Before register

Our program is highly effective and FUN! However, it’s also highly unconventional and you need to ask yourself whether you can accept the following before you sign your child up.

1. Our strictly enforced 100% Mandarin environment can be very intimedating to some students, who may suddenly become shy, especaily when it comes to converse in Chinese with staff, and need a required frequency of attending for a while before becoming comfortable in such a rigorous environment. Parents should be prepared for this initial hurdle and provide emotional support at home. We are unable to accomondate those who can not commit to the minimum frequency (at least twice a week in school year, and 3 or more consecutive weeks of summer camp for those with Chinese level at 3+) we see their child need to overcome this initial hurdle and make meaningful progress.
2. Our philosophy and methods are unconventional: child-led, free play and unstructured and students learn quickly since they are fully engaged in their own play. There will be no conventional group classes on Chinese reading, writing or journaling (one on one reading sessions are available, and we are piloting a speaking drill segment this summer), although your child will be well supported in their own quest for learning, you won’t see Chinese characters written from the day or other items that you may be used to seeing from a conventional Chinese learning program. Rocks, seeds and other natural treasures are more likely to show up in your child’s pockets.
3. Our locations are all with acres of Nature to explore, but about half of our summer locations have a playground because we need to be close to restrooms. However, we direct them away from it when needed, and even when they play there, after a while, our students get bored with man-made structures and tend to move on to exploring Nature, which is never boring!
4. Since our programs are child-led, not teacher-led, our staff don’t necessarily lead activities although they do occasionally if that will help to get a group of new students going, rather, they are trained to ensure safety of our students’ body and wellbeing, as well as that of our environment, to STRICTLY enforce Mandarin only rule, to support (but not lead) students’ quest for learning, and to provide emotional coaching when needed. We have our own tried-and-true material and a full schedule so won’t be able to help with additional reading/homework sent by parents. We strongly advise that parents who are used to and expect teacher- led experience for their children seek more conventional teacher-led programs elsewhere. However, if you are even a little curious about our unconventional approach, we invite you to try it out and you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
5. The reason we thoroughly implement child-led philosophy is that nowadays our students rarely, if ever, have an environment where they can take ownership and given self agency to lead their own exploration in nature and interpersonal interactions. Our staff is always ready to step in to support and coach, but our students are the leaders of their play!
6. Our school’s founder and lead teacher, Orien Kuang, invented our unique and unconventional method of supporting students to learn to speak and read Chinese quickly and effectively. Although we respect others who appreciate the conventional teacher-led method, we are unable to compromise our core philosophy and method which have been proven to be far more effective for learners to learn in a fraction of time.
7. Although it may appear as though staff are only raising their voice to say “Chinese please!”, that’s only the first step to stop students from speaking English and redirect them to Chinese and it needs to be said loudly to be effective, and there are so much more painstaking work–typically at normal volume so you won’t be able to hear from outside looking in–that go into enforcing Chinese only rule and ensuring our environment is truly 100% Mandarin.
8. Reading sessions are one on one and only for those who are truly ready, and we usually can tell pretty quickly whether a given student is ready. The power of fun is used to inspire students to learn to speak and read quickly and some students who joined for 8 consecutive weeks last summer jumped from reading level 0 to 3! Our reading program is rigorous AFTER the child is ready and takes ownership, and we are known for coaching them to reach that optimal state of learning. Since it’s one on one, students at all levels, including high levels, are supported to progress quickly from wherever they are.
9. We make careful decisions to enroll each student and will pour everything we’ve got into them to support their Chinese and emotional learning to their full potential. The minimum requirement for the number of summer camp weeks came about after we saw students not making meaningful progress attending just a week or two, since we are working on Chinese acquisition, nature and age appropriate emotional/life skills. For this reason, we rarely, if ever, make exceptions to this requirement.
10. Our environment is truly 100% Mandarin–some of our long-time students have gone to camps in China or Taiwan and reported back that they spoke English there with fellow campers– that’s never allowed in our programs. As such, it’s extremely hard work for staff and although we are pleased that we are able to train and retain our workforce, it’s just far more difficult and costly.
11. IMPORTANT: if your child is older than 6 with a Chinese level lower than 3, they will feel very uncomfortable in the beginning since they cannot express themselves freely. They will progress but they may need a lot of emotional support at home too. Be prepared for this difficult phase to last about 4 weeks.
12. Since the foundation of our programs is social/emotional learning which means we will coach your student to gain critical soft skills such as self management, self advocating and interpersonal conflict resolution, it’s essential that you agree with our philosophy and methods. For example, we support our students to speak up and advocate for themselves in a respectable way, some parents like that their students learned to self advocate with others, but not with them–it can be viewed as “back talk” to a parent. Ask yourself: are you willing to see these growths in your student, even if it makes you uncomfortable initially, and adjustments will need to be made on your part?

If you can indeed accept all of the above, we invite you to sign your child up and later be pleasantly surprised by the results that come from such an unconventional approach!