Tutor Time - suitable for non-Chinese family?

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Princess101

Registered User
Hi, I just wondered if anyone has experience of Tutor Time in Mid Levels (Caine Road). I am thinking of enrolling my son who is 14 months, but we are a western family and speak no Mandarin, half the class at Tutor Time is conducted in Mandarin. We will probably only be in Hong Kong for maximum 3 years, do you think it is worth trying to teach him Mandarin? If anyone has any experience of this I would be very grateful to hear about it. Any other pre-nursery recommendations would also be useful. I currently send him to Woodlands (The Peak) but there is a very small outside space and I'm not sure it's the right place for my son as he is very active and needs to have a lot of free play. Thanks.
 
i know of many non-chinese families at tutor time (not the one based at caine road though - the one in tai tam) and they all have a very good experience there. i think exposure to mandarin won't hurt, plus the style is very activity based so i don't believe that he will be lost during class.
 
i don't think that exposure to a new language is ever a bad thing...

no idea about the school in question, though... sorry.
 
Does the Caine Road branch actually have outdoor space other than the bit by the road itself? If your son need lots of free play and outdoor space and academic study is not a priority, then you could try Highgate House which has a large outdoor terrace with sandbox, gym equipment, bunny hutch, area for gardening, etc. Small World also has good outside space.
 
My son is in Tutortime WOW in kowloon Tong. We don't speak chinese that well... All their teachers speak english, no worries.
 
Redhill Tutor Time (southside) has tons of non-chinese families. Exposure to Chinese at an early age is wonderful and once in a lifetime experience. We did not speak Chinese and my son loved it starting at 13 months.
 
That's good to know southside - thanks. My son does enjoy Woodlands but he struggles with having to stay still for long periods of time (which means I am having to keep him in a rugby like tackle to stop him crawling away!) and from what I can gather from the website, Tutor Time is more focussed on free play. If money were no object I would send him to both and he really enjoys playgroups.
 
Tutor Time Caine Road does not have any outdoor space. My girl is currently there, but I'm now thinking of sending her somewhere else later.
 
hkbee - how old is your daughter and why are you considering sending her someplace else? i'm thinking of sending my son there.
 
I've decided against Tutor Time for this reason and think I will stick with Woodlands The Peak. Although the outside space is limited my son enjoys it and I think the teachers are good. My son is 14 months and attends the Wrigglers class, which prepares him for proper nursery.
 
so the proportion of time dedicated to Mandarin in Tutor Time (in someone's opinion or is it for sure or is it just a concern??) would be bigger than the one to English?
 
actually, when locals say "chinese" they mean cantonese...

ie) the job requires someone who can speak "english, chinese and putonghua"
 
I have the impression, that might anyway be very wrong, that in HK "local" nurseries Cantonese is the main language and in International nurseries (or bilingual) the main language is English and they speak Putonghua for a very small amount of time.
Therefore I think that being non-Chinese speaker in a bilingual nursery should be no problem at all.
 
maybe for other nurseries, but tutor time is half half (mandarin/english). for non-chinese it is still no probelm as my son did not speak chinese and loved it!

@ carang, funny you say that b/c our local friends in HK always said to assume that when someone says chinese they mean mandarin.
 
that is funny, because EVERY local i have ever met said the opposite. i think it's because they don't consider mandarin to be the local chinese language. it's the language you need to speak when you go to china. as 99% of the local population speak cantonese, they consider THAT to be the local chinese language... hence calling it chinese.

i actually noticed the job listings back in 1995 when i first arrived here...
 
Weird Cara because I've had the opposite experience - all my local friends say "Chinese" when they're talking about Canto. I just asked my hubby too (he's local-ish too) and he says that locals say "Chinese" meaning Canto most of the time...
 
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