CMI vs YY for PK3?

[Anonymous]

Yes, and admins who really speak the language and know the culture, and a staff focused on building communication skills.

We're not thrilled with YY after two years there. Oh yes, lovely community, nice playground, decent in-class differentiation, but we went mainly for the Chinese and it's so-so. We hired a great tutor this summer (another family's Chinese au pair). The tutor has helped us confront the reality that our kid can barely communicate in Mandarin. More than $2,000 in charges later and she can finally speak in whole sentences. At this stage, if I could afford an au pair, and had a spare bedroom, I'd host one tomorrow.

Maybe it's much easier to point to the length of the WL than to address problems. Go ahead, call me a troll.

Signed
YY Parent Considering In-boundary DCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whoah, weaknesses in Mandarin are not "easily correctible" at any age (says the musically talented ABC who speaks two dialects and reads OK, after attending heritage schools on Fri nights from K-12). I even spent a college year at a Chinese univ in a full immersion program without emerging as fluent in either dialect. In our experience, YY only gives good or excellent grades in speaking. Admins know that, with only a handful of true native-speaking kids in the school, speaking Mandarin is tied to SES: money for Chinese au pairs (native speakers without local grandparents often host them), tutors and immersion summer camps, preferably in China. Admins tell the Chinese teachers that it's unfair to grade kids down for speaking/listening ability, so they don't.

That sounds appropriate to me.

Some of us would prefer a more serious language program, working around limitations imposed by federal charter law, than what's "appropriate." YY could offer summer immersion camps with fees on a sliding scale. Many parents would happily pay. They could also start testing alleged heritage speakers for speaking ability on arrival and publishing the results. MoCo is doing all this.

I love it when people suggest what another enterprise should just "offer." Have you created a business plan? What's the curriculum? What's the staffing model? How many students will enroll (lower bound, estimated mean, upper bound)? What will be the costs and what's the price structure?

You realize that you're talking about creating a private program within a public school, right? This isn't an extension of what Yu Ying currently offers - that's a state-funded (or district-funded) model. This is entirely different. Nice that MoCo does it, have you considered moving there? Because DC does not. What's your proposal? What are the specifics?

If it's so easy, then you should have something in mind. Let's hear it.

Ummmm...a lot of DC charters have summer camps so I don't think this idea is all that crazy...

Really? That's splendid! Tell us please which DC charters run a "summer immersion camp"? The sort which might be described as "more serious language program, working around limitations imposed by federal charter law"? The sort for which "many parents would happily pay"?

You sound like a troll. LAMB has a 4 week summer camp. Another poster mentioned MV's. And some non-language charters (CM) do as well. So get a grip on what you are talking about prior to sounding like an unhinged weirdo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and admins who really speak the language and know the culture, and a staff focused on building communication skills.

We're not thrilled with YY after two years there. Oh yes, lovely community, nice playground, decent in-class differentiation, but we went mainly for the Chinese and it's so-so. We hired a great tutor this summer (another family's Chinese au pair). The tutor has helped us confront the reality that our kid can barely communicate in Mandarin. More than $2,000 in charges later and she can finally speak in whole sentences. At this stage, if I could afford an au pair, and had a spare bedroom, I'd host one tomorrow.

Maybe it's much easier to point to the length of the WL than to address problems. Go ahead, call me a troll.

Signed
YY Parent Considering In-boundary DCPS

And for some of us, it's okay that their Chinese isn't perfect, although my child certainly could speak in full sentences after two years. It's elementary school.

[Anonymous]

+1. Finally, somebody calls out the YY-couldn't-be-any-better-because-of-federal-charter-law troll. Thanks for doing this before he branded you as a racist "heritage" type.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And for some of us, it's okay that their Chinese isn't perfect, although my child certainly could speak in full sentences after two years. It's elementary school.

Isn't perfect, please. Do you speak Chinese? Kids learn to speak languages best in the lower grades of ES. The best Chinese-speaking kids in the city aren't at YY. Not by a long shot.

Without a native speaker in the home or a whole lot of pricey tutoring, YY Chinese is downright embarrassing. But, hey, why nitpick in one of the lowest performing urban public school systems in the country? If their ELA and math PARCC scores are acceptable, immersion charters get a pass on language instruction, period.

[Anonymous]

Who cares? We are happy there. There are other families who are happy there. Some people are not happy and they leave. You do you and I will do me.

[Anonymous]

Who cares if YY kids speak good Chinese? Uh....many parents do, at least in the lower grades.

There's talk of having YY, or at least a group of parents, partner with one of the MoCo heritage language schools outside school. The partnership would provide parents who want their Chinese learners to interact with native-speaking peers on a regular basis with a collective avenue of advance. It seems that the arrangement wouldn't mean breaking (bone-headed) federal charter law. Here's hoping that nobody in charge kills this good idea.

While you and other parents may be happy with the odd formal Mandarin most of the kids struggle to speak, us, not so much.

PS. We're not leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whoah, weaknesses in Mandarin are not "easily correctible" at any age (says the musically talented ABC who speaks two dialects and reads OK, after attending heritage schools on Fri nights from K-12). I even spent a college year at a Chinese univ in a full immersion program without emerging as fluent in either dialect. In our experience, YY only gives good or excellent grades in speaking. Admins know that, with only a handful of true native-speaking kids in the school, speaking Mandarin is tied to SES: money for Chinese au pairs (native speakers without local grandparents often host them), tutors and immersion summer camps, preferably in China. Admins tell the Chinese teachers that it's unfair to grade kids down for speaking/listening ability, so they don't.

That sounds appropriate to me.

Some of us would prefer a more serious language program, working around limitations imposed by federal charter law, than what's "appropriate." YY could offer summer immersion camps with fees on a sliding scale. Many parents would happily pay. They could also start testing alleged heritage speakers for speaking ability on arrival and publishing the results. MoCo is doing all this.

I love it when people suggest what another enterprise should just "offer." Have you created a business plan? What's the curriculum? What's the staffing model? How many students will enroll (lower bound, estimated mean, upper bound)? What will be the costs and what's the price structure?

You realize that you're talking about creating a private program within a public school, right? This isn't an extension of what Yu Ying currently offers - that's a state-funded (or district-funded) model. This is entirely different. Nice that MoCo does it, have you considered moving there? Because DC does not. What's your proposal? What are the specifics?

If it's so easy, then you should have something in mind. Let's hear it.

Ummmm...a lot of DC charters have summer camps so I don't think this idea is all that crazy...

Really? That's splendid! Tell us please which DC charters run a "summer immersion camp"? The sort which might be described as "more serious language program, working around limitations imposed by federal charter law"? The sort for which "many parents would happily pay"?

You sound like a troll. LAMB has a 4 week summer camp. Another poster mentioned MV's. And some non-language charters (CM) do as well. So get a grip on what you are talking about prior to sounding like an unhinged weirdo.

Stokes hosts a summer camp.

[Anonymous]

Yu Ying gets more hate on these boards than most schools, but its retention rates are the highest in the city. That's a fact; the rest is anonymous blather.

[Anonymous]

It's true, the retention rate is impressive. But as a native speaker with bilingual kids who left YY, I still see a time of reckoning for the school, after several years of IB Diploma Chinese results have been made public.

More than 80% of AP Chinese test takers score 5s, and the SAT II test is so easy that students with just two years of HS instruction can ace it. So elite colleges aren't bowled over by middle-class kids scoring 5s and 700s on American standardized tests for Chinese. Problem is, the way YY teaches spoken Mandarin means that it will be next to impossible for kids without native speakers in the home to score high on IBD Chinese, where immersion students are supposed to stand out.

I can't see middle-class DCI kids standing out in the pack for their Chinese in admissions to national universities, where they will be competing with many dual-immersion program grads (mainly from the West Coast). YY parents seem to assume that their kids will emerge as Chinese-speaking standouts in college admissions, but I can't see it. Out of earshot of YY pals, my kids jokingly call YY Mandarin "I-pod GPS Chinese."

Hint: pushing admins to train Mainland teachers to put far more emphasis on speaking, bringing back summer camp, and partnering with local programs with native speaking kids couldn't hurt. Launching into skeptics/critics may feel good, but it won't help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's true, the retention rate is impressive. But as a native speaker with bilingual kids who left YY, I still see a time of reckoning for the school, after several years of IB Diploma Chinese results have been made public.

More than 80% of AP Chinese test takers score 5s, and the SAT II test is so easy that students with just two years of HS instruction can ace it. So elite colleges aren't bowled over by middle-class kids scoring 5s and 700s on American standardized tests for Chinese. Problem is, the way YY teaches spoken Mandarin means that it will be next to impossible for kids without native speakers in the home to score high on IBD Chinese, where immersion students are supposed to stand out.

I can't see middle-class DCI kids standing out in the pack for their Chinese in admissions to national universities, where they will be competing with many dual-immersion program grads (mainly from the West Coast). YY parents seem to assume that their kids will emerge as Chinese-speaking standouts in college admissions, but I can't see it. Out of earshot of YY pals, my kids jokingly call YY Mandarin "I-pod GPS Chinese."

Hint: pushing admins to train Mainland teachers to put far more emphasis on speaking, bringing back summer camp, and partnering with local programs with native speaking kids couldn't hurt. Launching into skeptics/critics may feel good, but it won't help.

We get it. Really, we do. I am 100 percent in favor of your recommendations, and I know that YY administrators are always trying to improve Chinese success. But for the last time, please realize that there are many YY parents who are not counting on YY to get our children into college, to score well on the Chinese IB diploma or to get a job. We just want our kids to have good exposure to foreign language and a nice, safe elementary school that prepares students to go on to middle school.

I am baffled by the former parents who continue to haunt the YY threads to badmouth its children.

[Anonymous]

Reporting facts about a school = bad mouthing? Only on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Not a former YY parent, but what "baffles" me is the attitude of YY parents.

We are Asian immigrants who had to study Mandarin from a young age through tertiary education. We live near half a dozen YY families (none with any connection to Chinese culture that we know of). The parents talk about how well the children speak Mandarin. They also talk about the children getting into ivy league schools and elite colleges one day, on the strength of their Mandarin.

We can hardly understand what the YY students say in Mandarin and they can hardly understand us. This is true no matter how slowly we speak, how old the children are, and how much we dumb the conversation down!

I get that you guys do not have strong neighborhood schools and want a 2nd language. The rest I do not get. If you are going to have your children learn a language in an "immersion setting," why not do it properly? If you are not going to do it properly, why boast about it? I have learned to avoid YY families because the issues about conversation are so awkward. No more to say on the subject.

[Anonymous]

Okay, so the real issue is parents who have an overinflated idea of what their kids are capable of. Welcome to DC, where all the high-SES parents think their precious angels are going to the Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Yes, and with YY telling parents that the kids' spoken Chinese rocks, and few parents knowing any better (no blunt Chinese speakers in their lives whose opinion is solicited), the result is predictable.