Anonymous wrote:I agree, PP. We regret bothering with YY. During our year there (as a token bilingual family) we were walking on eggshells. We encourage the native speakers with little kids in our DC Chinatown community to steer clear.

Kids have done much better with Chinese at home, church and in a heritage program.

What year were you there? It must have been some time ago, because there are more than "token" bilingual families in my children's classes (we have 3). I guess you're not the one who keeps bemoaning the lack of native speakers since you're actively working against the school in this regard.

Anonymous wrote:I agree, PP. We regret bothering with YY. During our year there (as a token bilingual family) we were walking on eggshells. We encourage the native speakers with little kids in our DC Chinatown community to steer clear.

Kids have done much better with Chinese at home, church and in a heritage program.

So on one hand native speakers here are criticizing the school for not doing better outreach to the local Chinese community, but on the other hand, you encourage community members to steer clear.

I agree, PP. We regret bothering with YY. During our year there (as a token bilingual family) we were walking on eggshells. We encourage the native speakers with little kids in our DC Chinatown community to steer clear.

Kids have done much better with Chinese at home, church and in a heritage program.

What's the point to keep arguing about YY's Chinese teaching? I am sure most non-native speaker parents are happy with any Chinese/Mandarin language their kids learn. It is better than none, isn't it? Good Chinese teachers are hard to find in the US. New/2nd generation immigrates with skills won't go into teaching. The school probably is doing as best as it can.

For whoever wants to supplement at home, supplement as much as you want. Why do you care if your children's classmates speak lousy Chinese, as long as your children speak decent Chinese? Kids speak English to each other at school anyway.

As a native speakers, I never bother to apply to the school. It's not like we can get in for sure if we apply. And I am pretty sure I can teach my children better Chinese than any school program. Native speaker parents should as least have this basic confidence in them and their children.

End of the story. Everybody should be happy.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the paranoid rant. Which ABC community?

We're a biracial couple at YY. We wish that the Mandarin program were stronger and more authentic (with ethnic community involvement, not just Chinese teachers sent by China teaching the kids). We've seen programs like that in NYC, where we used to live.

Launch into me now.

These programs save schools like YY money (other DC schools are also getting Chinese teachers this way). The Chinese government is subsidizing their salaries, and also essentially does the recruiting. YY would have to adjust its budgeting to do what you are suggesting, which I agree would be a good idea.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the paranoid rant. Which ABC community?

We're a biracial couple at YY. We wish that the Mandarin program were stronger and more authentic (with ethnic community involvement, not just Chinese teachers sent by China teaching the kids). We've seen programs like that in NYC, where we used to live.

Launch into me now.

I'm sure the school would love for you to share your insight and ideas for how such a program would work in DC. I mean that seriously. Would love to see some action and not just wishes followed by complaints.

Thanks for the paranoid rant. Which ABC community?

We're a biracial couple at YY. We wish that the Mandarin program were stronger and more authentic (with ethnic community involvement, not just Chinese teachers sent by China teaching the kids). We've seen programs like that in NYC, where we used to live.

Launch into me now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College Gardens ends in 5th, right?

NP, College Gardens feeds to Herbert Hoover MS in Potomac for partial immersion Chinese. Many of the HH Chinese track students go on to the Richard Montgomery IB Diploma program in Rockville, which admits no more than 10% (100 of more than 1000) applicants for 9th grade. Chinese immersion track students are in demand in the RM IBD program. YY families who move to MoCo can try to test into College Gardens and Herbert Hoover. But kids really have to be able to speak Mandarin decently for their ages to make the grade.

Take a look at College Gardens, Herbert Hoover, and Yu Ying on a map. And then think about how off topic this post is in relation to OP's questions about Yu Ying. Seek justification for your life choices somewhere else.

Wish you were right. Problem is, the College Gardens, Potomac and Herbert Hoover programs have figured out how to ensure that almost all their students can speak decent Chinese by the upper grades; YY and DCI have not.

As a YY parent, it's worth going to an open house for Mandarin immersion in MoCo. You can learn about how to supplement in ways you may not have thought of, like enrolling in Concordia summer camps, taking opportunities to interact with native-speaking peers, volunteer programs run by local NGOs where Mandarin-speaking kids visit elderly Chinese speakers in public housing etc.

No. We are not interested in your puffery about MoCo schools that are 40min in the wrong direction for our commutes. Nor are we interested in summer camps in Minnesota (!) for our PK4 that just enrolled in YY.

If you can't see that your input is not helpful, unwanted, and actually really hurts your credibility, then you have a personality disorder. This thread, and several others about YY over the past couple years (I've looked), is mired down (and being abandoned by people who could give useful insight) because of your hijacking and obsessive advocacy. Your opinion has been heard, and your suggestions have been rejected, on this thread and multiple others. I don't expect you to go away, but at least just go someplace where you're more relevant.

Speak for yourself. We're very high on the YY WL and I'm very interested. We've been offered a spot in a SPanish immersion DCPS. It's starting to look like the program for us, even if we get off the YY WL.

Well I guess you're in luck, because the same guy has been posting the same talking points on YY threads for a long time, regardless of topic or appeals to go away. In the end, it's about boosting his schools and neighborhood, like a realtor, and downplaying competition from YY. It goes like this: YY isn't serious, your children speak better Chinese with native family and friends, supplemented at a local heritage center, further supplemented by expensive immersion programs in other time zones like Concordia, oh and you should really consider moving 20+ miles away to the MoCo schools his kids are in because the teachers are waaaay better. He does this in just about every single YY thread.

Oh look here he is, with people complaining about his repeat posts: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/30/702630.page
Gee, here he is again, same characteristics: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/375/672329.page#12181151
And again: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/694124.page

Etc. etc.

Hope his input aids your decision!

You’re forgot the racist posts that hint strongly brown kids can’t speak Chinese properly. Or maybe those were deleted? But yeah, definitely lots of racist posts too.

From one of the other threads:
The ABC community here views Yu Ying as cultural appropriation. The AA principal is the last straw; they just seethe. That's the dynamic you need to understand to make sense of the non-stop tsunami of seemingly pointless venom spewed in this thread and all the others about Yu Ying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP again. From this thread it seems like the challenge with YY is learning English rather than Chinese, and parents should supplement with English.

The research is pretty clear that bilingual education improves learning in the native language. There are literally hundreds of peer reviewed studies proving this.

Could YY in particular improve ELA instruction? Probably . The PP whose kid went from YY to a top private and needed added writing instruction would probably have had the same problem coming out of Murch. The one advantage privates have over publics is that the small class sizes let teachers assign and grade a lot more essays.

Agree with this and would just add that I believe the research shows that there is often an initial lag in language development for kids who start out with two languages, but then the kids typically catch up and even surpass monolingual counterparts.

YY parents love to claim this, citing studies. My inconvenient question is, who's your competition?

At our JKLM, ELA instruction has been a lot stronger than what we got at YY, and so is the Chinese instruction at our MD heritage program. It can be difficult to justify the need to "catch up" when many of the YY kids never progress beyond what amounts to kindergarten spoken Chinese. Yea, you don't want to hear this as a parent, not when you love the warm and welcoming program, lovely campus etc.

Do those heritage language programs work? I'm not sure how kids can learn a language with once a week instruction. As an alumni interviewer, I've interviewed kids who attend those programs. They tell me they haven't learned much. I also grew up in CA with dozens of friends who attended heritage programs in Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and even Polish. They all learned very little, mostly because the teachers at the schools had no training in teaching. They were just native speakers who were down on their luck and were friends with the person who ran the language school. Maybe you've found a school that has higher teaching standards. If so, could you share the school's info?

We attend one (not for Chinese) and I’d say the answer is maybe. The one we attend is quite rigorous and affiliated with an immersion school already, and I still think the only way you can learn from once a week instruction is talking to your kid in the target language and working very hard (reading in that language every night, visiting the country, visiting relatives, etc). You basically have to have taught your child that language yourself and use the heritage school to supplement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College Gardens ends in 5th, right?

NP, College Gardens feeds to Herbert Hoover MS in Potomac for partial immersion Chinese. Many of the HH Chinese track students go on to the Richard Montgomery IB Diploma program in Rockville, which admits no more than 10% (100 of more than 1000) applicants for 9th grade. Chinese immersion track students are in demand in the RM IBD program. YY families who move to MoCo can try to test into College Gardens and Herbert Hoover. But kids really have to be able to speak Mandarin decently for their ages to make the grade.

Take a look at College Gardens, Herbert Hoover, and Yu Ying on a map. And then think about how off topic this post is in relation to OP's questions about Yu Ying. Seek justification for your life choices somewhere else.

Wish you were right. Problem is, the College Gardens, Potomac and Herbert Hoover programs have figured out how to ensure that almost all their students can speak decent Chinese by the upper grades; YY and DCI have not.

As a YY parent, it's worth going to an open house for Mandarin immersion in MoCo. You can learn about how to supplement in ways you may not have thought of, like enrolling in Concordia summer camps, taking opportunities to interact with native-speaking peers, volunteer programs run by local NGOs where Mandarin-speaking kids visit elderly Chinese speakers in public housing etc.

No. We are not interested in your puffery about MoCo schools that are 40min in the wrong direction for our commutes. Nor are we interested in summer camps in Minnesota (!) for our PK4 that just enrolled in YY.

If you can't see that your input is not helpful, unwanted, and actually really hurts your credibility, then you have a personality disorder. This thread, and several others about YY over the past couple years (I've looked), is mired down (and being abandoned by people who could give useful insight) because of your hijacking and obsessive advocacy. Your opinion has been heard, and your suggestions have been rejected, on this thread and multiple others. I don't expect you to go away, but at least just go someplace where you're more relevant.

Speak for yourself. We're very high on the YY WL and I'm very interested. We've been offered a spot in a SPanish immersion DCPS. It's starting to look like the program for us, even if we get off the YY WL.

Well I guess you're in luck, because the same guy has been posting the same talking points on YY threads for a long time, regardless of topic or appeals to go away. In the end, it's about boosting his schools and neighborhood, like a realtor, and downplaying competition from YY. It goes like this: YY isn't serious, your children speak better Chinese with native family and friends, supplemented at a local heritage center, further supplemented by expensive immersion programs in other time zones like Concordia, oh and you should really consider moving 20+ miles away to the MoCo schools his kids are in because the teachers are waaaay better. He does this in just about every single YY thread.

Oh look here he is, with people complaining about his repeat posts: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/30/702630.page
Gee, here he is again, same characteristics: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/375/672329.page#12181151
And again: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/694124.page

Etc. etc.

Hope his input aids your decision!

You’re forgot the racist posts that hint strongly brown kids can’t speak Chinese properly. Or maybe those were deleted? But yeah, definitely lots of racist posts too.

Anonymous wrote:We're at YY and have been for a few years. We're and on the fence about moving on after this year. Hard decision.

I can't stand the view that those who have issues with the way the school runs have "personality disorders." Yea, right, they are guilty of "puffery" in suggesting that YY should build stronger ties with the local ethnic Chinese community. Duh, this should happen.

Truth is, there are some really uptight and insecure parents at YY who don't want to deal with competition from families who take the Chinese learning seriously (more of these types coming up the chain allt he time).

Shut up already ridiculous boosters, you're the paranoid losers on these threads. You just make YY look bad.

Nah this is a fake post. You sound just like that “heritage dad” who routinely talks about “competition from real Chinese speakers”. Is that why you are thinking of leaving YU Ying? Nah you’re a troll.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP again. From this thread it seems like the challenge with YY is learning English rather than Chinese, and parents should supplement with English.

The research is pretty clear that bilingual education improves learning in the native language. There are literally hundreds of peer reviewed studies proving this.

Could YY in particular improve ELA instruction? Probably . The PP whose kid went from YY to a top private and needed added writing instruction would probably have had the same problem coming out of Murch. The one advantage privates have over publics is that the small class sizes let teachers assign and grade a lot more essays.

Agree with this and would just add that I believe the research shows that there is often an initial lag in language development for kids who start out with two languages, but then the kids typically catch up and even surpass monolingual counterparts.

YY parents love to claim this, citing studies. My inconvenient question is, who's your competition?

At our JKLM, ELA instruction has been a lot stronger than what we got at YY, and so is the Chinese instruction at our MD heritage program. It can be difficult to justify the need to "catch up" when many of the YY kids never progress beyond what amounts to kindergarten spoken Chinese. Yea, you don't want to hear this as a parent, not when you love the warm and welcoming program, lovely campus etc.

Do those heritage language programs work? I'm not sure how kids can learn a language with once a week instruction. As an alumni interviewer, I've interviewed kids who attend those programs. They tell me they haven't learned much. I also grew up in CA with dozens of friends who attended heritage programs in Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and even Polish. They all learned very little, mostly because the teachers at the schools had no training in teaching. They were just native speakers who were down on their luck and were friends with the person who ran the language school. Maybe you've found a school that has higher teaching standards. If so, could you share the school's info?

Anonymous wrote:YY parent here - the suggestion that is floated here frequently that somehow we are jealous of native speakers is so random and bizarre. Yes, there are some tiger parents at YY, but the vast majority are pretty laid back. I mean, it's brookland, for christs sake.

Pretty sure that suggestion comes from one bitter & relentless poster.

YY parent here - the suggestion that is floated here frequently that somehow we are jealous of native speakers is so random and bizarre. Yes, there are some tiger parents at YY, but the vast majority are pretty laid back. I mean, it's brookland, for christs sake.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're at YY and have been for a few years. We're and on the fence about moving on after this year. Hard decision.

I can't stand the view that those who have issues with the way the school runs have "personality disorders." Yea, right, they are guilty of "puffery" in suggesting that YY should build stronger ties with the local ethnic Chinese community. Duh, this should happen.

Truth is, there are some really uptight and insecure parents at YY who don't want to deal with competition from families who take the Chinese learning seriously (more of these types coming up the chain allt he time).

Shut up already ridiculous boosters, you're the paranoid losers on these threads. You just make YY look bad.

This may be the craziest post yet. Parents afraid of “competition” from families who take Chinese seriously? That’s just paranoid.

Yea, crazy, hyper DC public school parents feeling competitive and insecure, never happens. All rainbows and kittens at YY all the time.