'Yao bu yao zuoxia (Do you want to sit down) ?' Cindy Hung-kun asked a five-year-old expat child at the Woodland Montessori Pre-School in Mid-Levels. The others around seemed oblivious to the 'foreign' language being used.
After all, this is a bilingual class, the school's first. Like other classes, children of varying ages engage in tasks alone or together under teachers' observation. The difference is that two languages are spoken, one by a native English-speaker and the other by Ms Hung, a native of Shenyang in northeastern China.
Turning to another expat child, Ms Hung said: 'Fang hui qu ( put it back),' instructing him to put a wooden pole back in its original position. She has few worries that her simple instructions will not be understood. 'If they study with us for a year, they will be able to understand daily instructions in Putonghua and say simple words about animals, fruits and colours, or say 'My name is ...', 'I love mummy',' she said.
On top of the daily contacts with Ms Hung, all children also have a half-hour Putonghua lesson each week.
The Montessori class is but one example of the rising number of classrooms where extensive time is devoted to learning Putonghua, set to become the predominant element of bilingual education in Hong Kong, alongside English and replacing Cantonese.
At Rightmind Kindergarten in Pokfulam, the three-hour class time is equally split between Putonghua and English. The children learn Chinese through flash cards, beginning with characters, couplets, then phrases, and later short sentences.
The characters are organised into 50 subjects covering diverse areas from natural sciences to history. Throughout the four-year curriculum, from pre-nursery to K3, they are also exposed to 4,000 English words.