Tiffany Abril from U.S.A (the lady on the left)

Mandarin Beginners Level 1 & 2 (6/8 – 31/8, 2012)

1, Why did you choose Hong Kong Language School?

— I chose the HKLS because of the price and the willingness to work with my schedule.

2, How’s the school environment?

— The environment was nice! Coffee, water, and little snacks for break time and very clean.

3, How’s the class atmosphere?

— I enjoyed coming to my class knowing that we would have a good time and laugh a lot but also learn.

4, How’s your teacher? Was your class effective? Did you learn what you had expected?

— My teacher, Carol, was fantastic! She was encouraging and a great instructor. I learned what I expected to learn and now I have a lot to practice on my own before going to Beijing where I will be able to use my new skill.

5, Will you come back & take more lessons? Why?

— If I lived in the area I would definitely take more lessons to develop a stronger understanding of the language.

6, Will you recommend Hong Kong Language School to your friends? Why?

— Of course, and I already have 🙂

Mr. Tan Zhigang from Hunan, CHINA (the first gentleman from the left)

Cantonese In-house Training (23/2 -13/7. 2010)

Intern
ASTRI – Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited

1, How’s the class atmosphere?

— Great!

2, How’s your teacher? Was your class effective? Did you learn what you had expected?

— Excellent. Yes.

3, Will you recommend Hong Kong Language School to your friends? Why?

— Sure. The teachers are real professionals in language teaching

Mr. Zhu Lin, from Wuhan, CHINA (the second gentleman from the left)

Cantonese In-house Training (23/2 -13/7. 2010)

Engineer of ECE department
ASTRI – Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited

1, How’s the class atmosphere?

— The atmosphere is full of activity. we feel comfortable here.

2, How’s your teacher? Was your class effective? Did you learn what you had expected?

— Our teacher is kind and serious. And My Cantonese has improved much during the class.

3, Will you recommend Hong Kong Language School to your friends? Why?

— I will recommend Hong Kong Language School to my friend. For I learned a lot things in the class.

Christine M. Vets from Belgium (the lady in the middle)

Mandarin Beginners Level 3 & 4 (16/7 – 27/7, 2012)

Mandarin Lower Intermediate Level 1 & 2 (13/11 – 23/11, 2012)

1, Why did you choose Hong Kong Language School?

— I am Belgian, I have been learning Mandarin in Luxembourg for two years.
Our teacher is really good. Unfortunately, she has to teach over 23 people.
She teaches us how to read and write traditional Chinese characters. We roughly know how to read around 500 characters.
Unfortunately, we only have very limited opportunities to speak Mandarin simply because we are far too many people.
I failed at the TOCFL level 1 back in May. The written part was a piece of cake but the listening comprehension part was really hard.
This is how I realised I badly needed to take intensive classes in China. Hong Kong was on my short list because I did not need a visa.
I googled ‘learn Mandarin in Hong Kong’ and Hong Kong Language School popped up.
It had good reviews, very competitive prices, therefore, I picked it up.
I contacted the school. Mini and Branda turned out to be very professional and very effective.
All my questions were answered within minutes. I sent my application and here I am!

2. How’s the school environment?

— I loved Wan Chai. The school is very close to the MTR (subway). It takes less than five minutes to walk from the MTR station (exit C) to HK Language School. There are lots of very good and really affordable restaurants around the school.
This gave me the opportunity to try food from all over Asia in just a couple of weeks.
This would have been impossible in Belgian!

Branda (senior course co-ordinator and one of the Cantonese teachers), was actually nice enough to recommend a few.
One day, she accompanied me to a Thai place during her lunch break.
She also took me to a fantastic Sichuan place in Kowloon on a Friday evening.

3, How’s the class atmosphere?

— Very good atmosphere, very studious!
I took private classes only. Helen and I worked very hard as I only had two weeks.

I was looking forward to my afternoon class as I could see my Mandarin was getting better and better every day!

4, How’s your teacher? Was your class effective? Did you learn what you had expected?

— Helen is a great teacher. Mandarin is not exactly the first foreign language I learn and I can tell the difference between
a nice and motivated teacher and a bad one. Helen is definitely one of the top ones! Also, she speaks really good English.

I actually learned MORE than what I expected. Within only two weeks, I managed to learn enough vocabulary and sentence structures to be able to communicate in Mandarin. It would not have been possible without Helen. She helped me to work on my weaknesses, she made flash cards for me and
she gave me extra homework so that I could really make the most of these two weeks.

Helen is very modest about her achievements. I can tell you that if you are lucky enough to learn Mandarin from scratch with a teacher like her,

you will be fluent within a couple of months!

5, Will you come back & take more lessons? Why?

— Yes, I will as soon as I can take extra vacation.
I want to come back and take more classes with Helen simply because I know that I will learn a lot.

I reckon that if I come to Hong Kong for two weeks for the next three years, I will be fluent.

6, Will you recommend Hong Kong Language School to your friends? Why?

— I already did. Not only to friends but also to people I met in Hong Kong.

I did because I know your school is a very good one.

Jonathan Chan from U.S.A. (the gentleman on the left)

Cantonese Upper Intermediate to Advanced level (25/6 – 25/7, 2012)

1, Why did you choose Hong Kong Language School?

I was recommended to come to Hong Kong Language School by my relatives in Hong Kong. I’m unsure as to how they came across your school.

2. How’s the school environment?

The school environment was very comfortable and I enjoyed being able to have some free tea or coffee in the morning. And in order to catch the express bus I needed to arrive rather early, but I felt that the school environment was comfortable enough for me to come 1/2 an hour early and just sit and study in the waiting area.

3. How’s the class atmosphere?

The class environment in my situation I believe was different from most cases. I didn’t have any other classmates, but my teacher was friendly and made the one on one class situation comfortable. The schedule was also very flexible which was helpful since during my trip to HK I needed to have some mornings to do other things. The ease of rescheduling was very nice and would not have been able to do certain things during my short stay in HK if otherwise.

4. How’s your teacher? Was your class effective? Did you learn what you had expected?

My teacher was very good–Although our lessons followed the book’s structure, she was open to answering any of my questions that I had regarding Hong Kong life. During my stay in Hong Kong I came across things that I didn’t understand and things that my relative’s generation were unable to answer, but she was always willing to give thorough explanations. Even when she could not, she came in the following class with the answer which I really appreciated. She also gave me a list of common/popular dim sum foods and how to say/write them which became helpful to look at throughout the month as well. I learned a lot from this class and now I have many people back in America telling me how much my Cantonese has improved, so I think that it was indeed helpful.

5. Will you come back & take more lessons? Why?

I was halfway through Advanced 2 when I left and so there would be only 2 more books left for me if I returned. Traveling to Hong Kong is also very expensive, but given that if money isn’t an issue I think that another month to finish Advanced 3 and 4 would be beneficial.

6. Will you recommend Hong Kong Language School to your friends? Why?

If my friends had the opportunity to go back to Hong Kong and wanted to take Chinese classes, yes, of course I would recommend HKLS to them. Everyone was very friendly every morning and classes were very productive and enjoyable.

Overall this was a very good experience that I’m glad to have had and a very beneficial class that I learned much from.
Thank you very much for all your time and help you’ve given me the past month!