Starting Yu Ying in K or higher

[Anonymous]

OP, reach out again if you get in--I can put you in touch with a few parents whose kids lotteried in at older ages. Depending on your family's priorities re what you want from the school, it could work out fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're native Mandarin speakers who tried YY for a year. We left because we weren't impressed with the Mandarin, or English, and didn't like being a program without true bilingual Chinese-speaking students (there are just a handful in the entire school). It's a very friendly place with good facilities, but it wasn't for us. We know a good many upper grades kids who've been in the school for 5 or 6 years who speak like robots below the level of our youngest child, who's 3. If you're content to scrape by in Mandarin at YY, really, no need to knock yourselves out. It's a reality that parents and admins don't want to acknowledge, but it's the reality nonetheless.

Not OP but we lotteried for YY as well and I find this thread really interesting. I understand your experience was one of not being impressed at all with the school, but I"m struggling to understand why you posted this experience here since it has nothing to do with OP's question about what it's like to enter K or later? Or you just want everyone to know you don't think the Mandarin spoken by students there is worthwhile whenever anyone brings up YY for any reason?

I guess I'm also curious why you spend time reading YY discussions if that's how you feel about the school and you've voiced it already many times?

[Anonymous]

PPs point was that it's not all that difficult to catch up with the Mandarin taught at YY when entering at K or higher. Valid point about the prgram.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're native Mandarin speakers who tried YY for a year. We left because we weren't impressed with the Mandarin, or English, and didn't like being a program without true bilingual Chinese-speaking students (there are just a handful in the entire school). It's a very friendly place with good facilities, but it wasn't for us. We know a good many upper grades kids who've been in the school for 5 or 6 years who speak like robots below the level of our youngest child, who's 3. If you're content to scrape by in Mandarin at YY, really, no need to knock yourselves out. It's a reality that parents and admins don't want to acknowledge, but it's the reality nonetheless.

Not OP but we lotteried for YY as well and I find this thread really interesting. I understand your experience was one of not being impressed at all with the school, but I"m struggling to understand why you posted this experience here since it has nothing to do with OP's question about what it's like to enter K or later? Or you just want everyone to know you don't think the Mandarin spoken by students there is worthwhile whenever anyone brings up YY for any reason?

I guess I'm also curious why you spend time reading YY discussions if that's how you feel about the school and you've voiced it already many times?

NP here--My kids don't go to Yu Ying but I have several friends whose kids were members of the "bubble" class. One of those friends is a native Mandarin speaker and she's very pleased with the education, including the level of Mandarin spoken and understood by the students. I watched a video of one of my friends' kids (she's from a non-Chinese-American household) doing a presentation in Chinese and it was AMAZING. I'm sure there's a variety of experiences there, but the ones I've witnessed have been pretty impressive.

[Anonymous]

Here we go again. Those who don't speak Chinese think the kids' Chinese is AMAZING. Native speakers think differently, because they can't have a normal conversation in Chinese beyond basics with the great majority of the kids, no matter how long they've been in the program. Yea, they kids are trained and understand to say a few things, and maybe they'll nail Chinese in their 20s or something. If you know kids in public dual immersion Chinese programs, e.g. NY and San Fran, you what we're missing in DC. Same old song.

[Anonymous]

A dear friend of mine has a child who started YY in grade 1 and she caught up by the end of the year without any problem. She is now at DCI and loving her program, which includes advanced Chinese language studies.