As Hannah Kim walked out of the classroom, she turned around and announced cheerfully: 'See you later.' The first time Hannah had heard her teacher say the same words, just six months ago, the young student misunderstood and asked anxiously if she had to come back - her understanding of English was so limited she took everything literally.
The confidence Hannah now applies to her school life is markedly different from less than a year ago when she was withdrawn and shy. The difference now is that Hannah, after 10 years of speaking only Korean, can finally speak English.
'I knew how to say father and mother and my ABC, but nothing else,' said Hannah.
Hannah is typical of a growing band of non-English speaking children who are moving to the territory with their parents from Southeast Asia and Europe. They are joined by children returning to Hong Kong after years in Canada, Australia or the United States, who speak halting English and less-than-perfect Cantonese.
And it is these children, caught in the middle, for whom the Hong Kong educational system is ill-equipped; they are out of place in local Chinese schools and will not be accepted by those with high English requirements. Their only options are schools set up to cater to minority expatriate communities, including those for Japanese, Koreans and French, or to find one that accepts students irrespective of their English skills.
'It breaks my heart every time I have to tell a child they can't get in,' said David James, the principal of Island School, part of the English Schools Foundation (ESF).
