Reply to What's the best way to prepare for language immersion?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^ If only the world worked like this.  Not even in the program yet and already drinking the Kool-aid.

Check back with us 7 or 8 years from now. [/quote]

How about you pull back from the wine bottle, and pay your children and husband some attention! Oops, my bad... that's why you have your au pair.

Check back with me 7 or 8 years from now, after your husband has left you and started a new family with your au pair!  :mrgreen:

***sips blue raspberry lemonade Kool-aid***  it's my favorite kind!! [/quote]

Not at YY, new poster, no dog in this fight-

While I understand that a lot of these YY posts are pretty hostile, I think it is important to note that a lot of parents have magical thinking when it comes to immersion. It would also benefit everyone to have a close connection with families who have native level proficiency.

I understand that it easy to say that those with au pairs are privileged, which is true, but it is equally true that the school isn’t going to magically turn your monolingual child into a multilingual child without some really hard work and sacrifices on your part. We save as much as we can to travel to Spanish speaking places (at a Spanish immersion school) and really put significant effort to maximize Spanish speaking situations (camps, tutors, enrichment, etc) and we are a Spanish speaking family!

[b]If you’re not willing to do anything outside of the minimum, I’m sorry but the chances of your child actually speaking the target language are really low. [/b][/quote]

I see a real problem in the way the DCI feeders enroll low SES monolingual English-speaking parents (mostly AA) who lack the sophistication to begin to understand how much time, hard work and family money goes into making immersion pay off. They aren't taught this by admins looking to boost a school's lottery and enrollment stats. Charters encourage families who lack the wherewithal to ensure that their kids can learn to speak target languages to enroll in these programs at the expense of critically important ELA instruction.

Parents are told that mere "language exposure" at the expense of English instruction year in and year out sets kids up for academic and career success. Sounds like OP believes this.

I also don't like how the charters set the bar so low for speaking target languages that parents come under little pressure to make the investments to ensure that their immersion students can actually speak target languages.  [/quote]

Our DCI feeder does a pretty good job telling parents they should learn Spanish and offering classes on the weekends etc.

That said I don’t know what you’re proposing - are you seriously expecting a public school to tell low income families they don’t belong? Please clarify. [/quote]

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