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本帖最後由 ikerberg 於 14-4-21 07:24 編輯
As a parent of 3 kids - 2 in PY1, 1 in P1 of SIS, I think I am in a suitable position to comment on SIS. I think the biggest advantage of SIS over other IS is that it could really develop very well the bilingual capabilities of kids since very young - PY1 (aged 4).
For English, it is the main communication medium among kids in school and playground, and although the school does not have a very demanding / hectic schedule for English, kids could still develop excellent English skills without much pressure.
For Chinese/Putonghua, after some reform/re-structure in the past 1-2 years, I could say its Chinese standard in terms of reading and writing would not be lower than local schools', if not higher. And, for speaking Putonghua, they could achieve native/nearly native standard, which of course, is much higher than local schools'. It is because of this biggest edge that we choose SIS. Since I and my wife believe the importance of Chinese/Putonghua as of now and the coming decades, we thought that it was SIS or nothing. That's why, we did not apply any other IS at all, from day one.
For sure, language skills, like Rome, is not built in one day, and admirable Chinese/Putonghua standard is not built on a vaccum, and neither would it be a miraculous fruit of an act of God, which the kids could reap after a night of sweet dream.
Extensive reading, some drillings and exercises are conducive to building solid and good foundation in languages, surely including Chinese/Putonghua.
SIS adopted a very structured approach, encouraging kids reading a lot of interesting Chinese books since PY1, and along the path, relying on its well-designed curriculum, equipping kids to sit for IB Chinese exam [First Language].
Hence, the kids could develop such good habit of learning Chinese since very young, and you would not hear complaints from kids about 'hating Chinese' which is yet quite a common phenomenon in other IS. But, it is true the schedule of Chinese teaching may be a bit tight to kids, e.g. in P1 - all the teaching of PINYIN (phonics system of Putonghua) is completed in 8 weeks, which I heard from others, would take one year in ESF. If kids' parents know nothing about Chinese/Putonghua or the kids are of mediocre/lower ability in lanugages, it would be a problem and employing private tutor seems quite unavoidable.
In last summer, during our vacation in Malaysia and when I and my wife spoke to the Chinese Malaysian driver in Putonghua, our eldest son surprised us by taking the iniative to chat with that driver fluently in Putonghua. This surprised us because we seldom spoke to him in PTH on any occasion, and we clearly did not know he had such an ability. By then, he had just finished PY2 and we could not have foreseen that 2 years of PTH education in SIS would yield such an amazing fruit !!!
The distinctive PRO of SIS [strong at Chinese/Putonghua] to some parents like us is exactly a CON - [schoolwork and homework] in the eyes of other parents.
So, it finally would be kind of 'values decision', whether you value developing kids' Chinese/Putonghua standard over 'schoolwork/homework', and it is very very personal.
Afterall, I think either of the two schools would have been a dream school to many ppl. Congratulations!
[ The Almightly above is too 'harsh' to you. If there had not been two, but one, it would not have been such a 'headache', haha. ]
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