Reply to Language instruction at CMI in the upper elementary grades

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can any CMI parents tell me more about the foreign language instruction in the upper elementary grades?  Do students continue to take both Spanish and Chinese?  How much instructional time is provided, and do you feel your DCs are developing much ability to speak the language?  TIA.[/quote]

To actually answer your question, my child has chinese 2x weekly and Spanish 2x weekly.  She also is in a chinese Immersion club after school @ CMI.  She has taken to Chinese and has progressed much better than Spanish. [/quote]

Exposure is code for a total waste of time. But if it sounds cool when you tell your neighbors, then who cares whether you're totally wasting your child's time. [/quote]

Actually, no. When I was a kid in Florida, I was in a gifted program and got Spanish 3 x week in 2nd through 5th grade. It sparked my interest and I continued to take Spanish in middle school and high school. I was decent enough when I graduated that I could have conversations and get along while travelling. I took enough classes for a minor in college, became fluent, got a job that required me to be bilingual after college, and continue to be a proficient speaker today (though my writing skills have deteriorated since that job).  And I am a white girl from a white family with no other Spanish speakers.

Getting formal exposure to another language did 2 things for me:
1. It made me interested in other languages and made me want to learn more.
2. I believe that the early exposure may have made it easier for me to eventually fully learn the language, and may have made it easier to learn additional languages. I have an easy time with languages in general and can get along quite well in Italian and decently in French, but I've also had to learn some Czech and a few other Slavic languages due to sheer geography, and I had an easier time than my peers.

And yes, I'm a CMI parent. I don't care if my kid actually ends up learning any substantial amount of Spanish or Mandarin. That outcome is way less important than my child becoming interested in other languages and cultures. Curiosity and a desire to learn is what they're trying to cultivate. The measure of success here is not that my kid has or has not mastered the high questioning tone. [/quote]

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