Ms. Leslie Chan from USA

Cantonese Private Tuition (13/5- 9/5, 2010 & 3/6, 2011 – Present )

Financial Analyst, Assistant Vice President — Credit Suisse
External Reporting and Financial Publications
Zurich, Switzerland

1, Why did you choose Hong Kong Language School?

— I found the school by chance (or rather luck) in the HK weekly (free) newspaper

— I think this is a newspaper geared towards expats.  The school was the 1st one that I rang, but I immediately liked how friendly and accommodating the staff was.  I think it was good that they advised me to meet them first before deciding and letting them assess my needs.  They were never pushy (as we know Chinese can be!).  Price was fair, but not the main determinant of my decision making process.

2, How’s the school environment?

— Rooms and communal space were very comfortable and relaxed.  Loved the free drinks and snacks — which helped keep the energy levels up during 3 – 4 hour private lessons!  Air conditioning was a bit troublesome at times in terms of noise level and finding a comfortable level…my teacher had to keep adjusting it!  Convenient location near MTR.

3, How’s the class atmosphere?

— Structured, but fun and relaxed. Good environment for learning. Learned a lot in each lesson and laughed a lot while doing so.

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

— Loved my teacher. She was professional and fun.  Flexible enough to gauge lessons around personal interests, yet also stayed structured.  I appreciated her discipline with my pronunciation and thorough explanations of proper vs colloquial Cantonese –  and made sure I learned the correct way 1st! I had private lessons so I was better able to personalize the lessons around my needs. My teacher was very good at taking interest in what I liked and tried to develop my vocabulary and speaking / comprehension needs to cater to those type of situations.  I liked her practical approach to what a person should learn.

I think we could have worked more on comprehension since this is a weak area for me.  I seemed to be able to speak, but often misunderstood what was being said to me when being asked or s/he responded.

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

— Yes, because I felt my teacher knows me well enough to understand my needs and will continue to push me, while still encouraging me and keeping things fun and practical.  I appreciated how flexible / accommodating the staff were to ensure that I could fit in my lessons everyday.  Staff are motivated to teach and considerate to their students.

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

— I think it is difficult to say that each person will have as positive experience as I did since I had the luxury of having private lessons and also a very good relationship with my teacher.  I would definitely recommend my teacher, but as she is a representative of the school, I would feel more than comfortable to recommend the school itself to my colleagues.

Vriti Manaktala from India (the 2nd lady on the left)

Mandarin Beginners Level 1 (25/7 – 9/8, 2012)
Mandarin Beginners Level 2 (17/9 – 28/9, 2012)
Mandarin Beginners Level 3 – Lower Intermediate 3 (8/10 – 17/12, 2012)
Mandarin Lower Intermediate 4 – Upper Intermediate 1 (14/1 – 4/2, 2013)

Came back & continued from Mandarin Upper Intermediate 2 on 21st February, 2013

The school has a very lively and enjoyable atmosphere and far exceeded my expectations. I met some very nice people and made good friends on the course.

My teacher Helen was excellent. I have never had such a wonderful and encouraging teacher. I found her classes a lot of fun and intellectually stimulating. Helen is fully of positive energy and so I looked forward to going to class everyday. I will miss learning Mandarin from Helen and hope I may have the opportunity to pursue some more sessions at the school with her.

My special thanks to Branda and Mini for organising the classes so professionally.

All the best.

Dr. Wang Keh-Chung PhD from USA, Taiwanese (the gentleman on the right)

Cantonese In-house Training (26/2- 9/7, 2010)

Vice President and Group Director

IC Design Group

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

“I took Cantonese Beginners 1&2 courses together with 16 of my colleaguesfrom Ms. Branda Kwong of Hong Kong Language School. This was an effective and appreciable learning experience. Ms. Kwong taught us basic conversation,vocabulary, sentence making, pronunciation, etc. with dedication andenthusiasm. She also shared her pleasant attitude, positive thinking ,traditional Chinese value, and some precious life experience with us. We enjoyed attending Ms. Kwong’s classes and learned a lot from her. I highly recommend these courses and related ones to those who are interested inlearning Cantonese.”

Peter Beer from Australia (the gentleman on the left) & Ling Fang from Beijing (the lady on the right)

Cantonese Private Tuition (20/9,2011 – 24/10, 2012, 84 hours in total)

1. Content

‧ The structure of the student materials was clear and well laid-out. The New Words and Conversations etc sections all worked well to reinforce the vocabulary and subject matter

‧ The content flowed well, from simple everyday topics and vocabulary initially to more sophisticated topics as we moved into the intermediate stage.

2. Teacher

‧ Our teacher, Kaman, was very patient! It was sometimes difficult keeping the class on-track, as one of the students (my wife ) had a habit of leading the conversation off heading on tangents…. But we managed to cover all the relevant content each class

‧ I liked Kaman’s approach of writing relevant words etc onto the white (glass) boards. That helped reinforce various concepts and vocab groups also

3. Organization

‧ Time worked well – I needed a flexible structure because of my travel and it was no problem to do fewer classes a week or cancel if really necessary (giving enough notice)

‧ Communication with the management worked well via email. Very prompt and clear responses

4. Results

‧ We started at Beginners level, and after one year we had reached “Upper Intermediate” (Lesson 64). It helped that my wife is Chinese (but only speaks Mandarin), and I can speak reasonable Mandarin also, but still we made very good progress

‧ My vocabulary is now 500+ words (perhaps closer to 1000), and I can have a conversation (relatively simple), and even though my wife did not revise much each week, she can now understand a lot of Cantonese on TV or when communicating with local Cantonese speakers – so together we are in good shape!

So overall our experience was very positive, and we got lots of benefit from attending Hong Kong Language School. We might even come back for a refresher course at some stage in the future! And we will take Kaman out for dinner sometime soon too!!