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][quote=Anonymous]I'm the rare YY parent, with professional experience in China, who takes issue with those who reject preferential admissions treatment for Chinese dialect speakers, if just off the wait list.  Sorry, but you guys have a myopic streak, a blind spot.

Bilingual students raise target language acquisition standards in immerson schools.  I learned this when I studied Mandarin in college.  In my classes,  dialect speakers kept standards high because they picked up Mandarin at two or three times the speed of the rest of us, with better pronunciation.  I had to work my tail off to keep up, a very good thing. YY's adminstrators don't seem to know much about the relationship between Mandarin and other dialects (since they speak none), so they've done nothing to educate parents about the merits of including more dialect-speaking kids.  You hear clueless parents saying "Well, Cantonese is a different language, so who needs speakers of that here?"  Parents worry about English instruction, DCI and little else these days.  We should have more of collective vision for our children's education.  I didn't hear the OP complain about not being admitted to YY, I heard him or her ask if other DC language immersion schools attract bilingual kids in significant numbers.  Sounds like they do, against the odds, mainly via leadership spearheading effective outreach to native-speaking communities.  Good for those schools.
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I agree.  I know a number of families who have experience in China (and kids who speak Chinese with some fluency) who move into the DC area.  It would be great if their kids could go to Yu Ying.  There has got to be a way to figure out how to do this. [/quote]

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