Reply to Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?

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Reply to " Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agree wholeheartedly. Not Chinese but I'm concerned about PC notions of love, harmony, equality etc. trumping actual learning a lot in public schools these days, at our economic peril. China's a rising superpower in large part because their national, provincial and city governments, while not democratically elected, are fundamentally practical.

Our city ed leaders can't handle making tough ed policy decisions. 2-way immersion works best but the city doesn't bother with it for any language but Spanish. The charter immersion programs could have been DCPS or charter-DCPS hybrids with dual lotteries, like Oyster, but DC public generally can't be bothered to do things right. [b]Bilingual American Born Chinese are seen as a threat on these boards by the jealous, pure and simple[/b].[/quote]

I've seen this statement made before in other threads and I do not understand this.  Who here expressed anything that could be construed as jealously of American Born Chinese? And how could they be considered a threat? This makes no sense especially in the context of this thread. [/quote]

It's not jealousy.  It's resentment that the Chinese-heritage people have the temerity to judge YY and find it lacking.  All the responses by YY parents or supporters I read are about "how dare you say my DS/DD speaks worse Chinese than she/he should have by now." It's like they are afraid to ask for higher standards. [/quote]

Agree. This thread has been loaded with resentment that ethnic Chinese speakers dare report that they aren't impressed with YY's Mandarin instruction. Interestingly, the complaints on the Spanish immersion threads are usually about English instruction, not Spanish. The YY parents and supporters do sound afraid to ask for better instruction. They sound like they know standards are lacking and want higher standards, but make claims to the contrary in their resentment. I'm having trouble imagining them being worse off if they took the criticism with a grain of salt, learned from it, and responded by pushing for higher standards.

[/quote]

NP.  I disagree and I don't think you're accurately characterizing what's been said in this thread.  It's perfectly fine to voice legitimate criticisms about YY and the language skills of the students.  There are numerous posts discussing what steps the school and families can take and several in which posters agreed that there's room for improvement. It's quite a different thing to ridicule and be derogatory toward the students and the families, which is what a significant number of the posts in this thread are doing. THOSE are the posts eliciting responses of "how dare you."  But some on this thread seem hellbent on insisting that YY families are jealous of or resent Chinese heritage people for speaking out about deficiencies, even when there is nothing to support that sentiment.[/quote]

Nothing to support that sentiment? Give me a break. I'm not Chinese but when your DS/DD is struggling to learn a really difficult Asian language you can't understand, a language that seriously upwardly mobile Chinese immigrants (who steer clear of the school) speak beautifully, jealously AND resentment are naturally going to rear their ugly heads. Almost all the posts pointing out that the kids Mandarin isn't so hot after years and years of immersion study have elicited defensive responses. THOSE are the posts showing the posters' true colors.[/quote]

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