Reply to Yu Yang--is the student body predominately African American, does Yu Yang have a non-Chinese track..

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Reply to "Yu Yang--is the student body predominately African American, does Yu Yang have a non-Chinese track.."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Dialect support" to learn Mandarin could be something as simple as a teacher who speaks yours offering focused help w/pronunciation.  True that dialect speakers need to start learning Mandarin young to avoid a pronounced accent (like the heavy "th" of the Cantonese speakers), and that strong accents aren't appreciated in northern China.  But dialect speakers can't avoid a Mandarin accent altogether.  I'm a Lafayette parent who speaks Shanghai'ese to my child.  I got in to YY but it didn't seem worth the trek when the school's agnostic on the subject of bilingual kids attending.  It is what it is.  We like our [b]heritage Mandarin class [/b]at a private oufit in Silver Spring.  A teacher speaks our dialect and the Mandarin standard in the advanced classes for elementary is higher than at YY.   I'm not going to call our situation representative, but know other ABCs with similar stories at Brent, Janney etc.   For my tax dollars, I'd like YY to at least start tracking [b]how many bilingual families go in the lottery, and why some don't attend even if they could[/b]. [/quote]

1) As a Mandarin speaker, I personally would not trade 32.5 hours of Mandarin immersion at YY PreK for a few weekend hours at "Chinese School."
2) My brother's children (now 12 and 11) have been taking "heritage Mandarin classes" since they were 5. While they are excellent, well-rounded students, they are not fluent in Mandarin and definitely are not able to read or write in Mandarin. My brother and sister-in-law are both native speakers of Mandarin. The children are not attending "Chinese School" anymore this year because my brother and SIL do not see the value in it.
3) I think it's wonderful that you have very specific objectives regarding your children's education. I agree that the school should know how many bilingual famlies apply as a reference point for future planning. However, I think YY - as a public charter school - should NOT be obligated to track WHY a bilingual family (or any family) chooses not to attend YY.[/quote]

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