Reply to Sp or Ch language?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Sp or Ch language?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you visit any weekend foreign language school (Chinese, Arabic, Urdu, etc.) in the U.S. attended by children of mostly native born parents (and even foreign born kids) from whichever country, the kids are speaking English in the playground, prefer to speak English, and will only speak whatever is the native language of their parents if they are prompted even if they are bilingual or nearly so in both languages.  It's called assimilation.

Canada is a bilingual country with two official languages...

I have no problem with YY not giving preference to Chinese speakers (not many Mandarin speakers in DC anyway).  The program has worked great for my DC in preK and yes, he has gone from knowing no Mandarin at all to being able to have conversations in Mandarin.  The kids speak Mandarin in the classrooms to each other where Mandarin is required but not the playground, pretty amazing considering most have had no exposure at all prior to school.

His accent is "good" according to my native born Mandarin speaking babysitters and friends from China.  He will never sound like a native but that is not expected since he is a foreigner.

We love the principal, administration and teachers.  All hard working who genuinely care about the kids.  No complaints at all.  [/quote]

Yup, my experience too. The kids speak to each other in Chinese when in a Chinese classroom environment and in English when on the the playground. Just as I noticed at every other immersion school we visited. (Or with friends who are trying to raise their kids bilingual). I don't think that would change if there were 50/50 home Chinese speakers (which I don't get how people on this board still do not understand is not even possible for Yu Ying to do if they wanted). After just one year of Pre-K my child can read whole books in Chinese and carry on conversations with Chinese friends. But this is just one aspect of her education at Yu Ying. I too had a choice between MV and Yu Ying and as a Spanish speaker (not native) and after having our child home with a Spanish speaking only nanny for 4 years, I thought I would hands down prefer a Spanish immersion. However, when I compared the two schools I felt much more comfortable with Yu Ying over MV. MV may grow to be a great school but its just still too early for me to bank on. The IB curriculum also appealed to me more. The main thing I want for my child is early exposure to a second language- whatever that language may be. And given that Chinese is such a difficult and vastly different language from most of the others options out there, even if she doesn't use it on a daily basis as an adult I can't see how it would not be educationally beneficial.  Growing up in SoCal I always assumed Spanish would be the most useful to learn and spent a ton of time, effort and money as a teen and early adult to gain a decent level of proficiency.  But in my international focused job I almost never use it and wish I had learned French instead as it would be far more useful to me specifically. So, despite my initial strong preference for Spanish we went with Yu Ying and are so glad we did. I guess just think about what your various priorities are and pick the school that is the best balance of those knowing that whatever you decide, you are giving your child a great opportunity. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics