Teacher Spotlight: Cliff Mak

Mr Cliff Mak has been teaching at Renaissance College for the better part of nine years now, and students have become familiar with his passion for teaching and friendly personality. We decided to ask him a few questions about himself and his experiences both in and out of the classroom.

Could you give us some basic information about yourself?

My name is Cliff Mak, I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and I’ve worked here for about nine years. I’ve had the privilege of working in various international schools, public schools, and private schools in the past, and now I’m teaching both MYP and DP here in RCHK. I served as the Service Lang Lit coordinator in the past, to organise different service activities for the students. Aside from teaching duties, I served as an IB principal examiner, and was also responsible for developing the IB curriculum.

What languages do you know? How did you learn those languages?

I speak Chinese, being a Chinese teacher and all, and I also know Cantonese and English. When I was studying in The University of Hong Kong, I received a scholarship to study abroad in Japan as a foreign exchange student, where I stayed for almost two years and got a degree, learning Japanese in the process.

What hobbies do you have outside of school? How did you come to discover it

I spend most of my spare time doing service for the community. I work at the local community centre, tutoring less fortunate children in English and Chinese. I also joined a programme called the path creation programme, where I teach school dropouts different interpersonal skills, as well as Japanese, to better equip them to get a job or go back to school in the future. Aside from service, I really enjoy exercise and going to the gym. I work out at the gym two times a week as I think it’s important to maintain a principled and healthy life.

How do you feel about the RCHK Chinese department? Is there anyone in particular you’d like to talk about?

No, I love every single one of them. That's all. [Laughs] 

You already talked a bit about your jobs but were there any particular ones that were more memorable to you?

Every single job I’ve worked at is memorable to me, but I think the most memorable one was definitely [at] RCHK. Something that I love about RCHK is that there’s a real sense of community here, you feel like you have a really close relationship with both the other faculty and the students. I love my students very much [smug expression], I think they love me too. [Laughs] 

Could you describe your best experience in RCHK?

There’s so many memorable moments here, but one that stuck out to me was the year where I organised the Chinese New Year assembly, where I worked with various students. At the beginning, I thought I would need to put in a lot of effort, but the students actually gave me many wonderful ideas, and worked a lot of the things out most of the time. I was very impressed with their talent and ability. Aside from that, I also enjoyed the CAS trip to Cambodia with my students. It was very fulfilling to go on that trip as I could really see that my students were not only academically talented but also very caring. Those are the types of students that I hope I can help guide them into becoming the future leaders of the world.