Sp or Ch language?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I'm far from convinced. Visit the playground at Oyster. You hear as many Spanish conversations taking place as English. Then visit the YY playground - almost every conversation that doesn't involve a teacher in English.

Clearly you have not met my child. DC even speaks it at home, thinking I might pick it up at some point. I am a Spanish speaker (second language -- level 4 once upon a time) who never rarely uses his Spanish.

[Anonymous]

I am really heartened to hear from these (thoughtful) YY parents. But I have to agree with 03:40, the Russian-speaking parent who went to a YY Open House. I too am Chinese American and was a bit surprised by the tone of the principal's response when asked how many Chinese-speaking families there were at the school. Sigh. And I appreciate she is thinking of kids and curriculum and teachers first and foremost and she doesn't suffer fools lightly. But both she and the executive director would really do a huge service to the school they so love and want to succeed by simply being a little more polite -- that's a basic thing. And perhaps less defensive, too, that would go a long, logng way.

[Anonymous]

Likewise. My pre-k DS actually dreams in Chinese sometimes and will burst out with Chinese almost as often as English. You'll also see the preK kids speaking Chinese together on the playground. It is sort of mind-boggling and way more than I expected. By 2nd grade, btw, on Chinese days the kids are required to speak Chinese all day wherever they are. To the PP, how much time have you actually spent on the playground during the school day? As far as I know, parents don't routinely hang out there...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Likewise. My pre-k DS actually dreams in Chinese sometimes and will burst out with Chinese almost as often as English. You'll also see the preK kids speaking Chinese together on the playground. It is sort of mind-boggling and way more than I expected. By 2nd grade, btw, on Chinese days the kids are required to speak Chinese all day wherever they are. To the PP, how much time have you actually spent on the playground during the school day? As far as I know, parents don't routinely hang out there...

ITA! Way, WAY more than what I expected too. Maybe it's b/c they're so young + full immersion, etc. PreK has been amazing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you lived in MoCo and had more than a passing interest in Chinese language and culture, I'd recommend immersion there. But I agree with posters pointing out that Yu Ying offers a strangely sanitized version of Chinese at best. My wife, a Chinese immigrant, wasn't at all happy with the fact that our kid was really the only bilingual child in her grade. We switched to a MoCo immersion ES and the difference was night & day - Chinese administrators, droves of Chinese parents involved in the school, many other bilingual children to model the language and culture for the non-Chinese. Moreover, not many low-income kids, but the ones they took received all sorts of targetted support (including trips to China and language summer camp) so no non-immersion/second track as at YY, another aspect I like.

Very few of the YY parents seemed to care much about the situation, perhaps the most troubling aspect to my wife. So if you're fine with Chinese immersion without Chinese kids, other than in a handful of cases (don't be fooled by all the Asian-looking kids, the great majority girls adopted from China by white couples), Yu Ying rocks. You'll hear the administrators and parents arguing that there's no way around it - DC Charter won't countenance a lottery for bilingual kids. But we spoke to members of the Charter Board about the situation and they denied this - said that if YY 's PA ever lobbied for two lotteries, they'd almost certainly get two. They don't and won't.

But, we don't live in MoCo. This is a DC forum. See, it's right there in the upper left of the page.

You are such a TRANSPLANT!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. What a snob. Glad you're going away to quietly educate your kid about your language and culture in isolation.

Hardly. There's a good-sized Chinese community in the Metro area, centered in Rockville, that does all sorts of things, just not at YY. We also get involved in China-oriented events at our IB school.

Great you're ABC and part of ABC culture... I'm the other Asian person, born and raised partially there, at the beginning of the thread. Have many ABC friends but have no desire to have DC learn from ABCs. You know you are not considered "Chinese" by those born and raised in China but Americans - and no matter what you want to believe, your accent is "off".
I knew this was going to devolve into a pissing match of who's more Asian, but I think the PP above who would like more ethnic Chinese in a Chinese immersion school has a good point.

My family is Russian. My DS is in a Russian-language preschool, where business is conducted entirely in Russian. About 75% of kids are Russian, the other quarter are American with some sort of family connection to mutterland. All teachers are native Russians. And that's why they have my business. If there was an odd American teacher there (in addition to a dozen Russian ones) who happened to be fluent in Russian and our culture, I may have considered it. But to have DS in a ostensibly Russian preschool where the overwhelming majority of personnel speak foreign-accented Russian and don't know the culture natively? Nyet. May as well do Bright Horizons.

At Yu Ying the Chinese teachers are all Chinese. The English teachers are American. So they aren't learning Chinese from Americans with accents. Nor English from the Chinese with accents. Amazing how much misinformation and vitriol Yu Ying incites on this board!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this thread evolving into a "anti-YY" pissing context?
I am a YY parent -- No Chinese connection in our family.
Honestly, I am very happy to have a non-Chinese administrator at YY (and a great one at that!).
Would I want my kid to go to a Chinese school?? NO. I want my kid to go to an AMERICAN school in Chinese. If she can pick up a bit of Chinese, Chinese culture when she is there, it's great. If she does not, what's the problem? If she does but never uses it again, so what?? Do you use everything you learned in school??
The bonus? She is in a GREAT PUBLIC school and in the process is learning something new and unusual for her background.

and FYI: about 1/3 of the kids in my daughter's class have some connection to China: parents speaking Chinese (Chinese parents but some American parents who lived there for years), adopted kids whose parents (some ALSO Chinese) want to keep a connection to China.

You don't like YY? Move on!
The WL is very long and a LOT of people are clamoring to get in...

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you visit any weekend foreign language school (Chinese, Arabic, Urdu, etc.) in the U.S. attended by children of mostly native born parents (and even foreign born kids) from whichever country, the kids are speaking English in the playground, prefer to speak English, and will only speak whatever is the native language of their parents if they are prompted even if they are bilingual or nearly so in both languages. It's called assimilation.

Canada is a bilingual country with two official languages...

I have no problem with YY not giving preference to Chinese speakers (not many Mandarin speakers in DC anyway). The program has worked great for my DC in preK and yes, he has gone from knowing no Mandarin at all to being able to have conversations in Mandarin. The kids speak Mandarin in the classrooms to each other where Mandarin is required but not the playground, pretty amazing considering most have had no exposure at all prior to school.

His accent is "good" according to my native born Mandarin speaking babysitters and friends from China. He will never sound like a native but that is not expected since he is a foreigner.

We love the principal, administration and teachers. All hard working who genuinely care about the kids. No complaints at all.

Yup, my experience too. The kids speak to each other in Chinese when in a Chinese classroom environment and in English when on the the playground. Just as I noticed at every other immersion school we visited. (Or with friends who are trying to raise their kids bilingual). I don't think that would change if there were 50/50 home Chinese speakers (which I don't get how people on this board still do not understand is not even possible for Yu Ying to do if they wanted). After just one year of Pre-K my child can read whole books in Chinese and carry on conversations with Chinese friends. But this is just one aspect of her education at Yu Ying. I too had a choice between MV and Yu Ying and as a Spanish speaker (not native) and after having our child home with a Spanish speaking only nanny for 4 years, I thought I would hands down prefer a Spanish immersion. However, when I compared the two schools I felt much more comfortable with Yu Ying over MV. MV may grow to be a great school but its just still too early for me to bank on. The IB curriculum also appealed to me more. The main thing I want for my child is early exposure to a second language- whatever that language may be. And given that Chinese is such a difficult and vastly different language from most of the others options out there, even if she doesn't use it on a daily basis as an adult I can't see how it would not be educationally beneficial. Growing up in SoCal I always assumed Spanish would be the most useful to learn and spent a ton of time, effort and money as a teen and early adult to gain a decent level of proficiency. But in my international focused job I almost never use it and wish I had learned French instead as it would be far more useful to me specifically. So, despite my initial strong preference for Spanish we went with Yu Ying and are so glad we did. I guess just think about what your various priorities are and pick the school that is the best balance of those knowing that whatever you decide, you are giving your child a great opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really heartened to hear from these (thoughtful) YY parents. But I have to agree with 03:40, the Russian-speaking parent who went to a YY Open House. I too am Chinese American and was a bit surprised by the tone of the principal's response when asked how many Chinese-speaking families there were at the school. Sigh. And I appreciate she is thinking of kids and curriculum and teachers first and foremost and she doesn't suffer fools lightly. But both she and the executive director would really do a huge service to the school they so love and want to succeed by simply being a little more polite -- that's a basic thing. And perhaps less defensive, too, that would go a long, logng way.

Well given all of the attacks the school gets that they don't have more Chinese American kids- something that is beyond their control- I can understand why they are a little defensive and tired of responding to the same question. I agree it doesn't excuse being rude and its a shame that this one interaction would deter families away from what is a fabulous school, but it is sounds like people are lobbing this question in an accusatory way which may be why the respond in this manner.

I participate in a car pool and am amazed that the kids often all speak to each other in Chinese on the way home. This is probably because they think of it as a secret language I won't understand (which makes us nervous about what they will plot in their older years!) but whatever the reason, it is amazing to hear them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't like YY? Move on! The WL is very long and a LOT of people are clamoring to get in...

the YY principal is a head biter who does not consider parents to be an important part of the school (for example, other administrators attend the PA meetings). Good luck with her.

But she's no longer principal--she's moved to a role that involves far less parent contact.

To those reading this post: The principal (and she will be the Head of School which means she is still the principal but will also have an assistant principal) is AMAZING. The problem for some people is that she does not crumble before aggressive parents and does not suffer fools gladly. She works tirelessly for the school. The teachers LOVE her and so do most of the parents. IF you want a principal that cares more about kids, curriculum, and classroom focus than on politics, then YY is for you. If you need a principal who cares more about what people think of her than about doing what is right and necessary, go somewhere else.

She works long hours and the school is thriving, but she is not by any means universally loved by either staff or parents. She is not the type of principal who happily interacts with parents or communicates with them in any way (her secretary sends out school announcements but she doesn't). I can understand why people get a negative vibe from her at meetings.

[Anonymous]

So does the YY principal not speak Chinese? I wasn't able to tell from this thread.

[Anonymous]

Nope

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope

I didn't know that she didn't speak Chinese when I went to an info night and, so, made the critical mistake of asking her a question in Mandarin during a break (must have been thinking in Chinese at the time). After she snapped "speak English!" at me in front of other parents, we left early.

Sorry, but ethnic Chinese families do tend to care that the principal isn't Chinese and doesn't speak Chinese. But then her non-Chinese speaking leadership does seem to be what the great majority of YY parents, at least those I've talked to, want. So they continue to get it and that's that. Nothing you can do as an outsider but look for another ES option, and get your kid to heritage Chinese lessons and/or an immersion school in the burbs. No shortage of either for the determined, things work out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope

I didn't know that she didn't speak Chinese when I went to an info night and, so, made the critical mistake of asking her a question in Mandarin during a break (must have been thinking in Chinese at the time). After she snapped "speak English!" at me in front of other parents, we left early.

Sorry, but ethnic Chinese families do tend to care that the principal isn't Chinese and doesn't speak Chinese. But then her non-Chinese speaking leadership does seem to be what the great majority of YY parents, at least those I've talked to, want. So they continue to get it and that's that. Nothing you can do as an outsider but look for another ES option, and get your kid to heritage Chinese lessons and/or an immersion school in the burbs. No shortage of either for the determined, things work out.

What is up with the Chinese parents on this thread??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope

I didn't know that she didn't speak Chinese when I went to an info night and, so, made the critical mistake of asking her a question in Mandarin during a break (must have been thinking in Chinese at the time). After she snapped "speak English!" at me in front of other parents, we left early.

Sorry, but ethnic Chinese families do tend to care that the principal isn't Chinese and doesn't speak Chinese. But then her non-Chinese speaking leadership does seem to be what the great majority of YY parents, at least those I've talked to, want. So they continue to get it and that's that. Nothing you can do as an outsider but look for another ES option, and get your kid to heritage Chinese lessons and/or an immersion school in the burbs. No shortage of either for the determined, things work out.

I am curious are the principals at Cleveland, Tyler, Oyster, Munde Verde, And DC Bilingual Hispanic and Spanish. Are they fluent Spanish speakers. Is the principal at Stokes native French speaking, and or fluent. Or is this a requirement that is limited to YY and ABCs are asking for preferential treatment I don't get the hate and I am definitely not one who is overly enthralled with YY

Do the posters on DCUM just need something to bitch and disagree about.