Why do Parents Believe in DCI?

[Anonymous]

It is very true that most Chinese American immigrants up until the 1970s spoke Cantonese. Southern China was the gateway for immigration to the US for a century.The American Community Survey for 2008 lists more Cantonese speakers than Mandarin, but the vast majority of Chinese speakers did not specify a dialect. The tide, however, may be turning.


http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?pagewanted=all&referrer=

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I earned the IB Diploma at an intl school in Europe in the 90s. I took French at the hl (higher level) and Spanish at the sl (standard level).

Banneker's IB Diploma pass rate is not more than one quarter, although candidates only need to wrack up 24 IB points (of a possible 45) to earn the Diploma. Eastern is graduating its first Diploma class this year, of 4 or 5 students with the IB exams coming up later this month (and scores out in Aug). Meanwhile, at Richard Montgomery in Bethesda, the pass rate is above 90%. In MoCo, elemntary immersion programs lead to 40-50% immersion ms programs, e.g. at Robert Frost in Rockville.

If DCI's IB Diploma pass rate is above 50% in 7 or 8 years, I'll be surprised. The DC charter immersion programs don't look robust enough to for kids to get on track to pass (with a score of 4 on a scale of 1-7), esp at the hl. They don't come along with public summer camp, or options for native speakers to test into the higher grades, like they do in the metro area burbs.

Damn DCI to hell all you want in advance. Only time will tell, and I wish them the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many upper grades Yu Ying parents must believe in DCI because they don't speak Chinese. I'm a native speaker who, I kid you not, can hardly understand most of the YY kids I speak Mandarin to in my neighborhood, including upper grades kids. They don't seem able to understand me either, unless I speak as though I'm talking to a baby or toddler. Their parents seem to think that the kids are close to fluent for their ages. Also, when I talk to the families, they don't seem to know much at all about Chinese culture - they've never been to a Chinese-speaking country (other than perhaps on the recent YY 5th grade trip), aren't going, and don't have Chinese immigrant or ABC friends. They don't seem to know that most Chinese immigrants speak Cantonese, not Mandarin, or what Cantonese is.

I can't help but wonder how these kids are going to fare on those International Baccalaureate exams in six, seven or eight years. Having earned the full IB Diploma abroad years ago, I'm not convinced that DCPC has really thought the DCI program through. Those exams are killers, a good deal harder than AP language exams (which I also took), at least at the Higher Level.

I don't go looking for reasons to criticize DC public schools, but from where I sit, DCI's Chinese track doesn't sound like a serious thing. What makes you think it is?

Interesting that that's your experience. That has not been mine (I'm not a parent of older YY kids). But I have been in several situations with older YY students and non-YY affiliated Chinese native speakers, and I hear over and over that the students' Mandarin overall is actually very good. I listen for those opinions because obviously I'm interested in knowing how the students' proficiency (or lack thereof) is playing to a non-YY Mandarin-speaking audience. The majority of feedback I've gotten is very very positive, and does give me hope. Just to be clear, they're not people who have no reason not to speak the truth, and a few times I've specifically asked people I know who are native speakers to listen in and tell me what they really think.

And I absolutely have NOT had the experience you describe where the students can't understand what's being said to them and native Mandarin speakers can't understand what the students are saying. Even with the "less than stellar" students, I was told their comprehension was excellent.

Since I don't know anyone in real life whose had your experience, I continue to be very optimistic about what older YY students' proficiency will be in later years. I have no reason yet not to be optimistic, the feedback so far has been very positive. At some point testing will come in and we'll have actual data about their proficiency. Looking forward to that.

Taiwanese dad here again. Perhaps, but I'll say this, Chinese raise their kids to be polite, really polite. When YY families ask how their kids sound to me, I often find myself saying that a kid's comprehension seems good or excellent when it strikes me as mediocre or poor. We're non-confrontational as a group and insular; bilingual immigrant families aren't going to tangle with YY families. No point. We're already looking ahead to the testing, schlepping our kids to Rockville on weekends without complaint. We know that our children will need much higher standardized test scores than other groups to crack the same colleges. This helps explain why a coalition of 60 Asian-American groups recently filed suit against Harvard for discrimination in admissions.

I'm not going to comment further on who I'm asking and why I have no doubt in their opinions, but I will say that I share another posters surprise that you freely admit you lie to people who ask you your sincere opinion. And then you go on to speak disparagingly about the same families and kids that you -for cultural reasons - can't even face being honest with about their language skills? Makes no sense and seems frankly bizarre actually. But I remain excited, thrilled even, every time my 2nd grader crosses paths with a native Mandarin speaker and they are off to the races in discussion, and then the adult gushes how well she speaks and how excellent her tones are. Followed always by a lot of questions about where she learns it and how long and more compliments. It happens regularly, and frankly, my actual life experience trumps your anonymous skepticism and criticism (for me, not saying it should for anyone who knows neither of us).

Most importantly of all though, right now all you say IS just conjecture or your opinion vs. other families opinions. Nothing you say can damage YY's mission and progress until testing begins, whenever and however that will happen, and the truth will be much clearer then. And if the results are very good... it'll be interesting to see how you explain that away as well. And if you're teaching your kids that "speaking the truth when someone asks you a question = "tangling with them"", then I'm not really all that worried about my kids competing with yours in the real world. Culture or not, you can't be so afraid of telling the truth that you perceive a playground conversation as "tangling". Good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand the attitude that you have to have parents who can speak, read, etc the immersion language for their kids to become proficient/bilingual. But maybe it's bc I'm an immigrant whose parents don't know English and I speak English just fine enough to get into an Ivy League college for undergrad.

You don't need native speaker parents to become bilingual in another language. You really don't. Only Americans seem to think this.

Well, not just Americans think this. There have been PLENTY of native Chinese (and sometimes other language) speakers who've chimed in to say the same thing. And always many (like you) who tell their own stories and why this is such an absurd conclusion/assumption to make. But they're not listening, and continue to spread that falsehood. Sour grapes if you ask me, but it's just not always clear what the sour grapes are about. Or why the critics don't get out more, because you really don't have to look far to find examples of people who are now proficient and even fluent without a parent or household member who spoke the language. And for the record, I don't mean proficient by American standards, I mean by native speaker standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI parents have self-selected and managed to weed most of the low performing and/or problematic students from their lower feeder schools.

They will replicate this model for later grades, with even more barriers to entry.

That is the charter way (at least, it's the the HRCS one).

Yes to self-selecting but bs to weeding out.

We are leaving a feeder and were literally told by the principal that we live in a city of choices and I was free to make a choice when I wanted them to address my challenging child's needs (read IEP). It is not BS. Yu Ying's scores for disadvantaged (economically or socially) populations are piss poor. The only school that is a feeder that is serving disadvantaged populations well is LAMB, which is impossible to get into, so who cares. And Yu Ying has a reputation for being racist/classist (don't know anyone there) and being the worst among them for weeding people out.

The post you were responding to was spot on. School choice my ass.

[Anonymous]

I also found it weird that Taiwanese dad insisted that the YY students befriend American born Chinese kids. Does he not understand how friendship works? "Hello fellow 3rd grader! I wish to improve my chinese and you are an abc. Let us speak for the next few minutes so I can better appreciate your culture. I hear we must lie to people under the guise of politeness."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI parents have self-selected and managed to weed most of the low performing and/or problematic students from their lower feeder schools.

They will replicate this model for later grades, with even more barriers to entry.

That is the charter way (at least, it's the the HRCS one).

Yes to self-selecting but bs to weeding out.

We are leaving a feeder and were literally told by the principal that we live in a city of choices and I was free to make a choice when I wanted them to address my challenging child's needs (read IEP). It is not BS. Yu Ying's scores for disadvantaged (economically or socially) populations are piss poor. The only school that is a feeder that is serving disadvantaged populations well is LAMB, which is impossible to get into, so who cares. And Yu Ying has a reputation for being racist/classist (don't know anyone there) and being the worst among them for weeding people out.

The post you were responding to was spot on. School choice my ass.

So sorry you are having this experience. I hope you find a school that will care for your child. Truly sorry.

[Anonymous]

NP Here: I was a fluent mandarin speaker that lived in China for four years. No skin in the YY discussions with Taiwanese dad - we are at a spanish immersion feeder to DCI.

I did, however, want to comment on that discussion because I thnk Taiwanese dad has made some valid points and they are getting lost because of cultural differences. In 2004, I completed a year of graduate school entirely in Mandarin after living in China for four years. My Written and spoken mandarin rocked. When I came home for the summer and chatted at the Chinese restaurant, the waitresses oohed and aahed over my mandarin and said how fantastic it was. Fair point, it really was good and I had worked hard to earn that. Since then, I have barely used my mandarin and it has declined dramatically. Last night, we went to AJs restaurant in Rockville where I attempted poorly and briefly to say a few things to the waitresses in Mandarin. It was BAD, I kept mixing in Spanish, which is my current best foreign language because we speak it at home. The waitresses oohed and aaahed over my mandarin and said how fantastic it ws just like they did in 2004. Exact same reaction, separated by 15 years, and a LOT of language decline.

Chinese people compliment foreigners profusely on their mandarin skills - it is a cultural habit. This is particularly true for non-Asian foreigners, which impress Chinese people the most when they eek out a few words in Mandarin. My four year old says "Ni Hao!" and "Xie Xie" and you would think he has just given a discourse in Chinese by how they react.

I have no doubt that the YY kids are learning to speak mandarin and in particular, theatthey will have good accents by learning it at a a young age. But whenever a Chinese person tells you how impressed they are by your kids mandarin, I would recognize that there may be some exaggerating and that giving these types of compliments to mandarin speaking foreigners is customary. Testing would be a better reflection of the true learning going on and how good the mandarin is getting.....

[Anonymous]

00:32 here. When I said 'foreigners' in my post, I meant non Chinese. Old habit from when I lived in China.

Oh - and I meant 11 years between 2004 and 2015.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP Here: I was a fluent mandarin speaker that lived in China for four years. No skin in the YY discussions with Taiwanese dad - we are at a spanish immersion feeder to DCI.

I did, however, want to comment on that discussion because I thnk Taiwanese dad has made some valid points and they are getting lost because of cultural differences. In 2004, I completed a year of graduate school entirely in Mandarin after living in China for four years. My Written and spoken mandarin rocked. When I came home for the summer and chatted at the Chinese restaurant, the waitresses oohed and aahed over my mandarin and said how fantastic it was. Fair point, it really was good and I had worked hard to earn that. Since then, I have barely used my mandarin and it has declined dramatically. Last night, we went to AJs restaurant in Rockville where I attempted poorly and briefly to say a few things to the waitresses in Mandarin. It was BAD, I kept mixing in Spanish, which is my current best foreign language because we speak it at home. The waitresses oohed and aaahed over my mandarin and said how fantastic it ws just like they did in 2004. Exact same reaction, separated by 15 years, and a LOT of language decline.

Chinese people compliment foreigners profusely on their mandarin skills - it is a cultural habit. This is particularly true for non-Asian foreigners, which impress Chinese people the most when they eek out a few words in Mandarin. My four year old says "Ni Hao!" and "Xie Xie" and you would think he has just given a discourse in Chinese by how they react.

I have no doubt that the YY kids are learning to speak mandarin and in particular, theatthey will have good accents by learning it at a a young age. But whenever a Chinese person tells you how impressed they are by your kids mandarin, I would recognize that there may be some exaggerating and that giving these types of compliments to mandarin speaking foreigners is customary. Testing would be a better reflection of the true learning going on and how good the mandarin is getting.....

Great post. When the intl baccalaureate Chinese test scores are finally out for the current YY and DCI kids, I fear that the naysayers will be vindicated. I took the Mandarin higher level test at a public hs schol in Cal some 20 years ago. After a year as an exchange student in Tapei, I assumed that I'd easily score 6 or 7 but only got a 4. I'm not even sure that I'd have scored 6 or 7 on the standard level test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: They don't seem to know that most Chinese immigrants speak Cantonese, not Mandarin, or what Cantonese is.

There is no way this is true, so I don't really trust anything you say.

What I meant by this is not that most Chinese immigrants speak Cantonese. But that YY parents "don't know what Cantonese is" as Taiwan Dad asserted. That has to be bullshit.

[Anonymous]

Are the kids ever recorded speaking? This would shut down a lot of speculation. Record the kids and put it on You Tube or post it to the school's website. Video can't lie. Mandarin speakers will be able to comment on the quality away from the fog of bitterness, jealousy and whatever else motivates people nowadays. I'd also like this for the French and Spanish speakers. My daughter who's native fluent tells me that the Spanish is mediocre from many of her friends. I'd like to here then so I can judge for myself. Seems an easy fix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCI parents have self-selected and managed to weed most of the low performing and/or problematic students from their lower feeder schools.

They will replicate this model for later grades, with even more barriers to entry.

That is the charter way (at least, it's the the HRCS one).

Yes to self-selecting but bs to weeding out.

We are leaving a feeder and were literally told by the principal that we live in a city of choices and I was free to make a choice when I wanted them to address my challenging child's needs (read IEP). It is not BS. Yu Ying's scores for disadvantaged (economically or socially) populations are piss poor. The only school that is a feeder that is serving disadvantaged populations well is LAMB, which is impossible to get into, so who cares. And Yu Ying has a reputation for being racist/classist (don't know anyone there) and being the worst among them for weeding people out.

The post you were responding to was spot on. School choice my ass.

Wow, you don't know anyone there and yet you are comfy spitting out a whole bunch of really obnoxious criticisms, including that they're racist and classist and don't serve their IEP kids? That pretty much lays out how little credibility you have right there.

I know 2 families with children with IEPs at Yu Ying. They have struggled on their own with whether the Mandarin is just too much, but they both have had positive things to say about how YY has supported their kids. Sorry for your experience at your feeder school, but do not try to bring YY down with you - I have not heard ANY YY parents complain about their children with special needs being weeded out or ignored or the school refusing to meet their needs. There are a lot of threads trashing YY, and yet that is one criticism that hardly ever rises, and the parents I know have had a positive experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP Here: I was a fluent mandarin speaker that lived in China for four years. No skin in the YY discussions with Taiwanese dad - we are at a spanish immersion feeder to DCI.

I did, however, want to comment on that discussion because I thnk Taiwanese dad has made some valid points and they are getting lost because of cultural differences. In 2004, I completed a year of graduate school entirely in Mandarin after living in China for four years. My Written and spoken mandarin rocked. When I came home for the summer and chatted at the Chinese restaurant, the waitresses oohed and aahed over my mandarin and said how fantastic it was. Fair point, it really was good and I had worked hard to earn that. Since then, I have barely used my mandarin and it has declined dramatically. Last night, we went to AJs restaurant in Rockville where I attempted poorly and briefly to say a few things to the waitresses in Mandarin. It was BAD, I kept mixing in Spanish, which is my current best foreign language because we speak it at home. The waitresses oohed and aaahed over my mandarin and said how fantastic it ws just like they did in 2004. Exact same reaction, separated by 15 years, and a LOT of language decline.

Chinese people compliment foreigners profusely on their mandarin skills - it is a cultural habit. This is particularly true for non-Asian foreigners, which impress Chinese people the most when they eek out a few words in Mandarin. My four year old says "Ni Hao!" and "Xie Xie" and you would think he has just given a discourse in Chinese by how they react.

I have no doubt that the YY kids are learning to speak mandarin and in particular, theatthey will have good accents by learning it at a a young age. But whenever a Chinese person tells you how impressed they are by your kids mandarin, I would recognize that there may be some exaggerating and that giving these types of compliments to mandarin speaking foreigners is customary. Testing would be a better reflection of the true learning going on and how good the mandarin is getting.....

Taiwanese dad also said that he or others can't understand YY older students' Mandarin and that the students don't understand that. That is patently false, I have never seen anyone struggle with understanding or pause or ask to repeat etc. If Taiwanese dad is going to throw several patently false (or at least uncommon enough to never be appropriate to generalize about) statements into his thread, yes, it's fair to throw the whole thing away because several facts are just that untrue. Maybe people in restaurants do ooooh and aaaaah over not a lot of words, maybe they're oooohing and aaaaahing over effort and not proficiency. Sorry, I'm not willing to judge a whole cohort of students on proficiency based on the fact that anonymous posters on the internet had that experience in a restaurant or Taiwanese dad alleges a bunch of stuff that no one who knows older YY students have ever seen/heard occur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: They don't seem to know that most Chinese immigrants speak Cantonese, not Mandarin, or what Cantonese is.

There is no way this is true, so I don't really trust anything you say.

What I meant by this is not that most Chinese immigrants speak Cantonese. But that YY parents "don't know what Cantonese is" as Taiwan Dad asserted. That has to be bullshit.

A good many YY parents don't really know what Cantonese is - where it's spoken, that it has seven tones, that most Chinese immigrant families in the country speak it, or did in a previous generation. Some YY parents do, lots don't, partly because there isn't an immigrant community behind the school.

When we go to the odd YY event, I find that that the kids' ability to communicate in Mandarin is all over the map for age. There are a few whose Chinese is seriously good. These are kids from families where an adult in the home speaks Mandarin, generally an au pair (some YY families have hosted a series of them). But many of the kids, including 3rd, 4th and 5th graders who've been at YY since PreK4 or K, don't knock it out of the park with immersion Mandarin, and that's putting it mildly.

What I see happening with the IB Diploma Chinese tests in the long-run is this. Families with the resources and motivation to supplement in a big way, particularly via immersion camps in China, and hosting Mandarin-speaking au pairs who speak only Chinese to the kids, and only accept it from them in reply, through MS, will produce children who score high on the standard level Chinese test. Nobody will pass the higher level test (with a score of 4+), unless they've spent a high school year as an exchange student in Taiwan, Hong Kong or China.

The YY/DCI Mandarin program simply isn't set up to generate top scores on the higher level test. But I can't imagine this bothering the great majority of longtime YY and DCI parents. For a high-octane public IB Diploma program, you must look to privates like WIS and the burbs.