Language immersion/lessons

[Anonymous]

Much, much easier to learn another language as a child vs. teen vs adult, especially if it’s not spoken at home.

The later you start, the harder it is to be truly bilingual in speaking, reading, and writing.

Of course there are exceptions but generally that’s the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took Russian, Finnish, Latin, German, English and Spanish in US. None of it was a waste, not even German I have never used. I could pick up German on my own if I needed it.
Everybody I know took 3 foreign languages. Some are better at Russian because of exposure, some in Finnish, most are can carry a conversation in English.
Learning all those languages does not come at an expense of other subjects. We beat everybody in math, science and ELA (well, our ela) on our continent last time it was measured.
Learning languages is not hard. Bigger countries don't have a culture of learning languages.
While I had a great Spanish teacher in US, he was all over the place and did not teach the language the way I had been used to learning languages.
DC is learning 2 foreign languages right now. I don't care for him to be bilingual but because we started quite early, he can probably just chill in his future Spanish classes or take Italian or French or simply take a test for credit. Now that saves up a lot of time to study for other classes.
I think this early exposure is important to kids to whom languages don't come easily, and a parent should know that.

I agree. I learned Russian, French, Spanish, and Italian. None of it was a waste of time. My kids started in a second language any way we could muster it as toddlers, and they continued with that through 8th. In high school they placed out of those languages, so added Latin and a third language. In college they will likely add a 4th language. The goal isn't nativism.

[Anonymous]

Studies have also shown that little kids lose acquired language almost as easily as they pick it up. Fine to start with toddlers and little kids, but not much use if they stop learning the language as older kids or teens. If you're choosing a random language for your child to learn that won't be reinforced either at home or in your community, the results may not be too hot eventually. Your kid may not see the point of continuing with the language once they have a say in the matter, since they don't have to speak it to get along. I can hear the dip in my fully bilingual older kids' conversational ability in the language one of us speaks at home after they've been away at summer camp for a few weeks.

[Anonymous]

Monolingual DC language immersion parents I talk don't get it. They think that picking up and retaining languages is a snap for kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Monolingual DC language immersion parents I talk don't get it. They think that picking up and retaining languages is a snap for kids.

You must not have talked to us because no that is not how we think. We talked extensively to current parents at immersion schools outside of DC and also adult friends who attended language immersion schools growing up before we made the decision for our DC to be at a Spanish immersion charter.

We know going in that it would be challenging. We have engaged outside support in addition to summer immersion camps, plans for vacation travel to Spanish speaking countries, and once DC is older, summer camps abroad in Spanish speaking countries.

We are far from the only family doing this at our charter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The above article in a serious psychological journal referencing a meta-analytical review of the effects of bilingualism on executive functioning in adults, should give the parents who go for years and years of half-baked language immersion in DC public schools pause.

I'm raising my children fully bilingual to shore up their ethnic identity, to help them communicate well with immigrant relatives whose English is weak, and to increase their employability, knock on wood, as adults. I'm not raising them bilingual in the vain hope of making them smarter than monolingual peers in this country.

The findings of the study, summarized in the abstract at the link above, are hard to ignore.

Because of enduring experience of managing two languages, bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared with monolinguals. Despite extensive investigation, there is, however, no consensus regarding the existence of such a bilingual advantage. Here we synthesized comparisons of bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ performance in six executive domains using 891 effect sizes from 152 studies on adults. We also included unpublished data, and considered the potential influence of a number of study-, task-, and participant-related variables. Before correcting estimates for observed publication bias, our analyses revealed a very small bilingual advantage for inhibition, shifting, and working memory, but not for monitoring or attention. No evidence for a bilingual advantage remained after correcting for bias. For verbal fluency, our analyses indicated a small bilingual disadvantage, possibly reflecting less exposure for each individual language when using two languages in a balanced manner. Moreover, moderator analyses did not support theoretical presuppositions concerning the bilingual advantage. We conclude that the available evidence does not provide systematic support for the widely held notion that bilingualism is associated with benefits in cognitive control functions in adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

What?

“Executive control functions” are not the only kind of intelligence.

This study is showing that eating well as a kid doesn’t make someone a better tennis player and you’re arguing there are zero benefits of eating well as a kid.

We should invest more in teaching Americans how to interpret science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Monolingual DC language immersion parents I talk don't get it. They think that picking up and retaining languages is a snap for kids.

You must not have talked to us because no that is not how we think. We talked extensively to current parents at immersion schools outside of DC and also adult friends who attended language immersion schools growing up before we made the decision for our DC to be at a Spanish immersion charter.

We know going in that it would be challenging. We have engaged outside support in addition to summer immersion camps, plans for vacation travel to Spanish speaking countries, and once DC is older, summer camps abroad in Spanish speaking countries.

We are far from the only family doing this at our charter.

Great, you have the drive and resources to make the most of immersion for your child(ren) in the long-term, although, from the sounds of it, you don't speak Spanish at home. But you're not in the majority doing this at any DC immersion charter. The only bona fide two-way immersion program in DC is found at Oyster. But as Oyster's in-boundary population becomes more white/high SES, the Latino population of the school drops, hurting the immersion experience. The fact is, a great many DC charter immersion parents are mainly running away from low-performing in-boundary schools. They're much less serious about immersion study than you, and/or don't have the resources to support serious immersion study. DC charter does little to help low SES families support immersion outside of the classroom, unlike MoCo, where low SES immersion students are routinely sent to free or low-cost summer immersion camps.

We speak a language taught in a DC charter, and at DCI, at home (not Spanish). When we speak to upper grades elementary school students who attend this charter in the target language, and some of the most advanced DCI students studying it, we're seldom remotely impressed. We used to volunteer at school events once in a while but stopped. The whole arrangement was just too silly.

[Anonymous]

PP, are you referring to French or Chinese at DCI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Monolingual DC language immersion parents I talk don't get it. They think that picking up and retaining languages is a snap for kids.

You must not have talked to us because no that is not how we think. We talked extensively to current parents at immersion schools outside of DC and also adult friends who attended language immersion schools growing up before we made the decision for our DC to be at a Spanish immersion charter.

We know going in that it would be challenging. We have engaged outside support in addition to summer immersion camps, plans for vacation travel to Spanish speaking countries, and once DC is older, summer camps abroad in Spanish speaking countries.

We are far from the only family doing this at our charter.

Great, you have the drive and resources to make the most of immersion for your child(ren) in the long-term, although, from the sounds of it, you don't speak Spanish at home. But you're not in the majority doing this at any DC immersion charter. The only bona fide two-way immersion program in DC is found at Oyster. But as Oyster's in-boundary population becomes more white/high SES, the Latino population of the school drops, hurting the immersion experience. The fact is, a great many DC charter immersion parents are mainly running away from low-performing in-boundary schools. They're much less serious about immersion study than you, and/or don't have the resources to support serious immersion study. DC charter does little to help low SES families support immersion outside of the classroom, unlike MoCo, where low SES immersion students are routinely sent to free or low-cost summer immersion camps.

We speak a language taught in a DC charter, and at DCI, at home (not Spanish). When we speak to upper grades elementary school students who attend this charter in the target language, and some of the most advanced DCI students studying it, we're seldom remotely impressed. We used to volunteer at school events once in a while but stopped. The whole arrangement was just too silly.

Of course if it’s not Spanish and it’s either French or Mandarin, the program won’t be strong due to lack of native speaking students/families. That’s a well known fact. Families who have kids in these programs don’t have a high expectation for proficiency.

But if it’s Spanish, then yes lots of native speaking families in some of the charters/DCPS. There are also lots of UMC families like ourselves who can afford to supplement outside of school. We are at a charter and in the charter world, some schools have stronger programs than others. I can’t speak for the DCPS immersion schools.

Lastly, no, for low SES families in charters or DCPS, there are no free outside support. It is what it is. I would say though that many in this category don’t want language immersion. Look at the DCPS schools that offer 2 tracks - traditional and immersion and you will see these socioeconomic divisions.

Language immersion gets more and more difficult as you go up in the higher grades and some of the lower SES kids struggle since they don’t have outside support. Eventually the parents will pull their child out of the school to go the non-immersion route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Monolingual DC language immersion parents I talk don't get it. They think that picking up and retaining languages is a snap for kids.

You must not have talked to us because no that is not how we think. We talked extensively to current parents at immersion schools outside of DC and also adult friends who attended language immersion schools growing up before we made the decision for our DC to be at a Spanish immersion charter.

We know going in that it would be challenging. We have engaged outside support in addition to summer immersion camps, plans for vacation travel to Spanish speaking countries, and once DC is older, summer camps abroad in Spanish speaking countries.

We are far from the only family doing this at our charter.

Great, you have the drive and resources to make the most of immersion for your child(ren) in the long-term, although, from the sounds of it, you don't speak Spanish at home. But you're not in the majority doing this at any DC immersion charter. The only bona fide two-way immersion program in DC is found at Oyster. But as Oyster's in-boundary population becomes more white/high SES, the Latino population of the school drops, hurting the immersion experience. The fact is, a great many DC charter immersion parents are mainly running away from low-performing in-boundary schools. They're much less serious about immersion study than you, and/or don't have the resources to support serious immersion study. DC charter does little to help low SES families support immersion outside of the classroom, unlike MoCo, where low SES immersion students are routinely sent to free or low-cost summer immersion camps.

We speak a language taught in a DC charter, and at DCI, at home (not Spanish). When we speak to upper grades elementary school students who attend this charter in the target language, and some of the most advanced DCI students studying it, we're seldom remotely impressed. We used to volunteer at school events once in a while but stopped. The whole arrangement was just too silly.

Mundo Verde has a 4 week immersion summer camp offered only to their students. Like everything else extra at the school, cost is stratified based on income so the less you make, the less it costs. So they offer an affordable option for families who don’t make much. The school really tries to meet the needs of the lower SES students to help them succeed.

[Anonymous]

Good for MV. YY used to run a similar camp, but ditched it three of four years ago due to budget constraints.

[Anonymous]

Not mainly due to budget constraints, due to lack of interest.

Parents at YuYing don't want serious Chinese. Mandarin is used as a tool to dissuade poor families from applying and to jazz up the curriculum. That's it. If you're looking for serious Chinese immersion, MoCo, private lessons or public lessons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Studies have also shown that little kids lose acquired language almost as easily as they pick it up. Fine to start with toddlers and little kids, but not much use if they stop learning the language as older kids or teens. If you're choosing a random language for your child to learn that won't be reinforced either at home or in your community, the results may not be too hot eventually. Your kid may not see the point of continuing with the language once they have a say in the matter, since they don't have to speak it to get along. I can hear the dip in my fully bilingual older kids' conversational ability in the language one of us speaks at home after they've been away at summer camp for a few weeks.

Depends on what the goal is, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Monolingual DC language immersion parents I talk don't get it. They think that picking up and retaining languages is a snap for kids.

You must not have talked to us because no that is not how we think. We talked extensively to current parents at immersion schools outside of DC and also adult friends who attended language immersion schools growing up before we made the decision for our DC to be at a Spanish immersion charter.

We know going in that it would be challenging. We have engaged outside support in addition to summer immersion camps, plans for vacation travel to Spanish speaking countries, and once DC is older, summer camps abroad in Spanish speaking countries.

We are far from the only family doing this at our charter.

Same here. I'm not paying an arm and a leg and driving across the city this summer for my own enjoyment. It's so my kids can go to a Spanish-immersion camp for six weeks. So we're not exactly phoning it in. This assumption bothers me.

[Anonymous]

The "assumption" is made because the language skills of so many students in the upper grades in DC charter immersion programs, and on the "advanced" tracks at DCI, are weak, even for Spanish. Parents are told not to worry, the kids get enough language exposure and instruction at school to speak "proficiently." It just isn't true. MV has been letting in 3rd graders without background in Spanish. YY has never even bothered to send school info home in Chinese, or bothered to hire a Chinese-speaking head who can communicate effectively with native-speaking relatives of students in Cantonese or Mandarin (the two main dialects of Chinese spoken in the District). Unfortunately, there's a strong jokey element to language "immersion" in DC public schools. Without adults in the home who speak these languages year in and year out, and are determined to speak them to children and won't permit the children to answer in English, the results are only so good. Parents claim they're good, but they aren't.