Reply to Basis changes language curriculum; less Latin, no world language until 8th

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Reply to "Basis changes language curriculum; less Latin, no world language until 8th"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Depends where you live. My sibling sends her children to Oakton public HS by the Vienna Metro stop.  The school teaches a dozen languages to an advanced level, including four Asian languages: Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin and Japanese.  If bilingual families don’t want language instruction at school, they can test out (test out standards completely transparent) on day 1 of 9th grade.  Meanwhile. BASIS DC won’t let any student test out of language instruction and routinely forces students to study languages they speak well to study them at the beginning level for “scheduling purposes.” Don’t care for these dumb policies, policy? Admins tell you to go find another school.  The boosters cheer, same idiocy for all.[/quote]

There are students at BASIS who could test out of French, Spanish, Mandarin AND Latin? Wow. [b]If you could test out of French, why not take one of the others?[/b][/quote]

BASIS DC parents don't know what they're missing unless they've taken a hard look at what's offered at the best half dozen suburban high schools in this Metro area.

Few BASIS DC students score 5s on AP French or Spanish and, to my knowledge, none on Mandarin since the get go.

With Asian languages written in characters (Chinese, Japanese, some Vietnamese), it's at least 3,000 characters for basic literacy. To put this learning feat in perspective, YuYing 4th grade grads arriving at BASIS know, on average, 250-300 characters, while a 5 score on AP Mandarin requires knowledge of roughly 1,000 characters.  Throw in a requirement to study an Indo-European language for years at BASIS, or a requirement that a Chinese speaker takes beginning language classes for years there, and your kid doesn't have a shot of scoring high on AP or IB Diploma Mandarin.  There are public high schools in the DC burbs that will get your kid to basic literacy in Chinese (1 or 2 years past AP), or simply leave you alone to get your kid there yourself. BASIS DC does neither, rejecting best practices in learning Asian languages. [/quote]

How would you have any clue what BASIS DC students score on AP French, Spanish, or Mandarin exams?  Stop making stuff up.[/quote]

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