Reply to Bilingual Kids in Language Immersion ES Programs, Which Programs Have Many & Strive to Attract Them?

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Reply to "Bilingual Kids in Language Immersion ES Programs, Which Programs Have Many & Strive to Attract Them?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm a YY parent who doesn't appreciate all the bashing on DCUM.  That said, 19:30's point about there being no native-speaking community behind the school is fair.  Those who come looking for such a community will only be disappointed, and those who try to invent it defensively will seem foolish.

That said, parents who attribute the low percentage of native speakers in the school--let's face it, there are very few--to the very low percentage of bilingual kids in the District aren't being entirely honest.

The truth is that YY does a poor job of drawing in bilingual parents, partly by rejecting the concept of what other immersion Chinese ES programs term "dialect transition support."  Treating kids who speak a dialect just like kids who speak no Chinese in the curriculum actively alienates native speakers, or so my native-speaking neighbors in Upper NW tell me.  There is very little evidence that YY has ever been serious about building on local dialect knowledge to advance Mandarin learning and that's too bad.  The single lottery and small size of the ethnic Chinese population is perhaps half the problem.  The negative attitude toward including many bilingual American-Born Chinese children on the part of DC Charter, administrators and, yes, PA parents is the other half.

If I were ethnic Chinese, bilingual and raising my children to speak a dialect, I'd stay away myself if I had a decent IB school.

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