Bad luck for me then...I sent him an email on 26/03/09 but he didn't even reply. Guess I'm not qualified...
Bad luck for me then...I sent him an email on 26/03/09 but he didn't even reply. Guess I'm not qualified...
Will an old white guy get in?
I checked out their website. This is their objective and whom they serve:
Objective
Assists non-Chinese ethnic minorities new arrivals, migrant workers, residents and their families to adjust to the living and working conditions in Hong Kong
Whom Do We Serve
Filipinos, Indonesian, Nepalese, Pakistani, Indian, Thai, Sri Lankan and other ethnic minority
I don't know what makes up the 'other ethnic minority'. As someone suggested, I had sent them another email asking for the application form. Fingers crossed...I really want to get in. Not just because it's of good value for money, but also because those who attended hightly recommended it.
Yeah, the courses are great. I took the Basic, Intermediate and Advanced, but I dropped out of the advanced level class because I had other things going on and my heart wasn't in it. I use the Canto I learned from William every day.
Hi jayinhongkong, would you mind sharing with us how fluent your canto is after completing your lessons with William? By using it every day, do you mean you can communicate with locals fairly easily; or you can communicate at a higher business level? Did you have to study by other means as well to complement what you'd learned in the courses? Thanks very much!
Last edited by OZTOHK; 29-03-2009 at 10:43 AM. Reason: typo
If I'd completed the advanced course, I would have been pretty good at conversational Cantonese. As with any language course, you get what you put in and we all have our own abilities and competencies. I work with local kids and teens, and I learned some cultural/historical stuff about HK through William that lots of locals don't know.
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I found out the ISS know about my posts and it's caused quite a stink. It's pretty ironic that they use a racially-based student selection process, considering they state the following on their website (http://www.isshk.org/):
"International Social Service (ISS) is an international non-governmental organization without political, racial, religious or nationality bias."
William is a great teacher and he's contributed a lot over the years. He suggested ISS might pull the lessons if there is too much of an uproar. I just think the people in charge at ISS should live up to their decree and race shouldn't be an issue at all when it comes to selecting students. The Community Chest won't see another dollar of my money until this issue's resolved. Since the Community Chest is a charity-based organization, they should pick students based on NEED rather than RACE.
I just applied today, it's still on. They called me back in 2 minutes after faxing it in. She was very nice and asked me to come on 26th April.
Their phone number is 2836-3598, fax 2508 0207
They have 2 sessions, morning and afternoon. Afternoon one starts on 26th April and morning one 2 weeks before that.
I'll be in 1-4pm class.
They'll email me latest application form, i'll try to post it here as soon as I get. I used 2006 version.