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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]These discussions always seem to treat fluency in a foreign language like some mysterious, all-or-nothing proposition that is not worth undertaking if it is not done perfectly from the get-go - with very little understanding of how speaking more than one language actually functions, or how many different ways there are to be proficient in a language.

As far as i'm concerned, giving kids exposure and the building blocks to learn other languages early on is a good thing; it's been proven to be a good thing; and bilingual education does that. Some kids are going to attain higher levels of fluency than others, because some people are simply better at languages than others. Good luck controlling that. [/quote]

Sounds peachy PP, but the inconvenient truth is that YY kids are only getting around 50% as much instruction in English as peers who aren't in immersion programs while learning a language that at least 95% of the families can't reinforce at home, and the minority of the kids are unlikely to use as teens let alone adults. The building blocks come at too high a price, much too high.  All or nothing propositions are not the issue.

Fluency is a misnomer in this context. The great majority of upper grades YY kids speak Chinese minimally - there is no level of fluency involved. That's why we bailed on the school. You get slammed on these threads for calling a spade a spade when the dismal results are painfully obvious to any native speaker of any dialect of Chinese. Most YY parents may love the arrangement, but it seems ludicrous to this parent whose kids do speak Chinese fluently, and score 5s on the PARCC ELA every year they take it at our DCPS. We avoid conversations about Chinese instruction with YY families to minimize the risk of offense.  Call me and other posters who point out obvious truths "haters" if it makes you feel better.  Problem is, we're right (as YY Chinese teachers know) and, to my knowledge, there's no fix on the horizon.[/quote]

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