Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1,000. DC tries to substitute immersion in random languages with (with little ethnic community buy-in involved) for strong neighborhood schools at it's BS folks.

+ 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These discussions always seem to treat fluency in a foreign language like some mysterious, all-or-nothing proposition that is not worth undertaking if it is not done perfectly from the get-go - with very little understanding of how speaking more than one language actually functions, or how many different ways there are to be proficient in a language.

As far as i'm concerned, giving kids exposure and the building blocks to learn other languages early on is a good thing; it's been proven to be a good thing; and bilingual education does that. Some kids are going to attain higher levels of fluency than others, because some people are simply better at languages than others. Good luck controlling that.

Because, come on, the vast majority of us have taken YEARS of foreign language study through school and still never became fluent in it and never use it now.

I started Spanish in middle school and took it every year through college. I did a study abroad semester in Peru. My Spanish did become conversational at one point but then I stopped using it in my every day life and now, over a decade later, it's mostly lost. I could use it to get around on a trip but nothing more than that.

If you don't use it at home or at work in your every day life, what is the point? It was wasted effort. It came to nothing.

This is what parents are wondering about YY when they don't speak Chinese themselves and so can't support it at home.

Because you don't know at age 8 what you are going to do or be. By your reasoning, kids who aren't going to be recruited for college soccer shouldn't bother with travel, a chunky preschooler should never take ballet, and art class is a complete waste of time if you don't have any talent.

I'm sorry you regret studying Spanish, of all things, but your experience is not universal.

It's closer to universal than not. Most Americans are monolingual. They're monolingual because they can be, because the rest of the world speaks English. Go anywhere in the world today, even the most rural areas, and you will find people with some degree of English proficiency. With that being the reality of the situation, I don't see what advantage it gives my kid to risk his math education (which I do believe you need to be competitive in this world) for the possible benefit of learning a language we can't support at home and which he will most likely never become fluent in anyway.

The point is, if it's not being reinforced outside of school, it's useless.

NP here. I disagree that learning a new language is useless when an increasing number of the rest of the world can speak English or unless you are going to achieve a certain level of proficiency. I also disagree with your assumption that you'd be risking your kid's math education by having him or her learn a new language. It's not necessarily an either/or situation. Now, if my child WAS having difficulty with English or Math, then yes, the language and/or extra-curriculars may have to give. But for kids who can handle it, I think there is a big benefit to introducing them to a different language and culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Serious question here: what can and should non-native speaking YY parents be doing to increase their child's fluency given the limitations of YY? The school provides suggested resources, but I'm curious what this crowd says. I've heard mention of families hiring Chinese tutors and au pairs, but what else could be done? Would a non-native family be welcomed in a weekend language program? And is that best place to start?

The dad who left YY 4 years ago. OK, since you sound sincere in asking the question, I'll take a shot at answering.

Start by ditching kids entertainment in English. That's right, cut the cable, no more Disney Channel, ban Cartoon Network, evict kids Netflix and YouTube. Substitute almost all of it for Mandarin language channels and kids DVDs. Invest in an all-region DVD player (easily found for $75). Learn the characters that enable you to turn on the Mandarin audio and subtitles - ask a friend who reads Chinese to write the characters down for you, so you can find them on Asian DVD menus. Ebay is awash with Mandarin kids DVDs, because Disney and Pixar have been dubbing most of their movies into Mandarin for years. You can easily build up a collection of Mandarin DVDs without spending a bomb on trips to Chinatown in NYC (ask merchants where the latest Chinese DVD stands and shops are located) or off web sites for Chinese education materials and kids DVDs like Asia Parent, Yes Asia and Sprout. You can also tune into kids cartoon channels from China via various cable packages.

Next, if at all possible, host Mandarin-speaking au pairs all the way through YY. If you can't afford an official J -1 visa holding "EduCare" au pair through Cultural Care, Go Au Pair or Au Pair in America (the several US au pair agencies bringing the most Mandarin-speaking au pairs to the US) for around 15K a year, but have a spare room in your house (even a very small one) ask around in the YY au pair community to find an unofficial au pair to host. DC is not short on responsible, quiet-living Chinese students who'd love to stay in your house in return for room and board in return for chatting with your kids in Mandarin 10 or 15 hours a week. Give your au pair clear instructions that kids speaking English are to be ignored. That's right, kids who answer in English don't exist to Chinese au pairs.

If you hire tutors, don't stop at one or two hours a week when school is in session. Hire YY au pairs or their friends under the table for around $12/hour for at least 4 or 5 hours a week year round. Chinese 20-somethings in DC don't earn much and are almost always looking to pick up more working hours. You don't need a trained tutor, you need a patient native speaker who's a good babysitter, happy to chat in playgrounds, at museums etc. You can even pay au pair tutors in movie and Metro passes, presents like backpacks and other goodies.

If you have the dough and can swing the logistics, in the summers enroll in Camp China in Rockville - ask the Mandarin speaking counselors there to speak only Mandarin to your kid; they'll do it. Consider enrolling your upper grades kid in Concordia sleep-away immersion camps.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These discussions always seem to treat fluency in a foreign language like some mysterious, all-or-nothing proposition that is not worth undertaking if it is not done perfectly from the get-go - with very little understanding of how speaking more than one language actually functions, or how many different ways there are to be proficient in a language.

As far as i'm concerned, giving kids exposure and the building blocks to learn other languages early on is a good thing; it's been proven to be a good thing; and bilingual education does that. Some kids are going to attain higher levels of fluency than others, because some people are simply better at languages than others. Good luck controlling that.

Because, come on, the vast majority of us have taken YEARS of foreign language study through school and still never became fluent in it and never use it now.

I started Spanish in middle school and took it every year through college. I did a study abroad semester in Peru. My Spanish did become conversational at one point but then I stopped using it in my every day life and now, over a decade later, it's mostly lost. I could use it to get around on a trip but nothing more than that.

If you don't use it at home or at work in your every day life, what is the point? It was wasted effort. It came to nothing.

This is what parents are wondering about YY when they don't speak Chinese themselves and so can't support it at home.

Because you don't know at age 8 what you are going to do or be. By your reasoning, kids who aren't going to be recruited for college soccer shouldn't bother with travel, a chunky preschooler should never take ballet, and art class is a complete waste of time if you don't have any talent.

I'm sorry you regret studying Spanish, of all things, but your experience is not universal.

It's closer to universal than not. Most Americans are monolingual. They're monolingual because they can be, because the rest of the world speaks English. Go anywhere in the world today, even the most rural areas, and you will find people with some degree of English proficiency. With that being the reality of the situation, I don't see what advantage it gives my kid to risk his math education (which I do believe you need to be competitive in this world) for the possible benefit of learning a language we can't support at home and which he will most likely never become fluent in anyway.

The point is, if it's not being reinforced outside of school, it's useless.

WOW. This is why our country is going down the tubes. And I thought DC was liberal. And cosmopolitan. I feel seriously sorry for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These discussions always seem to treat fluency in a foreign language like some mysterious, all-or-nothing proposition that is not worth undertaking if it is not done perfectly from the get-go - with very little understanding of how speaking more than one language actually functions, or how many different ways there are to be proficient in a language.

As far as i'm concerned, giving kids exposure and the building blocks to learn other languages early on is a good thing; it's been proven to be a good thing; and bilingual education does that. Some kids are going to attain higher levels of fluency than others, because some people are simply better at languages than others. Good luck controlling that.

Because, come on, the vast majority of us have taken YEARS of foreign language study through school and still never became fluent in it and never use it now.

I started Spanish in middle school and took it every year through college. I did a study abroad semester in Peru. My Spanish did become conversational at one point but then I stopped using it in my every day life and now, over a decade later, it's mostly lost. I could use it to get around on a trip but nothing more than that.

If you don't use it at home or at work in your every day life, what is the point? It was wasted effort. It came to nothing.

This is what parents are wondering about YY when they don't speak Chinese themselves and so can't support it at home.

Because you don't know at age 8 what you are going to do or be. By your reasoning, kids who aren't going to be recruited for college soccer shouldn't bother with travel, a chunky preschooler should never take ballet, and art class is a complete waste of time if you don't have any talent.

I'm sorry you regret studying Spanish, of all things, but your experience is not universal.

It's closer to universal than not. Most Americans are monolingual. They're monolingual because they can be, because the rest of the world speaks English. Go anywhere in the world today, even the most rural areas, and you will find people with some degree of English proficiency. With that being the reality of the situation, I don't see what advantage it gives my kid to risk his math education (which I do believe you need to be competitive in this world) for the possible benefit of learning a language we can't support at home and which he will most likely never become fluent in anyway.

The point is, if it's not being reinforced outside of school, it's useless.

WOW. This is why our country is going down the tubes. And I thought DC was liberal. And cosmopolitan. I feel seriously sorry for you.

NP. Like it or not, the bolded sentence is a statement of fact. I didn't read her post as saying that learning a foreign language is *always* useless but more in this specific circumstance, when you are a.) risking the fundamentals not being well understood by your child and b.) you can't support the language at home. Those two factors together do not produce high odds of success imo (success = good grasp of fundamentals plus language fluency).

[Anonymous]

Right because it is a risk, sending your kid to YY. IMO the risk would be worth it if they were producing a majority of kids who were fluent for their age. But they're not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question here: what can and should non-native speaking YY parents be doing to increase their child's fluency given the limitations of YY? The school provides suggested resources, but I'm curious what this crowd says. I've heard mention of families hiring Chinese tutors and au pairs, but what else could be done? Would a non-native family be welcomed in a weekend language program? And is that best place to start?

The dad who left YY 4 years ago. OK, since you sound sincere in asking the question, I'll take a shot at answering.

Start by ditching kids entertainment in English. That's right, cut the cable, no more Disney Channel, ban Cartoon Network, evict kids Netflix and YouTube. Substitute almost all of it for Mandarin language channels and kids DVDs. Invest in an all-region DVD player (easily found for $75). Learn the characters that enable you to turn on the Mandarin audio and subtitles - ask a friend who reads Chinese to write the characters down for you, so you can find them on Asian DVD menus. Ebay is awash with Mandarin kids DVDs, because Disney and Pixar have been dubbing most of their movies into Mandarin for years. You can easily build up a collection of Mandarin DVDs without spending a bomb on trips to Chinatown in NYC (ask merchants where the latest Chinese DVD stands and shops are located) or off web sites for Chinese education materials and kids DVDs like Asia Parent, Yes Asia and Sprout. You can also tune into kids cartoon channels from China via various cable packages.

Next, if at all possible, host Mandarin-speaking au pairs all the way through YY. If you can't afford an official J -1 visa holding "EduCare" au pair through Cultural Care, Go Au Pair or Au Pair in America (the several US au pair agencies bringing the most Mandarin-speaking au pairs to the US) for around 15K a year, but have a spare room in your house (even a very small one) ask around in the YY au pair community to find an unofficial au pair to host. DC is not short on responsible, quiet-living Chinese students who'd love to stay in your house in return for room and board in return for chatting with your kids in Mandarin 10 or 15 hours a week. Give your au pair clear instructions that kids speaking English are to be ignored. That's right, kids who answer in English don't exist to Chinese au pairs.

If you hire tutors, don't stop at one or two hours a week when school is in session. Hire YY au pairs or their friends under the table for around $12/hour for at least 4 or 5 hours a week year round. Chinese 20-somethings in DC don't earn much and are almost always looking to pick up more working hours. You don't need a trained tutor, you need a patient native speaker who's a good babysitter, happy to chat in playgrounds, at museums etc. You can even pay au pair tutors in movie and Metro passes, presents like backpacks and other goodies.

If you have the dough and can swing the logistics, in the summers enroll in Camp China in Rockville - ask the Mandarin speaking counselors there to speak only Mandarin to your kid; they'll do it. Consider enrolling your upper grades kid in Concordia sleep-away immersion camps.

Hope that helps.

I'm the PP who asked the question. This is very helpful, thank you!!

[Anonymous]

You're very welcome.

Also, "Mandarin Cartoon" or "Mandarin Kids Movies" searches on YouTube are a great resource, e.g. Peppa Pig, Mickey Mouse Club and Thomas the Train for the younger set, Harry Potter, Disney and Pixar etc. for the older.

The kids will invariably complain that they can't understand all the Mandarin, but don't give in. The more they hear, the more they're understand and repeat. If you give them the "out" of English kids entertainment, they'll take it almost every time, so don't unless it's a special occasion (you can watch Star Wars in English with Dad tonight because it's his birthday). Also, with Mandarin dubbed DVDs, there's usually an English subtitles option so parents who don't understand the Mandarin can enjoy watching simultaneously. Some Chinese is always better than none, so don't worry too much if the kids reads some of the English subtitles you're reading. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're very welcome.

Also, "Mandarin Cartoon" or "Mandarin Kids Movies" searches on YouTube are a great resource, e.g. Peppa Pig, Mickey Mouse Club and Thomas the Train for the younger set, Harry Potter, Disney and Pixar etc. for the older.

The kids will invariably complain that they can't understand all the Mandarin, but don't give in. The more they hear, the more they're understand and repeat. If you give them the "out" of English kids entertainment, they'll take it almost every time, so don't unless it's a special occasion (you can watch Star Wars in English with Dad tonight because it's his birthday). Also, with Mandarin dubbed DVDs, there's usually an English subtitles option so parents who don't understand the Mandarin can enjoy watching simultaneously. Some Chinese is always better than none, so don't worry too much if the kids reads some of the English subtitles you're reading. Good luck.

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

NP: A lot of Netflix kids cartoons have the option of changing the language. We (at a Spanish-immersion, not YY) rely on Netflix because it's so easy to change the language options for most shows (I know some, at least, are also offered in Mandarin).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These discussions always seem to treat fluency in a foreign language like some mysterious, all-or-nothing proposition that is not worth undertaking if it is not done perfectly from the get-go - with very little understanding of how speaking more than one language actually functions, or how many different ways there are to be proficient in a language.

As far as i'm concerned, giving kids exposure and the building blocks to learn other languages early on is a good thing; it's been proven to be a good thing; and bilingual education does that. Some kids are going to attain higher levels of fluency than others, because some people are simply better at languages than others. Good luck controlling that.

Because, come on, the vast majority of us have taken YEARS of foreign language study through school and still never became fluent in it and never use it now.

I started Spanish in middle school and took it every year through college. I did a study abroad semester in Peru. My Spanish did become conversational at one point but then I stopped using it in my every day life and now, over a decade later, it's mostly lost. I could use it to get around on a trip but nothing more than that.

If you don't use it at home or at work in your every day life, what is the point? It was wasted effort. It came to nothing.

This is what parents are wondering about YY when they don't speak Chinese themselves and so can't support it at home.

Because you don't know at age 8 what you are going to do or be. By your reasoning, kids who aren't going to be recruited for college soccer shouldn't bother with travel, a chunky preschooler should never take ballet, and art class is a complete waste of time if you don't have any talent.

I'm sorry you regret studying Spanish, of all things, but your experience is not universal.

It's closer to universal than not. Most Americans are monolingual. They're monolingual because they can be, because the rest of the world speaks English. Go anywhere in the world today, even the most rural areas, and you will find people with some degree of English proficiency. With that being the reality of the situation, I don't see what advantage it gives my kid to risk his math education (which I do believe you need to be competitive in this world) for the possible benefit of learning a language we can't support at home and which he will most likely never become fluent in anyway.

The point is, if it's not being reinforced outside of school, it's useless.

WOW. This is why our country is going down the tubes. And I thought DC was liberal. And cosmopolitan. I feel seriously sorry for you.

NP. Like it or not, the bolded sentence is a statement of fact. I didn't read her post as saying that learning a foreign language is *always* useless but more in this specific circumstance, when you are a.) risking the fundamentals not being well understood by your child and b.) you can't support the language at home. Those two factors together do not produce high odds of success imo (success = good grasp of fundamentals plus language fluency).

Not at YY, don't care about the weirdos whose hobby it is to trash it, but there is a LOT MORE to learning another language than communication with others as an adult. Children's minds actually grow when they learn multiple languages. Literally certain areas become more robust, developed, and active. (Martensson 2012 study comes to mind among others)

Furthermore, you're also exposing your kids to another culture and the awareness of their position in the world. My very young kids asked to donate their toys to the Mexican and Puerto Rican efforts because they worried about the kids who had lost everything. This is a side benefit- kids learn about their privilege and understand that they have to work hard because they have so many advantages.

And I don't think you're "risking" your kids math skills if you teach them other languages. To the contrary!! You're risking their brain development!

[Anonymous]

I agree with the previous poster. I send my kids to a language immersion school not because I am hoping that one day they will move to Mexico, France or China. I send them because I am aware of the benefits of brain development for individuals learning a second or third language. Learning a new language or even learning to play an instrument exercises and grows certain parts of your brain that may not have otherwise. I want my kids to develop and grow all different areas of their mind and do not insult or shun any other parents who wish the same for their kids.

https://bebrainfit.com/brain-benefits-learning-second-language/

[Anonymous]

Not at YY, but another chiming in to say that perfect fluency isn't always the sole goal of parents who put their kids in language immersion--to assume that is myopic, IMO. I'm also interested in the reported cognitive benefits that come from being able to learn and switch between two different languages. Both husband and I are interested in the opportunity to expand our kid's worldview and expose her to different cultures in which the language is spoken. We'll do what we can to support fluency, but our goal isn't perfect native fluency by age 17.

[Anonymous]

Great, perfect fluency isn't the sole goal of parents who put their kids in language immersion, and there's a cognitive benefit from being able to learn and switch between two different languages.

So how about actually teaching the YY kids to speak the language halfway decently to kill two birds with one stone? It's not as though parents couldn't be incentivized to help ensure that their kids speak well.

I can't see how much understanding of a culture kicks in when local Chinese immigrants can't be persuaded to put in for the YY lottery almost to a parent. What you hear asked in low SES DC Chinese immigrant circles is "Isn't that school for black kids and white people who adopt babies from China? We don't know Chinese families who use it. We've heard that the head doesn't speak Chinese."

Maybe the weirdest of the weirdos are in the DCPC universe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great, perfect fluency isn't the sole goal of parents who put their kids in language immersion, and there's a cognitive benefit from being able to learn and switch between two different languages.

So how about actually teaching the YY kids to speak the language halfway decently to kill two birds with one stone? It's not as though parents couldn't be incentivized to help ensure that their kids speak well.

I can't see how much understanding of a culture kicks in when local Chinese immigrants can't be persuaded to put in for the YY lottery almost to a parent. What you hear asked in low SES DC Chinese immigrant circles is "Isn't that school for black kids and white people who adopt babies from China? We don't know Chinese families who use it. We've heard that the head doesn't speak Chinese."

Maybe the weirdest of the weirdos are in the DCPC universe.

I certainly would not want people who say such racist things to be a part of my school, so win-win?