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

[Anonymous]

Why do people bother with these redundant YY threads? The issue of how well YY students speak Chinese has been hashed out innumerable times on DCUM. Same old story. The vast majority of YY parents are happy with the (basic) Chinese taught at the school. They don't want competition from native speakers or other pressure to up their game. They plan for the kids to live and work in China as adults, where they will learn to speak fluently.

YY and DCI parents who want the kids to speak good Chinese as children and teens need to take matters into their own hands. This means devoting a hell of a lot of work and money to the project.

End of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work at an international school in another country, and all kids here are required to take a daily class in the "host language", taught by a local-hire native speaker, plus most specials are taught by native speakers of the local language and they use the language in this time. And then most of the American kids also take lessons/are on teams in the community in which the coaches/teammates speak only the native language, and English isn't widely spoken in this city, so there is additional daily "real life" exposure to the native language.

Yet the ONLY American kids--even among those who are now in high school and have been here since elementary--who speak the native language fluently are the ones who have one parent who is a native speaker of that language.

Our admin is currently troubled by this because last year we added the AP class for the local language, and all the American kids bombed it even with all of the extra AP lessons they were having to supplement all of their other exposure/lessons.

So I doubt a school in America in which the kids only get the second language via some teachers during the school day are going to ever be fluent in that language.

This is really interesting. May I ask where you are located? I'm curious because I'm thinking of all the Europeans who say they grew up speaking 2 or 3 languages because of their location (especially if they are Swiss, they usually seem to speak German, French, and Italian) and are still fluent as adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people bother with these redundant YY threads? The issue of how well YY students speak Chinese has been hashed out innumerable times on DCUM. Same old story. The vast majority of YY parents are happy with the (basic) Chinese taught at the school. They don't want competition from native speakers or other pressure to up their game. They plan for the kids to live and work in China as adults, where they will learn to speak fluently.

YY and DCI parents who want the kids to speak good Chinese as children and teens need to take matters into their own hands. This means devoting a hell of a lot of work and money to the project.

End of story.

huh? How on earth can any parent say this with any degree of certainty? What if the kids themselves prefer to remain in their home country where all their friends and family are located?

It's quite a big deal to move to a foreign country where you speak the language only so so and don't know anybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people bother with these redundant YY threads? The issue of how well YY students speak Chinese has been hashed out innumerable times on DCUM. Same old story. The vast majority of YY parents are happy with the (basic) Chinese taught at the school. They don't want competition from native speakers or other pressure to up their game. They plan for the kids to live and work in China as adults, where they will learn to speak fluently.

YY and DCI parents who want the kids to speak good Chinese as children and teens need to take matters into their own hands. This means devoting a hell of a lot of work and money to the project.

End of story.

huh? How on earth can any parent say this with any degree of certainty? What if the kids themselves prefer to remain in their home country where all their friends and family are located?

It's quite a big deal to move to a foreign country where you speak the language only so so and don't know anybody.

+1. Yes, that's a helluva expectation to place on a child. Especially because the country in question is China (Communist and on the other side of the world), and not, say, Spain or France.

[Anonymous]

LOL, I don't know any YY parents who are already planning for their adult children to live in China. I'm sure some have said their kids can study and live in China later if they are interested in perfecting the language. I taught English in Japan for two years (not knowing any Japanese) and would love for my kids to have a similar experience at some point if that interests them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We mainly speak Chinese at home and require our children (in the upper ES grades at a JKLM) to answer Chinese with Chinese. We tried YY some years back, but only lasted a year. But we've continued to rub shoulders with two dozen YY families, and former families, from our neighborhood, church, civic activities etc. I often speak Mandarin to these kids.

Yes, the "non-native YY kids" (around 99% of them) actually speak Chinese. Do they speak it well? No, not unless there's been at least one native-speaking adult in the home who won't accept English in response to spoken Chinese for years. There are a few YY families who've hosted Mandarin-speaking au pairs for many years, and a few at DCI. Many YY parents hire Mandarin-speaking tutors to speak to kids, for an hour or two a week. The longtime "au pair YY kids" are head and shoulders above others in speaking ability.

Why don't the YY kids speak Chinese decently? Simple - because they don't hear enough Chinese to speak good Chinese, and because parents aren't incentivized to knock themselves out to ensure that the kids hear as much as possible. In our home, Chinese TV is on more than English TV, Chinese-speaking friends and relatives drop by, we travel to China annually to visit family, we visit elderly immigrants in Chinatown as volunteers, we take the kids to a heritage language program in MD each weekend, we seldom allow the kids to watch kids entertainment in English etc. This isn't the story in the homes of the YY kids--the parents have other priorities than pushing spoken Chinese, or can't host au pairs--so the kids don't speak Chinese well. That's the way YY has operated from the get go, it's not changing.

But couldn't this be said of any language? Of course children raised in homes with at least 1 native speaker are going to be fluent and truly bilingual compared to children raised in monolingual families where the children are learning another language at school - even if it is an immersion school. And of course children who are exposed to the target language outside of school are going to have a leg up on those who aren't. There seems to be a consistent theme with these YY threads: that YY is a subpar school because the children (who largely come from monolingual families as you pointed out) can never be fluent or even speak as well as children raised in a home where the target language is spoken. I have never seen anyone on these boards claim that YY kids will be fluent and I'm not sure it's fair to compare the students' ability to speak Mandarin to those children who have native-speaking parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL, I don't know any YY parents who are already planning for their adult children to live in China. I'm sure some have said their kids can study and live in China later if they are interested in perfecting the language. I taught English in Japan for two years (not knowing any Japanese) and would love for my kids to have a similar experience at some point if that interests them.

Pretty sure that's what PP basically meant.

Sheesh, this thread is SO stupid. I agree, why is everyone always bashing on YY? And I have no kid there nor plan to, just an observation. Some of these threads really show a bit of xenophobia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We mainly speak Chinese at home and require our children (in the upper ES grades at a JKLM) to answer Chinese with Chinese. We tried YY some years back, but only lasted a year. But we've continued to rub shoulders with two dozen YY families, and former families, from our neighborhood, church, civic activities etc. I often speak Mandarin to these kids.

Yes, the "non-native YY kids" (around 99% of them) actually speak Chinese. Do they speak it well? No, not unless there's been at least one native-speaking adult in the home who won't accept English in response to spoken Chinese for years. There are a few YY families who've hosted Mandarin-speaking au pairs for many years, and a few at DCI. Many YY parents hire Mandarin-speaking tutors to speak to kids, for an hour or two a week. The longtime "au pair YY kids" are head and shoulders above others in speaking ability.

Why don't the YY kids speak Chinese decently? Simple - because they don't hear enough Chinese to speak good Chinese, and because parents aren't incentivized to knock themselves out to ensure that the kids hear as much as possible. In our home, Chinese TV is on more than English TV, Chinese-speaking friends and relatives drop by, we travel to China annually to visit family, we visit elderly immigrants in Chinatown as volunteers, we take the kids to a heritage language program in MD each weekend, we seldom allow the kids to watch kids entertainment in English etc. This isn't the story in the homes of the YY kids--the parents have other priorities than pushing spoken Chinese, or can't host au pairs--so the kids don't speak Chinese well. That's the way YY has operated from the get go, it's not changing.

But couldn't this be said of any language? Of course children raised in homes with at least 1 native speaker are going to be fluent and truly bilingual compared to children raised in monolingual families where the children are learning another language at school - even if it is an immersion school. And of course children who are exposed to the target language outside of school are going to have a leg up on those who aren't. There seems to be a consistent theme with these YY threads: that YY is a subpar school because the children (who largely come from monolingual families as you pointed out) can never be fluent or even speak as well as children raised in a home where the target language is spoken. I have never seen anyone on these boards claim that YY kids will be fluent and I'm not sure it's fair to compare the students' ability to speak Mandarin to those children who have native-speaking parents.

And, for some odd reason, I've never seen nearly the animosity towards all the Spanish bilingual schools as far as how fluent the kids become (which probably is a bit more fluent because Spanish is a much easier language to learn for an English speaker, but still).

[Anonymous]

Since when do simple statements of fact constitute "animosity" toward YY on this thread, or any other. It's true that few YY parents mind if the kids don't get far beyond basic utterances in Chinese. Any adult native speaker can easily determine this by talking to the kids and parents.

It's a different story in Chinese public immersion programs in US cities where lotteries for native speakers exist (mostly in traditional public schools), and programs cater to both native and non-native speakers. I have a cousin (not a native speaker) who sends his children to such a program in Northern Cal. The family has to work hard to meet standards for spoken Chinese in the school, such as enrolling the kids in a mandatory, free 5-week summer immersion camp the school runs for kids who aren't meeting their high standards for speaking (serving almost all the students who don't speak the language at home).

Not so at YY, and the parents like it that way.

[Anonymous]

It comes up because a lot of parents wonder what the point of doing it is l, if a.) you’re risking your kid not understanding the fundamentals really well because they’re being taught in a foreign language and b.) the odds are that your child will never become fluent anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It comes up because a lot of parents wonder what the point of doing it is l, if a.) you’re risking your kid not understanding the fundamentals really well because they’re being taught in a foreign language and b.) the odds are that your child will never become fluent anyway.

Yes, this is my basic concern. A couple years later, the ephemeral language gains are mostly lost, and the sum total of it might just be lost time on core subjects. I know there could be a lot of huffing about boiling it down to this but... if you're a teenager without Chinese speaking context, little language ability anyway, and a need to spend your time on your subjects or grades....could you really say it was worth it?

It's unclear enough to me to say, "Nah."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since when do simple statements of fact constitute "animosity" toward YY on this thread, or any other. It's true that few YY parents mind if the kids don't get far beyond basic utterances in Chinese. Any adult native speaker can easily determine this by talking to the kids and parents.

It's a different story in Chinese public immersion programs in US cities where lotteries for native speakers exist (mostly in traditional public schools), and programs cater to both native and non-native speakers. I have a cousin (not a native speaker) who sends his children to such a program in Northern Cal. The family has to work hard to meet standards for spoken Chinese in the school, such as enrolling the kids in a mandatory, free 5-week summer immersion camp the school runs for kids who aren't meeting their high standards for speaking (serving almost all the students who don't speak the language at home).

Not so at YY, and the parents like it that way.

Sigh. It certainly sounds like animosity when you make snide comments about how "few parents care" and "the parents like it that way." And the fact that you and a couple of other native speakers come here again and again to disparage the school does give the appearance of a strange axe to grind.

For the PP who asked: There are a few "heritage" speakers who like to weigh in again and again. The agenda is 1) Yu Ying doesn't have enough native speakers to have good, two-way immersion; 2) Yu Ying should set up supports to teach Cantonese speaking kids Mandarin in order to get more native speakers; 3) Yu Ying should have a lottery preference for Chinese speakers; 4) or have a test-in option for these kids; 5) yu Ying parents should lobby the administration and Congress to get charter law changed to allow these children a preference or test in option; 6) Yu Ying should fire the head of school and hire a native speaker, which would likely increase interest among the (comparatively small) DC Chinese community.

Then they will toss in a few nasty comments about how the YY kids they know all speak terrible Chinese, and how their heritage school children laugh at them and say they talk like babies. One woman says she routinely lies to her neighbors and tells them their kids' Chinese is wonderful because Chinese people are all so polite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It comes up because a lot of parents wonder what the point of doing it is l, if a.) you’re risking your kid not understanding the fundamentals really well because they’re being taught in a foreign language and b.) the odds are that your child will never become fluent anyway.

Yes, this is my basic concern. A couple years later, the ephemeral language gains are mostly lost, and the sum total of it might just be lost time on core subjects. I know there could be a lot of huffing about boiling it down to this but... if you're a teenager without Chinese speaking context, little language ability anyway, and a need to spend your time on your subjects or grades....could you really say it was worth it?

It's unclear enough to me to say, "Nah."

Again, though, couldn't this be said of other language-immersion schools? Why would this be true for a Chinese-immersion school but not a Spanish-immersion school, for instance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It comes up because a lot of parents wonder what the point of doing it is l, if a.) you’re risking your kid not understanding the fundamentals really well because they’re being taught in a foreign language and b.) the odds are that your child will never become fluent anyway.

Yes, this is my basic concern. A couple years later, the ephemeral language gains are mostly lost, and the sum total of it might just be lost time on core subjects. I know there could be a lot of huffing about boiling it down to this but... if you're a teenager without Chinese speaking context, little language ability anyway, and a need to spend your time on your subjects or grades....could you really say it was worth it?

It's unclear enough to me to say, "Nah."

Again, though, couldn't this be said of other language-immersion schools? Why would this be true for a Chinese-immersion school but not a Spanish-immersion school, for instance?

Because Spanish language and culture and opportunities to practice in real life are more common in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since when do simple statements of fact constitute "animosity" toward YY on this thread, or any other. It's true that few YY parents mind if the kids don't get far beyond basic utterances in Chinese. Any adult native speaker can easily determine this by talking to the kids and parents.

It's a different story in Chinese public immersion programs in US cities where lotteries for native speakers exist (mostly in traditional public schools), and programs cater to both native and non-native speakers. I have a cousin (not a native speaker) who sends his children to such a program in Northern Cal. The family has to work hard to meet standards for spoken Chinese in the school, such as enrolling the kids in a mandatory, free 5-week summer immersion camp the school runs for kids who aren't meeting their high standards for speaking (serving almost all the students who don't speak the language at home).

Not so at YY, and the parents like it that way.

Sigh. It certainly sounds like animosity when you make snide comments about how "few parents care" and "the parents like it that way." And the fact that you and a couple of other native speakers come here again and again to disparage the school does give the appearance of a strange axe to grind.

For the PP who asked: There are a few "heritage" speakers who like to weigh in again and again. The agenda is 1) Yu Ying doesn't have enough native speakers to have good, two-way immersion; 2) Yu Ying should set up supports to teach Cantonese speaking kids Mandarin in order to get more native speakers; 3) Yu Ying should have a lottery preference for Chinese speakers; 4) or have a test-in option for these kids; 5) yu Ying parents should lobby the administration and Congress to get charter law changed to allow these children a preference or test in option; 6) Yu Ying should fire the head of school and hire a native speaker, which would likely increase interest among the (comparatively small) DC Chinese community.

Then they will toss in a few nasty comments about how the YY kids they know all speak terrible Chinese, and how their heritage school children laugh at them and say they talk like babies. One woman says she routinely lies to her neighbors and tells them their kids' Chinese is wonderful because Chinese people are all so polite.

lol ok you've explained it. makes a lot of sense now.