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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Nobody's being spoken to in Mandarin "all day at school" at DCI. This wasn't happening at YY either.

The only DCI Chinese track students who speak the language well are the handful who've have had at least one native-speaking adult in the home for years who requires the kids to speak Chinese. If you're a native speaker of Mandarin and you've spent time around YY and DCI kids for years speaking Chinese, you know what I'm talking about.

Even the most advanced Mandarin speakers in DCI's HS struggle to communicate in Chinese in view of the fact that they've been studying the language for more than a decade. These kids generally can't score high (6s-7s) on any IB Diploma Higher Level subject. What happens is that hardly any of these kids earn IB Diploma points totals in the high 30s or 40s, which is routine at half a dozen public IBD programs in this Metro area. Even so, DCI still gets some decent college acceptances.

If DCI parents minded the school's mediocre IBD scores, they'd pay for WIS or move to the burbs for one of the IBD programs where most students score high. The list isn't long: Washington-Liberty in Arlington, 3 or 4 programs in Fairfax, Bethesda Chevy Chase's school-within-a-school program or Richard Montgomery in Rockville (test-in, 8th grade, 10% admitted).[/quote]

I'm the PP you're resplying to.

1) Maybe read the whole post before you go off on your rant. They went on an ALL DAY FIELD TRIP yesterday, and speaking Mandarin on the bus, in the restaurant, and on the walks was required.  Did kids probably slip into English here and there? Probably. But it's so rare that such a big group of kids travel together like that, I've heard from multiple parents that their kids reported they were surprised they did actually speak Mandarin most of the day.  NOWHERE did I say they speak Mandarin all day at DCI.  Read before ranting.

2) You're yet another of those "You can't speak Mandarin well unless you have a native speaker at home" folks. Wow, it must really bother you that my kids, and sooooo many more that came out of Yu Ying with ZERO Mandarin speakers at home other than maybe siblings that also attend YY... it must really bother you that time and time again when we encounter strangers speaking Mandarin or we go somewhere we know Mandarin is spoken, people are always shocked and comment over and over "Wow, your child speaks Chinese Chinese, not American Chinese!" and other comments like that, and the kids have full conversations and undrestand alll that is said and mostly can reply with what they mean or ask in Chinese how to say whatever word they're struggling with.  Over and over. For YEARS.

But, then again, it wouldn't be DCUM without YY haters.  DCI is more hit or miss and of course isn't 50:50 like Yu Ying was, but we're very happy she still has 2 classes/day in Mandarin. And trips like Monday.[/quote]

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