[VanillaCafe]

Our daughter has been accepted by ISF for Foundation Year. We are thrilled by the good news, but also need some input to help us make the final decision.

Background: We are a native-Mandarin speaking family who've spent many years in the States. We mostly speak Mandarin with our daughter at home. She goes to an international pre-school. Currently her Mandarin is stronger than her English.

We like many things about ISF. The only remaining question we have is the amount of English exposure. 30% roughly translates into 1-1.5 hours a day. Is it enough? How do the students' English speaking, reading and writing compare to their peers at other international schools? In the event that we need to move back to the States in a few years, will she have difficulty adjusting to the American system?

Would love to hear your perspective ...

[kalrok]

You're gonna start off a thread full of strong opinions about ISF.

I will pose the question(s); if your daughter's Mandarin is her primary language, is it not English you want to develop and does it not make more sense to go a an 100% English medium of instruction school as opposed to just 30%?

[fernwood13]

A highly regarded blog by a woman who calls herself Gweipo -- gweipo.blogspot.com/ has been a well worn source of well thought out information about ISF for the two years. Every time this site gets a ton of angry or questioning comments, many tell prospective parents to turn to this very intelligent blog. If you just use ISF as a search term you can follow her thoughts easily. You will note though, as willing as she was to accept her lot with ISF, if you look at one of her last posts -- March 1 (How Do You Know When to Jump) you will see a person who has now become extremely disalusioned and ready to pull the cord. This more than many sources of information, is something not to be taken lightly.

[Russel]

i mentioned this in another post,but i will add it again.
ISF seems to be very impressive with it's mandarin programme.
this is unfortunately at the expense of english.
if your concern is mandarin and not english,then this is your school.
if english is your priority,then ISF is seriously lacking in commitment or energy.
they are determined to attract mainland chinese students,and for this reason they give priority.
interestingly though some teachers are not from china but from Hk,so,the accent is an issue when it comes for mandarin..!

[lesliefu]

no system can promise to do well in BOTH languages...children are only at school for 8 hours and unless you divide the time 50/50 students will ALWAYS be exposed to one language more than another.

as a family you need to think what is important for you since everyone's situation is different. if you want more english (because Chinese is already fluent for your child) than I'd go to a school with more english...if however you want the focus to be on chinese (even though your child is fluent) then stick with a school that has a lot of exposure to chinese. being in the States though could possibly make learning English easy because you are exposed to it on a daily level EVERYWHERE - whereas with Chinese you'd only be exposed to it at home and the amount of exposure is negligible in comparison...

if your kid stays till middle school age (where they start using the IB system) then he/she should have no problem adjusting back to the school system in the States (as many are changing to the IB now).