About Carmel > Teachers and Staff > Specialist and Support Teachers
Our Learning Connection Specialist, Marilyn Day, was born in Blackpool, a traditional seaside resort. After university, she began teaching in Manchester, U.K. but "itchy feet" soon took her to Asia and a 25-year teaching career in Hong Kong and Singapore. Her lifelong interest in children with individual learning needs has, predictably, charted her career direction and explains why she's now TLC Coordinator at Carmel School. She also recently completed her thesis on reading interventions for her Masters degree. She's passionate about many things... the education of the "whole child", her husband and two daughters, the holistic approach to health and well being, the music that gets her on her feet, and the belief that each of us is responsible for leaving this world in a better shape than we found it.

Our Mandarin Teacher, Melody Chiang, has been teaching Mandarin to international school students more than 10 years. She holds the Certificate of Best Grade Putonghua Proficiency Test of China, and the Diploma of The Advanced Putonghua Teacher in Beijing Normal University. Currently she is a Masters Degree student for "Teaching Chinese as a Second Language" at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Melody is a mother of two boys. She loves children. Melody enjoys traveling, cooking, learning languages and appreciates classical music. Seeing students progress is always her best reward when teaching.

Our French Teacher, Xuan-Thu Lewas born and raised in Paris, France, in a Vietnamese family, and she has a great deal of experience teaching French.

She started by teaching French literature for four years in secondary schools and preparatory classes in and around Paris. Then, strongly attracted by the stage, she worked for theaters and festivals in Paris. But after two years, she felt that it was time for her to move and live in Asia for a while: she finally picked up Hong Kong because she was then a big fan of Wong Kar Wai movies!

She taught at ChineseUniversity during the following five years as a full-time French instructor, and developed there some creative teaching methods by including drama and role-playing for her local students. Missing the stage, she also joined the last two productions of Opera Hong Kong for the French May: she thus became a “cigarette girl” for Carmen in 2006, volunteered to be the French coach of Romeo and Juliet in 2007, and a third Opera is on the way…

Xuan received her Master's degree in French and Comparative Literature at University Paris VII Denis Diderot in France and passed the Agregation de Lettres Modernes (a selective examination for the recruitment of teachers in French) the following year.
Emma Lau is our Art Teacher.
Our Physical Education Teacher, Adma Andrade joined Carmel in January 2001, first as a Grade 2 assistant teacher and from August 2001 as a PE teacher, teaching all PE classes from Pre-K to Middle School. Prior to that, Adma worked in the American School of The Hague - Holland, International Montessori School of Beijing - China, and in private schools in Brazil, her native country. Adma holds a Bachelor's Degree in Physical Education from the Federal University of Juiz de For a - MG - Brazil, and a Graduate degree in Dance from the State School of Dance - SP - Brazil. She has over 20 years experience teaching across the grades from - re-school to Middle School, as well as over 25 years experience teaching dance programs. Adma runs the Carmel School GBG and BabyG dance programs.
Our EAL Teacher, Susan Whaley, first came to Carmel School as an assistant support teacher in October 2005. She took up the position of EAL teacher in August 2006. Susan was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She completed her Bachelor of Arts and Teaching Diploma from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. After teaching for several years in South Africa, she pursued a Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology in the USA, after which she worked for four years as a speech-language pathologist in Johannesburg, South Africa. Susan initially came to Hong Kong from 1994 to 2000, where she resumed teaching as her primary focus. In 2003, she qualified with the Cambridge Certificate for teaching English as a second language from International House in Barcelona, subsequently returning to Hong Kong. She has worked with a broad spectrum of ages in a variety of settings, including schools, tutoring and speech therapy institutions, hospitals and clinics.
Our Librarian, Susan Morrison, is from Inverness in the North of Scotland and enjoys traveling and learning about other countries and cultures. After spending some time traveling in Asia, she arrived in Hong Kong in 1989. This is her fourth year at Carmel as the School Librarian after spending several years as librarian at the Ladies Recreation Club. As well as reading, she enjoys music, hiking and badminton.