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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not a deranged native Chinese speaker, white guy in fact. But a skeptic nonetheless. Flame away.

Oh expert, do you speak Chinese? Let us guess, you don't. Do you have ethnic Chinese friends or relatives? Let us guess, none of those. Have you lived, worked or traveled extensively in any Chinese-speaking country? Let us guess, you haven't. What do you know about Chinese language and culture? Let us, guess, very little.

Not convinced that Chinese immersion is going anywhere for your family.  If the school were half as wonderful as you describe, the local ethnic bilingual Chinese community would be trying as hard to get their litle ones in as Latinos try for Oyster. Seems that DC Chinese don't bother with YY.

The fact that the speakers of this language all but ignore this fabulous school says that something's rotten in this rosy picture. In Lower Manhattan,where I lived before DC, the ethnic Chinese families I rubbed shoulders with reported that they were eager to get their kids into  PS Mandarin immersion programs. They often failed, but boy did they try.

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At no point did I refer to any person as deranged, nor did I flame. I simply shared my experiences, as well as some real facts, about YY and why it operates the way it does.

I can completely understand why families of Chinese descent in NYC are keen to get in to Mandarin immersion public schools. There is a large enough Chinese speaking community in NYC to support two-way immersion. As I explained, pretty clearly I think, there just isn't a large enough Chinese speaking community in the District to maintain that kind of program, and charter law doesn't allow for funneling the few Chinese speaking families who live here into YY to create that balance.

Also, as I indicated above, I'm continually shocked at the level of gross vitriol and personal attacks that DCUM seems to thrive on. In fact I do speak Mandarin (I read and write too, but I'm a bit rusty these days from lack of practice). In fact I have lived in China - way back before it was cool. All of which is how I know that my kids' Chinese is conversant, not fluent. And I'm perfectly ok with that.

I think the problem is perhaps peoples' expectations. YY is a very good school that does a fantastic job with the resources available, and teaches all of the kids that walk in the doors. YY is not a private school that can choose who to teach, and charge them lots of money for the privilege. It is a public charter school. My kids are happy, supported, and learning. I never had an expectation that my kids would walk out of 5th grade sounding like a native Mandarin speaker. I do expect them to work hard, try their best, learn and grow, and I expect their school to support them in that endeavor. So far it has gone pretty well.[/quote]

I appreciate this person's posts. [/quote]

"Choice" parent from down South, I'm a white NYC transplant who speaks good Mandarin. Spouse is an ABC who speaks a dialect fluently.

We turned down a spot at YY after figuring out that the "we can't do 2-way immersion because we're a DC charter" line has become an excuse for a few problems that don't get solved. It's not hard to see that YY could do a good job of making ethnic bilingual families feel welcome, supporting the school's mission, if admins saw the point.

My spouse tells me that hiring admins who don't speak Chinese all these years has really put the local ethnic community off. Of course it has. Why has this been necessary? Because the YY board hasn't been able to find a suitable principal or deputy who speaks a couple dialects, not on the whole of the N. American continent at any point in the last decade?

I don't get why YY won't offer pullout groups/dialect transition support for native speakers, or support some learning of traditional characters, as an olive branch. They do pullouts at our DCPS for small number of kids for all kinds of reasons, sometimes with PTA money. I've also never understood why YY doesn't partner with a big MoCo heritage school, or one of the two public immersion programs, where many students speak fluent Chinese. That way, the YY kids could have local bilingual peers. Having friends in the area who speak fluently would help motivate YY students to stick with Chinese studies as teens. The heritage school my son attends would probably be open to the arrangement, but YY has never reached out.

OK, so you studied Mandarin, but do you have a feel for the relationship between Mandarin and the dialects spoken by most Chinese immigrants? Fact is, a kid who speaks another dialect at home arrives halfway to Mandarin. Even so, YY doesn't seem to respect dialects, or the immigrant experience.  I'm told that the set-up confuses new YY Chinese teachers - my spouse knows a few outside school. YY parents and students aren't taught that Mandarin is just one major dialect of Chinese. Nothing comes home from the school to households in Chinese (in either simplified and traditional characters), and translation support in Mandarin or Cantonese isn't provided at school events for local parents who might need it (couldn't teacher or parent volunteers provide translations?).

I'm sick of YY on DCUM because the "federal charter law is against attracting local native speakers" claim is somewhat disingenuous. If you don't want vitriol, but do want your kids to speak good Chinese as teens without paying through the nose to supplement, please don't cheer that YY is run in a way that's world's apart from the ethnic community. The native speaker who posted "who cares if the YY kids speak crappy Chinese when we do so much better at home" makes a point that probably doesn't bode well for Chinese at DCI.

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