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]Since when do simple statements of fact constitute "animosity" toward YY on this thread, or any other.  It's true that few YY parents mind if the kids don't get far beyond basic utterances in Chinese. Any adult native speaker can easily determine this by talking to the kids and parents.

It's a different story in Chinese public immersion programs in US cities where lotteries for native speakers exist (mostly in traditional public schools), and programs cater to both native and non-native speakers.   I have a cousin (not a native speaker) who sends his children to such a program in Northern Cal.  The family has to work hard to meet standards for spoken Chinese in the school, such as enrolling the kids in a mandatory, free 5-week summer immersion camp the school runs for kids who aren't meeting their high standards for speaking (serving almost all the students who don't speak the language at home).

Not so at YY, and the parents like it that way.

Sigh. It certainly sounds like animosity when you make snide comments about how "few parents care" and "the parents like it that way."  And the fact that you and a couple of other native speakers come here again and again to disparage the school does give the appearance of a strange axe to grind.[/quote]

For the PP who asked: There are a few "heritage" speakers who like to weigh in again and again. The agenda is 1) Yu Ying doesn't have enough native speakers to have good, two-way immersion; 2) Yu Ying should set up supports to teach Cantonese speaking kids Mandarin in order to get more native speakers; 3) Yu Ying should have a lottery preference for Chinese speakers; 4) or have a test-in option for these kids; 5) yu Ying parents should lobby the administration and Congress to get charter law changed to allow these children a preference or test in option; 6) Yu Ying should fire the head of school and hire a native speaker, which would likely increase interest among the (comparatively small) DC Chinese community.

Then they will toss in a few nasty comments about how the YY kids they know all speak terrible Chinese, and how their heritage school children laugh at them and say they talk like babies. One woman says she routinely lies to her neighbors and tells them their kids' Chinese is wonderful because Chinese people are all so polite.
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^^This pretty much sums it up, but you forgot to mention how those same people will then turn around and innocently say, "But how is this bashing the school? I am only stating facts!"  It's almost as though they want the school to fail and would prefer that non-Chinese kids not even bother learning the language because they can never be as fluent as the children of the native speakers. [/quote]

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