ICS or elite local school?

[Roger]

How well do ICS students speak Mandarin and Cantonese and read and write Chinese when they finish there?

 

[chingleutsch]

Use of Cantonese is strongly discouraged at the school (I'm not game enough to say "banned", as I don't work there, but I do know that the youngest kids are actively rewarded if they can get through a day or a week without using the language).
Mandarin is taught, but how much is learned depends on the student and their family ... the few ICS high school graduates I have met can scarcely read the signs on the front of buses, and can not conduct a normal conversation in Mandarin. How representative this might be, I have no idea.

 

[Roger]

That's one major reason why my son doesn't go to an international school. It is vitally important that our children should be ableto speak the community and national languages as well as their "home" ones, and for a Christian school, there's Bible to back me up: Nehemiah 13v24.

 

[ychia76]

My 2 cents. I really like this school after my initial visit. Why shouldn't children be happy and have a free thinking spirit? My two children will never cut it in local school besides language issues. This school embraces learning differences.
If a school that can nurture a dyslexic child to love reading that is the school I want.