Flying Colours Learning Studio was opened in January 2014. Conveniently located a minute away from the Jordan MTR station, the studio has a simple yet warm décor.  The door and the wall are made of glass, so parents can observe what their kids do in class even when they are standing outside.

At the helm of the studio is Mr Lee who had taught at Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road) for 17 years before quitting his job and founding the studio.  The reason for founding Flying Colors was two-fold; it was in part due to his own children whom he wanted to share more time with, and in part due to his passion for giving quality English education to kindergarten kids.   Mr Lee says frankly that many kindergartens in Hong Kong do not teach English in ways that actually help kids learn effectively.  Some teachers, for example, would just ask kids to spell new words without telling them why words are spelled that way.  “By the time kids enter primary school, their school teachers often do not have time to go through this skill with them as the teachers often have a very tight teaching schedule to follow.  As a result, many kids often have problems with reading and writing when they enter primary schools,” Mr Lee says.

Mr Lee's courses have been designed to meet the learning needs of Hong Kong kids.    His phonics class, for example, is designed in order to help kids better learn and spell new words. After each phonics course, students will generally be able to pronounce all English words of primary school level.   Even when they come across new words, they will be able to spell them easily using the rules of thumbs of phonics.  Lessons are carried out interactively in a fun and imaginative way so that kids can learn in a relaxed and joyful environment.  After each lesson, Mr Lee will give homework to help kids consolidate what they have learnt.  Sometimes kids are asked to fill in a worksheet and submit a recording of their pronunciation of a few words; the submission often takes place in a Whatsapp group so that parents and students can have a chance to learn from each other.  Mr Lee also likes to make recordings of his own and release them to parents after each class, in a hope that parents can help their kids practise their pronunciation at home.

Mr Lee says that phonics class is usually what he recommends to kindergarten kids’ parents when they first approach him.  He believes that phonics is a very important foundation for kids’ English learning.  He recalls a student that he used to teach when he was a teacher at Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road).  When he met her the first time, the girl cried non-stop knowing that Mr Lee came to help her revise dictation.  She even yelled out that she wanted to commit suicide!  That was the first time Mr Lee met such an extreme case.  After talking to the girl’s mother Mr Lee found out that she used to take private lessons from a university student.  That teacher used to bring along a stack of vocabulary cards with her every time and she would make the girl spell each word one by one without teaching her the words’ pronunciations .  Naturally, the girl would forget about everything after each class and would end up failing in her school’s dictation tests, getting only about 10 marks out of 100 every time.  Mr Lee understood that her problem was a lack of understanding of phonics, and so he taught her.  Within a few weeks her performance in dictation tests improved drastically; she even got 100 marks once! 

Apart from phonics, Mr Lee also teaches a Primary 1 Interview Course.  The course has 16 sessions in total and while it is exam-oriented, Mr Lee would add in fun elements such as role-play and interactive games to enhance kid’s motivation to learn.   Mr Lee hopes that kids can be exposed to Hong Kong primary schools’ style of teaching at a young age. “Role play is something that primary school teachers often do in classes.  I include this element in my classes so that my students can get used to primary teaching methodology earlier.  Most other learning centers hire kindergarten teachers to teach kindergarten courses but here, I’m a primary school teacher with more than 20 years’ experience teaching kindergarten students how to prepare for their future primary level learning.  I may have a much clearer understanding of the difficulties that local primary students face in their primary school years and thus are more confident in designing courses that would actually help kindergarten students prepare for those challenges," Mr Lee says proudly.

In addition to kindergarten courses, Mr Lee also designs an English course for P1 students with an aim to help students improve in reading, writing and communication skills.  Most Hong Kong tutorial centers offer only assistance on homework, but here at Flying Colours, the English course is designed to help students to build confidence and improve in their use of English.  The ultimate goal, Mr Lee says, is to help students develop reading and self-learning habits.  Just like all other classes taught by Mr Lee, the course is taught entirely in English.

If you would like to enroll any course, please call 3182 6925 or 5486 4753 for inquiries. We will send you a timetable and application form for enrollment.