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

[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.

It's not jealousy. It's resentment that the Chinese-heritage people have the temerity to judge YY and find it lacking. All the responses by YY parents or supporters I read are about "how dare you say my DS/DD speaks worse Chinese than she/he should have by now." It's like they are afraid to ask for higher standards.

[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.

It's not jealousy. It's resentment that the Chinese-heritage people have the temerity to judge YY and find it lacking. All the responses by YY parents or supporters I read are about "how dare you say my DS/DD speaks worse Chinese than she/he should have by now." It's like they are afraid to ask for higher standards.

Agree. This thread has been loaded with resentment that ethnic Chinese speakers dare report that they aren't impressed with YY's Mandarin instruction. Interestingly, the complaints on the Spanish immersion threads are usually about English instruction, not Spanish. The YY parents and supporters do sound afraid to ask for better instruction. They sound like they know standards are lacking and want higher standards, but make claims to the contrary in their resentment. I'm having trouble imagining them being worse off if they took the criticism with a grain of salt, learned from it, and responded by pushing for higher standards.

[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.

It's not jealousy. It's resentment that the Chinese-heritage people have the temerity to judge YY and find it lacking. All the responses by YY parents or supporters I read are about "how dare you say my DS/DD speaks worse Chinese than she/he should have by now." It's like they are afraid to ask for higher standards.

Agree. This thread has been loaded with resentment that ethnic Chinese speakers dare report that they aren't impressed with YY's Mandarin instruction. Interestingly, the complaints on the Spanish immersion threads are usually about English instruction, not Spanish. The YY parents and supporters do sound afraid to ask for better instruction. They sound like they know standards are lacking and want higher standards, but make claims to the contrary in their resentment. I'm having trouble imagining them being worse off if they took the criticism with a grain of salt, learned from it, and responded by pushing for higher standards.

NP. I disagree and I don't think you're accurately characterizing what's been said in this thread. It's perfectly fine to voice legitimate criticisms about YY and the language skills of the students. There are numerous posts discussing what steps the school and families can take and several in which posters agreed that there's room for improvement. It's quite a different thing to ridicule and be derogatory toward the students and the families, which is what a significant number of the posts in this thread are doing. THOSE are the posts eliciting responses of "how dare you." But some on this thread seem hellbent on insisting that YY families are jealous of or resent Chinese heritage people for speaking out about deficiencies, even when there is nothing to support that sentiment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This conversation is already 21 pages long so I haven't read (and probably won't read) all that came before, just gonna give my experience.

My child is a 3rd grader now, so been at YY for 4 full years (PreK4 through 2nd), and now early in his 3rd grade year. None of us are of Chinese origin, and none of us spoke Chinese before he started at YY. He also gets no supplementary Chinese instruction or tutoring, we don't go to any weekend classes or other classes outside of his regular work at YY, and we don't have any nanny or au pair.

My experience with his Mandarin language skills is very positive. Because this is DC, we have sought out and found several ways to throw him into situations where he's speaking Mandarin with natives, to see how it goes and what they have to say about his skills. First of all, as early as the end of 1st grade there were very few things that anyone would say to him in Chinese that he didn't understand. He wasn't always able to find the best words to answer, but even that early there was abundant back and forth and the people he was speaking to ALWAYS commented on how good his comprehension was, how great his tones are, and they can't believe he can converse like that. And it's just gotten better since 1st grade.

Also, on playdates with other YY kids they will often on their own start speaking Chinese, although more often it's by a parent suggesting it. But they really do do it on their own as well.

While I understand (according to many native speakers) that Chinese people are gracious and unlikely to say anything super-negative about a child's language skills in these kinds of contexts, it always annoys me when people dismiss the positive feedback some of us get as if NO ONE Chinese is capable of being sincere or clear about their impressions. There is almost always clear surprise and clear appreciation for his skills, most people are very specific about what impresses them.

And most importantly, to the original question, his conversations are real conversations. Not just broken "What you say when ordering at a restaurant". At this point I can't remember the last time somoene said something to him in Mandarin and he didn't understand and answer, on his own, with no prompting.

So I don't know what's in these pages, but our experience at YY is far from unusual- it's very common. I don't know any kids in his grade with poor or really incomplete Mandarin skills, although I obviously also don't know every single kid in his grade. But the ones we do know, and the ones we see out and about in contexts where there are adult native speakers, do very very well and are always highly praised and we get lots of great feedback. And it's not always the same - sometimes kids get different feedback on specific things, like tones. But overall it's far far more advanced than cute little phrases or canned exchanges.

We hope you're on the mark, but since you don't speak Chinese, who knows.

Not the previous poster, but I think the same thing about Spanish! I don't speak it, so I have no way of knowing how well or poorly my DD speaks.

[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.

It's not jealousy. It's resentment that the Chinese-heritage people have the temerity to judge YY and find it lacking. All the responses by YY parents or supporters I read are about "how dare you say my DS/DD speaks worse Chinese than she/he should have by now." It's like they are afraid to ask for higher standards.

Agree. This thread has been loaded with resentment that ethnic Chinese speakers dare report that they aren't impressed with YY's Mandarin instruction. Interestingly, the complaints on the Spanish immersion threads are usually about English instruction, not Spanish. The YY parents and supporters do sound afraid to ask for better instruction. They sound like they know standards are lacking and want higher standards, but make claims to the contrary in their resentment. I'm having trouble imagining them being worse off if they took the criticism with a grain of salt, learned from it, and responded by pushing for higher standards.

NP. I disagree and I don't think you're accurately characterizing what's been said in this thread. It's perfectly fine to voice legitimate criticisms about YY and the language skills of the students. There are numerous posts discussing what steps the school and families can take and several in which posters agreed that there's room for improvement. It's quite a different thing to ridicule and be derogatory toward the students and the families, which is what a significant number of the posts in this thread are doing. THOSE are the posts eliciting responses of "how dare you." But some on this thread seem hellbent on insisting that YY families are jealous of or resent Chinese heritage people for speaking out about deficiencies, even when there is nothing to support that sentiment.

Nothing to support that sentiment? Give me a break. I'm not Chinese but when your DS/DD is struggling to learn a really difficult Asian language you can't understand, a language that seriously upwardly mobile Chinese immigrants (who steer clear of the school) speak beautifully, jealously AND resentment are naturally going to rear their ugly heads. Almost all the posts pointing out that the kids Mandarin isn't so hot after years and years of immersion study have elicited defensive responses. THOSE are the posts showing the posters' true colors.

[Anonymous]

As others have said, many on this thread are not actually YY families. I am a PP with a kid studying another language at another immersion school with a sizable proportion of native speakers; I've chimed in a few times, as I've been following this thread. My only connection to YY is that a few of my neighbors' kids attend.

I still think some of the YY detractors have been mean-spirited in their mocking of current families, saying the kids "speak like toddlers," etc. That is in large part what is creating the backlash--the downright pettiness from several (or one?) of the detractors. Also, some suggestions/opinions re: YY kids' language acquisition skills may indeed be reasonable, but they aren't being taken well because of some PPs' sneering, mocking delivery of this information.

Also, if some of you have indeed moved on after leaving YY many, many years ago, and your kids' current schools are working out well, why are you so invested in criticizing YY, to the point of posting at all hours during the workday, etc.? Seems a lot of valuable time spent on a school that should be in your rearview.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's mean-spirited to say the kids speak like toddlers. It's not a criticism of a child him or herself.

[Anonymous]

In a way it makes sense that the upwardly mobile Chinese would opt out of YY since most native Chinese speakers and sadly even some ABCs have atrocious spoken English and/or grammar. Since they can't mirror proper pronunciation/ grammar at home and don't have a firm grasp on the cannon of American literature- of course they would strive to find the lightest and brightest cohort WOTP or in MoCo where they can get extra English language support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, many on this thread are not actually YY families. I am a PP with a kid studying another language at another immersion school with a sizable proportion of native speakers; I've chimed in a few times, as I've been following this thread. My only connection to YY is that a few of my neighbors' kids attend.

I still think some of the YY detractors have been mean-spirited in their mocking of current families, saying the kids "speak like toddlers," etc. That is in large part what is creating the backlash--the downright pettiness from several (or one?) of the detractors. Also, some suggestions/opinions re: YY kids' language acquisition skills may indeed be reasonable, but they aren't being taken well because of some PPs' sneering, mocking delivery of this information.

Also, if some of you have indeed moved on after leaving YY many, many years ago, and your kids' current schools are working out well, why are you so invested in criticizing YY, to the point of posting at all hours during the workday, etc.? Seems a lot of valuable time spent on a school that should be in your rearview.

I've chimed in a few times to point out the lack of ambition YY supporters project, which invites its own backlash from critics of various stripes. What the school seems to do, unlike the charter Spanish immersion programs with a sizable proportion of native speakers, is actively buck best practices in language learning. YY is hardly alone in this regard. Disregard for best practices is a constant theme in our public schools, although we already have the demographics to aim higher. Supporters come here championing their lack of seriousness of purpose in supporting high standards for Chinese instruction. They defend YY for not reaching out to the local ethnic community, and DCI for not planning to teach truly advanced language courses. They call advanced Chinese dumb and inappropriate in this particular city and advise anybody who disagrees to hit the road for MoCo. It's depressing. Immigrant East Asians don't relate.

I think back to the day I met my college roommate's family in NYC Chinatown. I could hardly believe how poorly this brilliant guy's parents spoke English. I was shocked by how tiny their apartment was, and the sweat shop jobs I discovered the adults worked. I couldn't understand how a first-rate humanities student could have come from that background. I don't think posters are criticizing YY as much as they're criticizing our public schools for not bothering to seize the day. What's worse, it's done in the name of helping poor minority kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a way it makes sense that the upwardly mobile Chinese would opt out of YY since most native Chinese speakers and sadly even some ABCs have atrocious spoken English and/or grammar. Since they can't mirror proper pronunciation/ grammar at home and don't have a firm grasp on the cannon of American literature- of course they would strive to find the lightest and brightest cohort WOTP or in MoCo where they can get extra English language support.

We get it. You don't like or respect local Chinese immigrants. Why then do you want your kids in Chinese immersion? Because the Chinese in China are so much better than the ones here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a way it makes sense that the upwardly mobile Chinese would opt out of YY since most native Chinese speakers and sadly even some ABCs have atrocious spoken English and/or grammar. Since they can't mirror proper pronunciation/ grammar at home and don't have a firm grasp on the cannon of American literature- of course they would strive to find the lightest and brightest cohort WOTP or in MoCo where they can get extra English language support.

We get it. You don't like or respect local Chinese immigrants. Why then do you want your kids in Chinese immersion? Because the Chinese in China are so much better than the ones here?

Are you the one who called Chinese racism a "cultural disconnect"? How are you addressing that elephant?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like there are cultural differences and expectations or school.

Stereotypes are always a little true. ABC families generally want more rigor and value test scores and acceleration. While higher SES white families in DC seek out play-based early ed, and schools that talk about a whole child approach (at least through middle) more than test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, many on this thread are not actually YY families. I am a PP with a kid studying another language at another immersion school with a sizable proportion of native speakers; I've chimed in a few times, as I've been following this thread. My only connection to YY is that a few of my neighbors' kids attend.

I still think some of the YY detractors have been mean-spirited in their mocking of current families, saying the kids "speak like toddlers," etc. That is in large part what is creating the backlash--the downright pettiness from several (or one?) of the detractors. Also, some suggestions/opinions re: YY kids' language acquisition skills may indeed be reasonable, but they aren't being taken well because of some PPs' sneering, mocking delivery of this information.

Also, if some of you have indeed moved on after leaving YY many, many years ago, and your kids' current schools are working out well, why are you so invested in criticizing YY, to the point of posting at all hours during the workday, etc.? Seems a lot of valuable time spent on a school that should be in your rearview.

THIS x 1000. This is the odd thing about this thread and others like it. Whether or not the kids are speaking great Mandarin, WHY DO YOU CARE? Clearly you're here to trash a school for no reason, since your kids don't go there. W.T.F.

[Anonymous]

5:21's take makes sense. In the unlikely event that DC ed leaders pay attention to a discussion like this one, lessons could be learned about how to set up immersion programs. If the local native speaking community of a particular language is tiny, like with the Chinese in DC, as a school system, you're better off running an immersion school as a traditional public schools than charters, as long as the programs are of good quality. That way, schools could offer lotteries to attract native speakers from a tiny pond.

Arguably, you can only build a serious program for teaching speaking in a language if you're in a position to attract both bilingual students and many non native parents willing to put out to ensure that kids can really speak. With these inputs, eventually you can also build a high performing International Bacc. Dip program. Even the Oyster situation isn't all that great for immersion students, feeding into Wilson where IBDip isn't offered (AP languages don't challenge the strongest immersion students).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As others have said, many on this thread are not actually YY families. I am a PP with a kid studying another language at another immersion school with a sizable proportion of native speakers; I've chimed in a few times, as I've been following this thread. My only connection to YY is that a few of my neighbors' kids attend.

I still think some of the YY detractors have been mean-spirited in their mocking of current families, saying the kids "speak like toddlers," etc. That is in large part what is creating the backlash--the downright pettiness from several (or one?) of the detractors. Also, some suggestions/opinions re: YY kids' language acquisition skills may indeed be reasonable, but they aren't being taken well because of some PPs' sneering, mocking delivery of this information.

Also, if some of you have indeed moved on after leaving YY many, many years ago, and your kids' current schools are working out well, why are you so invested in criticizing YY, to the point of posting at all hours during the workday, etc.? Seems a lot of valuable time spent on a school that should be in your rearview.

THIS x 1000. This is the odd thing about this thread and others like it. Whether or not the kids are speaking great Mandarin, WHY DO YOU CARE? Clearly you're here to trash a school for no reason, since your kids don't go there. W.T.F.

Because it's a public school subsidized by their tax dollars. I also care about Ballou and Dunbar, even though my children don't attend them.