IS English level,
    you need to worry more of the locals' English level too, unless you can get into at least a better than average local school

    As long as IS/ESF going to put more weight on Chinese language now. English will go down while Chinese goes up. Thus, who like this trade off ?

    The same apply to local schools.


  6. #22
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    after a year in an international school, the child should be near native speaker level. after a few years, they should be at a native speaker level. How else do you think they cope with the school work?

    Even if the international schools/ESF introduce Mandarin classes, they will still be English schools with their main focus being ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION. Unless of course you are talking about: Singapore In'l, Japan Int'l, Chinese Int'l or any of the schools with dual streams (ie. the Korean Int'l has a Korean stream and an English stream.)


  7. #23
    bbc mom is offline Registered User
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    Does anyone know at what ages a child becomes proficient in speaking, reading and writing Chinese? We will definitely return to the UK one day (earliest 2 years, latest 9 years) so will he still remember the Chinese or do we have to reinforce it in the UK? Thanks


  8. #24
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    you'll have to keep it up... as far as i know the same would be for english too.

    if you stop learning english at 9 years of age, your vocabulary will of course only be that of a 9 yar old.

    so although your child might be able to read some simple chinese books, they'd probably have a hard time with a newspaper.


    i learned french in school for 13 years. i stopped when i was 17 years old. i ws very good back then, but now, i'd struggle to make myself understood.

    if you don't use it, you lose it, so the saying goes


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