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[quote=Anonymous]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?

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