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

[Anonymous]

Some parents give DCI a try for middle school before making the decision to move out of the city, pay for a pricey private, or try again to lottery into another DC public school. Others stay, particularly YY parents (mainly because no other DC public school teaches "advanced" middle school Chinese).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much indignation over tone and unpleasantness on the part of native speakers who vote with their feet while real and pressing problems stare us in the face. Best to see the forest for the trees and direct energies toward pushing DCPC to get its act together where DCI goes. Summarizing the best post on this thread, back 15 pages:

There are 3 sets of problems at DCI:

1- The school admin and teachers are not sufficiently committed to demanding appropriate non-disruptive behavior in the classroom. Motivated kids are not able to learn because the classroom has many kids who are not interested in learning and are disruptive, and are not controlled by staff. Some parents on this thread roll their eyes and find this absolutely normal, and consider that this is what diversity is. That is a problem.
2- There is no tracking in non-language subjects, which makes absolutely no sense at all, and is harmful to kids of all levels.
3- There are many students who show up in high school after nine years of language immersion and don't know how to speak the language. The immersion elementary and middle schools did not do an adequate job making their students fluent in the larger languages.

But this thread isn't about DCI. Maybe start another one. Or find the many that exist.

[Anonymous]

You're more than welcome to this downer thread. I've learned all I care to about both YY and DCI, the charter equivalents of protectionist states with high import tariffs. Even the most affluent parents don't want their kids to have to compete with kids who speak languages well.

So inspiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're more than welcome to this downer thread. I've learned all I care to about both YY and DCI, the charter equivalents of protectionist states with high import tariffs. Even the most affluent parents don't want their kids to have to compete with kids who speak languages well.

So inspiring.

You are 100 percent mistaken.

[Anonymous]

^S/he's not wrong.

We hosted Chinese au pairs for years AND paid for 2 summers at a big 2-week immersion Concordia Camp. We have since moved on from YuYing to a private w/a strong Chinese program.

To my knowledge, we were the only YuYing families at ANY Chinese Concordia camp both summers - they offer 1,2 and 4-week Mandarin immersion camps. PLENTY OF OTHER families could have hosted au pairs and/or paid for the camp without difficulty.

Guess what? Other high SES families in the school community paid for summer vacations to Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean etc. along with pricey enrichment camps running them more. At the camp, we met many other public Chinese immersion kids/families from all around the US + Canada. The campers included a couple kids in DC public schools but not at YuYing. They spoke excellent Mandarin (unlike DS)...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^S/he's not wrong.

We hosted Chinese au pairs for years AND paid for 2 summers at a big 2-week immersion Concordia Camp. We have since moved on from YuYing to a private w/a strong Chinese program.

To my knowledge, we were the only YuYing families at ANY Chinese Concordia camp both summers - they offer 1,2 and 4-week Mandarin immersion camps. PLENTY OF OTHER families could have hosted au pairs and/or paid for the camp without difficulty.

Guess what? Other high SES families in the school community paid for summer vacations to Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean etc. along with pricey enrichment camps running them more. At the camp, we met many other public Chinese immersion kids/families from all around the US + Canada. The campers included a couple kids in DC public schools but not at YuYing. They spoke excellent Mandarin (unlike DS)...

NP. I'm not disagreeing with your premise that some YY parents could stand to do more to support the language, but you're making a huge assumption that parents are choosing to NOT do these things because they aren't that committed to Chinese. I, for example, would not be comfortable sending my 10 year old to camp a thousand miles away. Expense and commitment to Chinese have nothing to do with it. I also have no need for an au pair because I SAH. Many of the YY families I know also have a SAHP. So, while I agree that immersion requires a level of commitment outside of school, your examples and the assumptions you make are misplaced.

[Anonymous]

They come off as not being committed to Chinese because most of them aren't. For example, while we've never allowed DS to watch kids entertainment in English unless it's a special occasion, we seemed to be one of very few families in our kid's grade with that policy. Plenty of high ses YuYing families with piles of kids DVDs at home have few, or none, dubbed into Mandarin. They don't even buy all-region DVD players (available at Walmart, cheap). I don't know too many YY families who go out of their way to ensure that their children speak Mandarin to native speakers in this country, especially kids their age. We weren't impressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They come off as not being committed to Chinese because most of them aren't. For example, while we've never allowed DS to watch kids entertainment in English unless it's a special occasion, we seemed to be one of very few families in our kid's grade with that policy. Plenty of high ses YuYing families with piles of kids DVDs at home have few, or none, dubbed into Mandarin. They don't even buy all-region DVD players (available at Walmart, cheap). I don't know too many YY families who go out of their way to ensure that their children speak Mandarin to native speakers in this country, especially kids their age. We weren't impressed.

I don't believe that plenty of high SES families have piles of DVDs in 2017.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They come off as not being committed to Chinese because most of them aren't. For example, while we've never allowed DS to watch kids entertainment in English unless it's a special occasion, we seemed to be one of very few families in our kid's grade with that policy. Plenty of high ses YuYing families with piles of kids DVDs at home have few, or none, dubbed into Mandarin. They don't even buy all-region DVD players (available at Walmart, cheap). I don't know too many YY families who go out of their way to ensure that their children speak Mandarin to native speakers in this country, especially kids their age. We weren't impressed.

I don't believe that plenty of high SES families have piles of DVDs in 2017.

I was about to say the same thing! Who has a DVD player anymore??

[Anonymous]

Good point. Nobody at YY needs DVDs anymore, not when most of the students read, speak and understand excellent Mandarin for their ages. They decipher Mandarin entertainment titles and subtitles with ease by 1st grade, enabling them to figure out exactly what they're tuning into off YouTube, CCTV, Jiangsu Sat TV, Hunan Sat TV. etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They come off as not being committed to Chinese because most of them aren't. For example, while we've never allowed DS to watch kids entertainment in English unless it's a special occasion, we seemed to be one of very few families in our kid's grade with that policy. Plenty of high ses YuYing families with piles of kids DVDs at home have few, or none, dubbed into Mandarin. They don't even buy all-region DVD players (available at Walmart, cheap). I don't know too many YY families who go out of their way to ensure that their children speak Mandarin to native speakers in this country, especially kids their age. We weren't impressed.

You sound like a creep, entering people's houses to do a DVD check and evaluating the mandarin of other people's children!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they do, but not all that much.

English, science and social studies classes mostly serving SES Latino kids who struggle with English don't meet the needs of advanced learners. Asian "tiger parents" may be disliked, even despised, on these threads, but I'd give a lot to have a boatload of their kids at DCI.

Your true racist colors really come out on this post. I'm sorry that your Chinese kid might have to be around Latinos! No one wants racists at DCI.

[Anonymous]

Couldn't disagree more. PP made an obvious point. Kids who need remedial education/intensive ELL support don't belong in the same middle school humanities classes as kids who are really advanced in ELA. This is a real problem all over the place. No wonder suburban parents in this Metro area in school catchment areas with high numbers of ELLs seek out middle school GT programs. Even Stuart Hobson has offered honors English for the last few years to provide appropriate differentiation. DCI doesn't and should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They come off as not being committed to Chinese because most of them aren't. For example, while we've never allowed DS to watch kids entertainment in English unless it's a special occasion, we seemed to be one of very few families in our kid's grade with that policy. Plenty of high ses YuYing families with piles of kids DVDs at home have few, or none, dubbed into Mandarin. They don't even buy all-region DVD players (available at Walmart, cheap). I don't know too many YY families who go out of their way to ensure that their children speak Mandarin to native speakers in this country, especially kids their age. We weren't impressed.

You sound like a creep, entering people's houses to do a DVD check and evaluating the mandarin of other people's children!!!

I agree, what a creep.

PP's kid spends years and years at YY. Their kid often goes to playdates, birthday parties, sleepovers etc. at classmates' houses. Over the years, the kid reports that one classmate's family after another doesn't bother to insist that YY kids watch kids entertainment in Mandarin. The family makes a connection between weak Mandarin and entertainment in English. Criminal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Couldn't disagree more. PP made an obvious point. Kids who need remedial education/intensive ELL support don't belong in the same middle school humanities classes as kids who are really advanced in ELA. This is a real problem all over the place. No wonder suburban parents in this Metro area in school catchment areas with high numbers of ELLs seek out middle school GT programs. Even Stuart Hobson has offered honors English for the last few years to provide appropriate differentiation. DCI doesn't and should.

There's this thing called research where people do studies. They will tell you that you are dead wrong.

I wonder, if your child was the one with a condition that threatened his quality of life (let's say cancer instead of poverty, both devasting conditions that no one chooses). Would you be OK if your doctor crowd sourced treatment on DCUM instead of doing what research shows to be the best thing? No, then don' offer uninformed opinions, please.