Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Technically you are NOT supposed to apply to the immersions if you have a parent at home who is a native speaker of the immersion language.

Where did you learn this? I don't see anything about it here: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/admissions/immersion.aspx And you can test into immersion programs, based on your language proficiency.

PP here. Sorry for the misinformation -- looks like that requirement is no longer included.

My child began attending immersion in 2004 and this information was included on the application and repeated during the information sessions, with parents being admonished "not to take up spots" if their child was already in an environment where the language was spoken.

If this was ever a rule it's one that can't be enforced. If never told anyone I spoke target language most would never know. Furthermore having one or both parents fluent in a language says little about the ability of the child. Even in the same household there can be older kids that speak the parents language and younger siblings who don't.

Anonymous wrote:no. we are fully Mandarin immersion at home, and I heard bad stories about the Chinese immersion program.

Also, if for some reason, our kids can't master English and Chinese equally well, English will still be their first language. They are American. I need to respect the fact.

Can you elaborate on the bad stories? Was that abt college gardens?

no. we are fully Mandarin immersion at home, and I heard bad stories about the Chinese immersion program.

Also, if for some reason, our kids can't master English and Chinese equally well, English will still be their first language. They are American. I need to respect the fact.

Location location location, it is not easy to arrange daily rides to/from school.

I live in HoCo and would seriously move just to send my snowflake to a Chinese immersion class. I was born in Taiwan and once spoke Taiwanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin fluently. It's been 20 years since I used it and can barely order a pizza (I moved here when I was 3). I think my current proficiency is something like 1-2 Pimsleur disks.

The lingua franca at home is English (husband is of another heritage).

Parents who are fluent native speakers don't seem to be interested. It is more the ones who don't use it much at home or maybe only one parent does.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Technically you are NOT supposed to apply to the immersions if you have a parent at home who is a native speaker of the immersion language.

Where did you learn this? I don't see anything about it here: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/admissions/immersion.aspx And you can test into immersion programs, based on your language proficiency.

PP here. Sorry for the misinformation -- looks like that requirement is no longer included.

My child began attending immersion in 2004 and this information was included on the application and repeated during the information sessions, with parents being admonished "not to take up spots" if their child was already in an environment where the language was spoken.

I am not sure that is the only conclusion.. Kids move, kids get into GT magnets, kids leave the immersion magnet because of LD's or logistical issues. You would have to know if the departure rate was higher for kids that do not have a Chinese speaking parent. It does however make me wonder about the overall effectiveness of the program if kids are leaving for whatever reason.

Anonymous wrote:At College Gardens the 4th and 5th grade classes have been combined for years do to small numbers. I am not very aware of kids testing in to fill spots...just that the numbers go way down over the years.

So I guess immersion really does not work if there isn't someone at home to support this. Chinese is so different than English I can imagine this happening.

At College Gardens the 4th and 5th grade classes have been combined for years do to small numbers. I am not very aware of kids testing in to fill spots...just that the numbers go way down over the years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Technically you are NOT supposed to apply to the immersions if you have a parent at home who is a native speaker of the immersion language.

Where did you learn this? I don't see anything about it here: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/admissions/immersion.aspx And you can test into immersion programs, based on your language proficiency.

Also curious about this (imagined?) technicality, and your source for it. We have a child in an immersion program and one parent at home speaks the immersion language. There are plenty of native speakers in the programs.

I have heard from some other parents (and on thsi site) that the Chinese program has higher drop-out rate, and thus in the upper grades there is a fairly large number of native speakers who tested in to fill the spots. Anyone heard similar?

Anonymous wrote:Technically you are NOT supposed to apply to the immersions if you have a parent at home who is a native speaker of the immersion language.

Where did you learn this? I don't see anything about it here: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/specialprograms/admissions/immersion.aspx And you can test into immersion programs, based on your language proficiency.

Technically you are NOT supposed to apply to the immersions if you have a parent at home who is a native speaker of the immersion language. The point of the immersions is not to give bilingual households the opportunity for free language supplementation classes -- it's to give immersion opportunities to kids who would not have the access at home.

Everyone breaks this rule, but it bears noting.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks pp.

Writing in Chinese is indeed very difficult and most kids who only do weekend Chinese school cannot really write.

That's true, but not that big a deal for a bilingual child. If your parents are native speakers, like mine, you learn tones from them really young, which is half the battle with any dialect of Chinese. I only knew a few characters when I did a year abroad in college, in China, to focus on learning characters.

Learning to write in Chinese is merely time consuming - if you speak without much of an accent, you can learn more characters at any point in your life. Chinese parents who speak other dialects at home (e.g. Cantonese, Hakka, Fujian, Shang'hai-ese, do tend to want their kids to learn Mandarin these days, not just in MoCo of course, but in Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc.

We are in the French Immersion program - my husband is a native French speaker so it was always our intention to have our children learn fluent French. It is hard when in the home we speak English to each other, so even though he would speak French to the kids, he never made the kind of progress our DD made after just a few months in K. If it was not for the French Immersion program which we felt very lucky to get a spot in, it would have to be private lessons. With this program we get an great education, a new language, and it's free!