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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the YY kids get 4s or 5s on AP Chinese - that would be a success - and every post by native speakers reveals a pronounced racism that they should try and work through rather than spill their bile continually on this board. The majority of children in DC are black and Hispanic. There are more Vietnamese families in DC than Chinese. Any given PCS or DCPS by definition is supposed to be serving the majority of the kids in DC.

No, any given DCPS is by definition supposed to primarily serve the students residing in its catchment area (explaining why a dozen DCPS elementary schools support FARMs rates in the single digits).

Public immersion schools aren't serving DC students well if most of their students' language skills are laughable after 5, 10 even 15 years of intensive study. As a city, we can function in the realm of avoiding hurt feelings at all costs, or strive to run world-class schools, not both.

PS. Most DC Vietnamese are "Hoa," Cantonese speakers in the older generation. They very seldom choose YY but pick up Mandarin easily because they already speak at least two tonal languages.

There are no YY alumni who have been intensely studying Chinese for 15 years at this point, maybe not even 10. There is no MS immersion option so not sure that's a fair statement to make. As for the students' language ability after 5 years, you admit that other people who speak tonal languages pick up Mandarin easily. So what does that say about kids who don't already speak a tonal language and are trying to learn Mandarin? Perhaps they will have a more difficult time picking up the language? That's not to say that YY couldn't be doing more, but don't act as though these kids are learning Spanish.

[Anonymous]

^Agree wholeheartedly with the Chinese poster just passing by.

Nobody's criticizing the families whose kids speak lousy Chinese after many years of immersion study. They're criticizing a pedagogical arrangement that's something of a joke, without incentives built in for the school or families to ensure that the kids speak well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree wholeheartedly. Not Chinese but I'm concerned about PC notions of love, harmony, equality etc. trumping actual learning a lot in public schools these days, at our economic peril. China's a rising superpower in large part because their national, provincial and city governments, while not democratically elected, are fundamentally practical.

Our city ed leaders can't handle making tough ed policy decisions. 2-way immersion works best but the city doesn't bother with it for any language but Spanish. The charter immersion programs could have been DCPS or charter-DCPS hybrids with dual lotteries, like Oyster, but DC public generally can't be bothered to do things right. Bilingual American Born Chinese are seen as a threat on these boards by the jealous, pure and simple.

I've seen this statement made before in other threads and I do not understand this. Who here expressed anything that could be construed as jealously of American Born Chinese? And how could they be considered a threat? This makes no sense especially in the context of this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the YY kids get 4s or 5s on AP Chinese - that would be a success - and every post by native speakers reveals a pronounced racism that they should try and work through rather than spill their bile continually on this board. The majority of children in DC are black and Hispanic. There are more Vietnamese families in DC than Chinese. Any given PCS or DCPS by definition is supposed to be serving the majority of the kids in DC.

No, any given DCPS is by definition supposed to primarily serve the students residing in its catchment area (explaining why a dozen DCPS elementary schools support FARMs rates in the single digits).

Public immersion schools aren't serving DC students well if most of their students' language skills are laughable after 5, 10 even 15 years of intensive study. As a city, we can function in the realm of avoiding hurt feelings at all costs, or strive to run world-class schools, not both.

PS. Most DC Vietnamese are "Hoa," Cantonese speakers in the older generation. They very seldom choose YY but pick up Mandarin easily because they already speak at least two tonal languages.

There are no YY alumni who have been intensely studying Chinese for 15 years at this point, maybe not even 10. There is no MS immersion option so not sure that's a fair statement to make. As for the students' language ability after 5 years, you admit that other people who speak tonal languages pick up Mandarin easily. So what does that say about kids who don't already speak a tonal language and are trying to learn Mandarin? Perhaps they will have a more difficult time picking up the language? That's not to say that YY couldn't be doing more, but don't act as though these kids are learning Spanish.

The oldest YY grads at DCI are now in 9th grade, with 7-10 years of public immersion and partial immersion language study behind them. Sadly, for a native speaker to hear them speak, the decade of instruction, or close, is a shocker.

It's certainly not hard to for little kids to learn tonal languages if they're taught well. It is hard for them to learn it under the structures YY provides. unless a family speaks Chinese at home (no more than a handful of families in the category) or hosts Chinese-speaking au pairs under orders not to speak English to their charges, or accept it in return, for years on end. The system is really screwed up. The kids need a lot more speaking support for the immersion to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Agree wholeheartedly with the Chinese poster just passing by.

Nobody's criticizing the families whose kids speak lousy Chinese after many years of immersion study. They're criticizing a pedagogical arrangement that's something of a joke, without incentives built in for the school or families to ensure that the kids speak well.

There are plenty of criticisms of YY families on these threads. Including clueless, delusional, elitist, and my favorite, too poor for JKLM-Brent-Maury. I'm sorry you didn't like it when people called out the unsavory truth that many ethnic Chinese are extremely prejudiced against black people, but you are the delusional one if you think it doesn't play a role in YY-Chinese relations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the YY kids get 4s or 5s on AP Chinese - that would be a success - and every post by native speakers reveals a pronounced racism that they should try and work through rather than spill their bile continually on this board. The majority of children in DC are black and Hispanic. There are more Vietnamese families in DC than Chinese. Any given PCS or DCPS by definition is supposed to be serving the majority of the kids in DC.

No, any given DCPS is by definition supposed to primarily serve the students residing in its catchment area (explaining why a dozen DCPS elementary schools support FARMs rates in the single digits).

Public immersion schools aren't serving DC students well if most of their students' language skills are laughable after 5, 10 even 15 years of intensive study. As a city, we can function in the realm of avoiding hurt feelings at all costs, or strive to run world-class schools, not both.

PS. Most DC Vietnamese are "Hoa," Cantonese speakers in the older generation. They very seldom choose YY but pick up Mandarin easily because they already speak at least two tonal languages.

There are no YY alumni who have been intensely studying Chinese for 15 years at this point, maybe not even 10. There is no MS immersion option so not sure that's a fair statement to make. As for the students' language ability after 5 years, you admit that other people who speak tonal languages pick up Mandarin easily. So what does that say about kids who don't already speak a tonal language and are trying to learn Mandarin? Perhaps they will have a more difficult time picking up the language? That's not to say that YY couldn't be doing more, but don't act as though these kids are learning Spanish.

The oldest YY grads at DCI are now in 9th grade, with 7-10 years of public immersion and partial immersion language study behind them. Sadly, for a native speaker to hear them speak, the decade of instruction, or close, is a shocker.

It's certainly not hard to for little kids to learn tonal languages if they're taught well. It is hard for them to learn it under the structures YY provides. unless a family speaks Chinese at home (no more than a handful of families in the category) or hosts Chinese-speaking au pairs under orders not to speak English to their charges, or accept it in return, for years on end. The system is really screwed up. The kids need a lot more speaking support for the immersion to work.

Thank you for your input. We appreciate so much the fact that you write the same thing over and over 500 times in every Yu Ying thread. It's more meaningful if you repeat it a zillion times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A Chinese American passing by.

I sensed strong racism towards Chinese in this thread. Just because Chinese American families want decent Mandarin Chinese education and decent education in general for their kids doesn't make them racism towards other ethnic groups.

I think the posts could be read both ways. Some of the posts by bilingual parents appear to indicate that they would prefer that their kids be in a situation where most of the kids are also bilingual. Both sides need to think about their feelings about going to school with a diverse mix of students coming from different backgrounds.

I am second generation American from a time when immigrants were so poor that they had no hope of ever returning to their country of origin, so the goal was to assimilate as much as possible. No language or culture classes for the children because that would interfere with becoming part of the new country. So it is interesting to read about a very different view of the immigration and new citizenship experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree wholeheartedly. Not Chinese but I'm concerned about PC notions of love, harmony, equality etc. trumping actual learning a lot in public schools these days, at our economic peril. China's a rising superpower in large part because their national, provincial and city governments, while not democratically elected, are fundamentally practical.

Our city ed leaders can't handle making tough ed policy decisions. 2-way immersion works best but the city doesn't bother with it for any language but Spanish. The charter immersion programs could have been DCPS or charter-DCPS hybrids with dual lotteries, like Oyster, but DC public generally can't be bothered to do things right. Bilingual American Born Chinese are seen as a threat on these boards by the jealous, pure and simple.

I've seen this statement made before in other threads and I do not understand this. Who here expressed anything that could be construed as jealously of American Born Chinese? And how could they be considered a threat? This makes no sense especially in the context of this thread.

ABCs who make factual statements about YY kids speaking Mandarin poorly are routinely called racist on these boards. It's been happening for years. If they were AA, the threads would get shut down. Few YY parents want bilingual Chinese and ABC families in the school injecting competition into a language learning set-up that's all too cozy (and, as a result, largely ineffectual). These boards ooze jealousy of ABC language prowess, among other things. I'm not Chinese, but little could be more obvious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the YY kids get 4s or 5s on AP Chinese - that would be a success - and every post by native speakers reveals a pronounced racism that they should try and work through rather than spill their bile continually on this board. The majority of children in DC are black and Hispanic. There are more Vietnamese families in DC than Chinese. Any given PCS or DCPS by definition is supposed to be serving the majority of the kids in DC.

No, any given DCPS is by definition supposed to primarily serve the students residing in its catchment area (explaining why a dozen DCPS elementary schools support FARMs rates in the single digits).

Public immersion schools aren't serving DC students well if most of their students' language skills are laughable after 5, 10 even 15 years of intensive study. As a city, we can function in the realm of avoiding hurt feelings at all costs, or strive to run world-class schools, not both.

PS. Most DC Vietnamese are "Hoa," Cantonese speakers in the older generation. They very seldom choose YY but pick up Mandarin easily because they already speak at least two tonal languages.

There are no YY alumni who have been intensely studying Chinese for 15 years at this point, maybe not even 10. There is no MS immersion option so not sure that's a fair statement to make. As for the students' language ability after 5 years, you admit that other people who speak tonal languages pick up Mandarin easily. So what does that say about kids who don't already speak a tonal language and are trying to learn Mandarin? Perhaps they will have a more difficult time picking up the language? That's not to say that YY couldn't be doing more, but don't act as though these kids are learning Spanish.

The oldest YY grads at DCI are now in 9th grade, with 7-10 years of public immersion and partial immersion language study behind them. Sadly, for a native speaker to hear them speak, the decade of instruction, or close, is a shocker.

It's certainly not hard to for little kids to learn tonal languages if they're taught well. It is hard for them to learn it under the structures YY provides. unless a family speaks Chinese at home (no more than a handful of families in the category) or hosts Chinese-speaking au pairs under orders not to speak English to their charges, or accept it in return, for years on end. The system is really screwed up. The kids need a lot more speaking support for the immersion to work.

Thank you for your input. We appreciate so much the fact that you write the same thing over and over 500 times in every Yu Ying thread. It's more meaningful if you repeat it a zillion times.

I'm just passing by and could have said this. YY boosters need to believe that this is one person's view, one person's observation, one person's experience. Hello, the YY Mandarin teaching system is actually screwed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree wholeheartedly. Not Chinese but I'm concerned about PC notions of love, harmony, equality etc. trumping actual learning a lot in public schools these days, at our economic peril. China's a rising superpower in large part because their national, provincial and city governments, while not democratically elected, are fundamentally practical.

Our city ed leaders can't handle making tough ed policy decisions. 2-way immersion works best but the city doesn't bother with it for any language but Spanish. The charter immersion programs could have been DCPS or charter-DCPS hybrids with dual lotteries, like Oyster, but DC public generally can't be bothered to do things right. Bilingual American Born Chinese are seen as a threat on these boards by the jealous, pure and simple.

I've seen this statement made before in other threads and I do not understand this. Who here expressed anything that could be construed as jealously of American Born Chinese? And how could they be considered a threat? This makes no sense especially in the context of this thread.

ABCs who make factual statements about YY kids speaking Mandarin poorly are routinely called racist on these boards. It's been happening for years. If they were AA, the threads would get shut down. Few YY parents want bilingual Chinese and ABC families in the school injecting competition into a language learning set-up that's all too cozy (and, as a result, largely ineffectual). These boards ooze jealousy of ABC language prowess, among other things. I'm not Chinese, but little could be more obvious.

It's so obvious, yet you fail to point to any actual posts in support of these sweeping statements. I've been following YY threads for years as well, and there seem to be a subset of people like you who insist that few YY parents want bilingual Chinese students. What is this based on?? The conclusion gets repeated over and over but where is this actually coming from? There has been nothing in the 15 pages of this thread, for instance, to indicate that YY parents feel this way. Same question for your comment about people being jealous of ABCs' language prowess "among other things." What is that even based on?? And why, of all things, would that be something for others to be jealous of?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the YY kids get 4s or 5s on AP Chinese - that would be a success - and every post by native speakers reveals a pronounced racism that they should try and work through rather than spill their bile continually on this board. The majority of children in DC are black and Hispanic. There are more Vietnamese families in DC than Chinese. Any given PCS or DCPS by definition is supposed to be serving the majority of the kids in DC.

No, any given DCPS is by definition supposed to primarily serve the students residing in its catchment area (explaining why a dozen DCPS elementary schools support FARMs rates in the single digits).

Public immersion schools aren't serving DC students well if most of their students' language skills are laughable after 5, 10 even 15 years of intensive study. As a city, we can function in the realm of avoiding hurt feelings at all costs, or strive to run world-class schools, not both.

PS. Most DC Vietnamese are "Hoa," Cantonese speakers in the older generation. They very seldom choose YY but pick up Mandarin easily because they already speak at least two tonal languages.

There are no YY alumni who have been intensely studying Chinese for 15 years at this point, maybe not even 10. There is no MS immersion option so not sure that's a fair statement to make. As for the students' language ability after 5 years, you admit that other people who speak tonal languages pick up Mandarin easily. So what does that say about kids who don't already speak a tonal language and are trying to learn Mandarin? Perhaps they will have a more difficult time picking up the language? That's not to say that YY couldn't be doing more, but don't act as though these kids are learning Spanish.

The oldest YY grads at DCI are now in 9th grade, with 7-10 years of public immersion and partial immersion language study behind them. Sadly, for a native speaker to hear them speak, the decade of instruction, or close, is a shocker.

It's certainly not hard to for little kids to learn tonal languages if they're taught well. It is hard for them to learn it under the structures YY provides. unless a family speaks Chinese at home (no more than a handful of families in the category) or hosts Chinese-speaking au pairs under orders not to speak English to their charges, or accept it in return, for years on end. The system is really screwed up. The kids need a lot more speaking support for the immersion to work.

Thank you for your input. We appreciate so much the fact that you write the same thing over and over 500 times in every Yu Ying thread. It's more meaningful if you repeat it a zillion times.

I'm just passing by and could have said this. YY boosters need to believe that this is one person's view, one person's observation, one person's experience. Hello, the YY Mandarin teaching system is actually screwed up.

NP. No, they don't need to believe this, but it does make it difficult to decipher the posters with an ax to grind from those who are making legitimate comments about YY. There always seems to be a particular kind of ire that comes out on threads involving YY (unlike few other DC public schools) and anyone pointing out unfair criticisms gets labeled a naive, clueless "booster."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree wholeheartedly. Not Chinese but I'm concerned about PC notions of love, harmony, equality etc. trumping actual learning a lot in public schools these days, at our economic peril. China's a rising superpower in large part because their national, provincial and city governments, while not democratically elected, are fundamentally practical.

Our city ed leaders can't handle making tough ed policy decisions. 2-way immersion works best but the city doesn't bother with it for any language but Spanish. The charter immersion programs could have been DCPS or charter-DCPS hybrids with dual lotteries, like Oyster, but DC public generally can't be bothered to do things right. Bilingual American Born Chinese are seen as a threat on these boards by the jealous, pure and simple.

I've seen this statement made before in other threads and I do not understand this. Who here expressed anything that could be construed as jealously of American Born Chinese? And how could they be considered a threat? This makes no sense especially in the context of this thread.

ABCs who make factual statements about YY kids speaking Mandarin poorly are routinely called racist on these boards. It's been happening for years. If they were AA, the threads would get shut down. Few YY parents want bilingual Chinese and ABC families in the school injecting competition into a language learning set-up that's all too cozy (and, as a result, largely ineffectual). These boards ooze jealousy of ABC language prowess, among other things. I'm not Chinese, but little could be more obvious.

It's so obvious, yet you fail to point to any actual posts in support of these sweeping statements. I've been following YY threads for years as well, and there seem to be a subset of people like you who insist that few YY parents want bilingual Chinese students. What is this based on?? The conclusion gets repeated over and over but where is this actually coming from? There has been nothing in the 15 pages of this thread, for instance, to indicate that YY parents feel this way. Same question for your comment about people being jealous of ABCs' language prowess "among other things." What is that even based on?? And why, of all things, would that be something for others to be jealous of?

I actually think this poster is funny. Yes we are all jealous of you. That's it.

[Anonymous]

As was pointed out a few pages back, the system isn't going to change until the Head of School changes, which could be many years from now.

Once that happens, YY threads on this message board may have something to offer!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Agree wholeheartedly with the Chinese poster just passing by.

Nobody's criticizing the families whose kids speak lousy Chinese after many years of immersion study. They're criticizing a pedagogical arrangement that's something of a joke, without incentives built in for the school or families to ensure that the kids speak well.

There are plenty of criticisms of YY families on these threads. Including clueless, delusional, elitist, and my favorite, too poor for JKLM-Brent-Maury. I'm sorry you didn't like it when people called out the unsavory truth that many ethnic Chinese are extremely prejudiced against black people, but you are the delusional one if you think it doesn't play a role in YY-Chinese relations.

Yes, they can be extremely prejudiced against black people, my own parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents for example.

You sound AA. So what draws you to Chinese immersion? I study the language of cultures I admire, and steer my children in the same direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree wholeheartedly. Not Chinese but I'm concerned about PC notions of love, harmony, equality etc. trumping actual learning a lot in public schools these days, at our economic peril. China's a rising superpower in large part because their national, provincial and city governments, while not democratically elected, are fundamentally practical.

Our city ed leaders can't handle making tough ed policy decisions. 2-way immersion works best but the city doesn't bother with it for any language but Spanish. The charter immersion programs could have been DCPS or charter-DCPS hybrids with dual lotteries, like Oyster, but DC public generally can't be bothered to do things right. Bilingual American Born Chinese are seen as a threat on these boards by the jealous, pure and simple.

I've seen this statement made before in other threads and I do not understand this. Who here expressed anything that could be construed as jealously of American Born Chinese? And how could they be considered a threat? This makes no sense especially in the context of this thread.

ABCs who make factual statements about YY kids speaking Mandarin poorly are routinely called racist on these boards. It's been happening for years. If they were AA, the threads would get shut down. Few YY parents want bilingual Chinese and ABC families in the school injecting competition into a language learning set-up that's all too cozy (and, as a result, largely ineffectual). These boards ooze jealousy of ABC language prowess, among other things. I'm not Chinese, but little could be more obvious.

It's so obvious, yet you fail to point to any actual posts in support of these sweeping statements. I've been following YY threads for years as well, and there seem to be a subset of people like you who insist that few YY parents want bilingual Chinese students. What is this based on?? The conclusion gets repeated over and over but where is this actually coming from? There has been nothing in the 15 pages of this thread, for instance, to indicate that YY parents feel this way. Same question for your comment about people being jealous of ABCs' language prowess "among other things." What is that even based on?? And why, of all things, would that be something for others to be jealous of?

I actually think this poster is funny. Yes we are all jealous of you. That's it.

I don't even know why I'm reading this thread I have no kid at YY, never will, am not Chinese, but somehow here I am so I will say: this is SUCH a weird statement to say everyone's oozing jealousy about ABCs. What??? So strange. !! I don't even know why this thread exists but it's interesting on a sociological level...