Reply to Yu Ying - advice please

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Yu Ying - advice please"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kids almost always do "fine" in Chinese at YY without any supplemental instruction or assistance from parents because the bar for Mandarin just isn't set very high, particularly for speaking. The instructional emphasis is on writing and grammar. When we sent our YY student to a summer immersion sleepover camp attended by a whole bunch of kids from Mandarin immersion schools in NY and NJ (both public and private weekend programs) after 3rd grade, we were surprised to learn that they had a lot of trouble keeping up on speaking and listening. They weren't just trailing campers who spoke dialects at home, they were behind the curve period.[/quote]

Which camp did you go to, was it Concordia?

I always sort of roll my eyes when people critcize YY students' Chinese speaking skills bc the school emphasizes reading and writing over conversation. If the school did the opposite, and focused on speaking/understanding at the expense of reading and writing, then the criticism would be "yeah the kids speak ok but are illiterate." [/quote]

Yes, two-week Concordia Village Chinese camp in MN, for ages 8+. Camp was packed with NY, NJ and Cal kids enrolled in dual immersion programs, lots of what I'll call "semi native speakers." Our YY bubble deflated after five years of being told that our child spoke very well, although we didn't supplement. Most of the other campers spoke and understood a lot better than ours, including slang/kid speak Chinese. Ours was more than competitive on writing. Child struggled in the camp, but we're proud that s/he wants to return another year. We're hosting a Chinese au pair for the first time this school year, although it's a stretch for us financially and we miss having a designated guest room in our not so big row house. [/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