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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Many upper grades Yu Ying parents must believe in DCI because they don't speak Chinese.  I'm a native speaker who, I kid you not, can hardly understand most of the YY kids I speak Mandarin to in my neighborhood, including upper grades kids.  They don't seem able to understand me either, unless I speak as though I'm talking to a baby or toddler.  Their parents seem to think that the kids are close to fluent for their ages.  Also, when I talk to the families, they don't seem to know much at all about Chinese culture - they've never been to a Chinese-speaking country (other than perhaps on the recent YY 5th grade trip), aren't going, and don't have Chinese immigrant or ABC friends.  They don't seem to know that most Chinese immigrants speak Cantonese, not Mandarin, or what Cantonese is.

I can't help but wonder how these kids are going to fare on those International Baccalaureate exams in six, seven or eight years.  Having earned the full IB Diploma abroad years ago, I'm not convinced that DCPC has really thought the DCI program through.  Those exams are killers, a good deal harder than AP language exams (which I also took), at least at the Higher Level.

I don't go looking for reasons to criticize DC public schools, but from where I sit, DCI's Chinese track doesn't sound like a serious thing.  What makes you think it is?

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Interesting that that's your experience.  That has not been mine (I'm not a parent of older YY kids).  But I have been in several situations with older YY students and non-YY affiliated Chinese native speakers, and I hear over and over that the students' Mandarin overall is actually very good.  I listen for those opinions because obviously I'm interested in knowing how the students' proficiency (or lack thereof) is playing to a non-YY Mandarin-speaking audience.  The majority of feedback I've gotten is very very positive, and does give me hope.  Just to be clear, they're not people who have no reason not to speak the truth, and a few times I've specifically asked people I know who are native speakers to listen in and tell me what they really think.

And I absolutely have NOT had the experience you describe where the students can't understand what's being said to them and native Mandarin speakers can't understand what the students are saying.  Even with the "less than stellar" students, I was told their comprehension was excellent.

Since I don't know anyone in real life whose had your experience, I continue to be very optimistic about what older YY students' proficiency will be in later years.  I have no reason yet not to be optimistic, the feedback so far has been very positive. At some point testing will come in and we'll have actual data about their proficiency.  Looking forward to that.[/quote]

Taiwanese dad here again.  Perhaps, but I'll say this, Chinese raise their kids to be polite, really polite. When YY families ask how their kids sound to me, I often find myself saying that a kid's comprehension seems good or excellent when it strikes me as mediocre or poor.  We're non-confrontational as a group and insular; bilingual immigrant families aren't going to tangle with YY families.  No point.  We're already looking ahead to the testing, schlepping our kids to Rockville on weekends without complaint.  We know that our children will need much higher standardized test scores than other groups to crack the same colleges. This helps explain why a coalition of 60 Asian-American groups recently filed suit against Harvard for discrimination in admissions.  
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I'm not going to comment further on who I'm asking and why I have no doubt in their opinions, but I will say that I share another posters surprise that you freely admit you lie to people who ask you your sincere opinion.  And then you go on to speak disparagingly about the same families and kids that you -for cultural reasons - can't even face being honest with about their language skills?  Makes no sense and seems frankly bizarre actually.  But I remain excited, thrilled even, every time my 2nd grader crosses paths with a native Mandarin speaker and they are off to the races in discussion, and then the adult gushes how well she speaks and how excellent her tones are.  Followed always by a lot of questions about where she learns it and how long and more compliments.  It happens regularly, and frankly, my actual life experience trumps your anonymous skepticism and criticism (for me, not saying it should for anyone who knows neither of us).

Most importantly of all though, right now all you say IS just conjecture or your opinion vs. other families opinions.  Nothing you say can damage YY's mission and progress until testing begins, whenever and however that will happen, and the truth will be much clearer then.  And if the results are very good... it'll be interesting to see how you explain that away as well.  And if you're teaching  your kids that "speaking the truth when someone asks you a question = "tangling with them"", then I'm not really all that worried about my kids competing with yours in the real world.  Culture or not, you can't be so afraid of telling the truth that you perceive a playground conversation as "tangling".  Good luck with that.[/quote]

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