Come the holidays, many parents send their children back to school to polish their language skills.
While local tutorial schools specialise in grammar and exam techniques, study trips abroad offer Hong Kong children the chance to speak like natives.
Apart from improving their linguistic skills, overseas trips provide children with a wide range of benefits.
'Language travel trips focus more on living the language, personal growth, cultural exchange and sightseeing, in addition to just grammar,' says Adrian Kwok, country programme manager, Education First Language Travel.
English and Putonghua overseas learning trips are offered to children aged from seven to 14, and six languages, including Putonghua, Spanish, Italian, English, German and French, are offered to 16-year-olds and above. Such trips also offer an international environment where students speak the local language with their peers during group activities and excursions. Children and young adults also often make lifelong international friends. A typical trip places students with a host family or in a student residence, making them more confident about daily casual interactions, Kwok says.
'Parents find their children [to be] more independent after the trip, as they make their beds, tidy up rooms, get up in the morning all on their own.' Study trips abroad also help home-stay students learn about other ways of life and experience famous landmarks and tourist attractions.