Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:58
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:This conversation is already 21 pages long so I haven't read (and probably won't read) all that came before, just gonna give my experience.
My child is a 3rd grader now, so been at YY for 4 full years (PreK4 through 2nd), and now early in his 3rd grade year. None of us are of Chinese origin, and none of us spoke Chinese before he started at YY. He also gets no supplementary Chinese instruction or tutoring, we don't go to any weekend classes or other classes outside of his regular work at YY, and we don't have any nanny or au pair.
My experience with his Mandarin language skills is very positive. Because this is DC, we have sought out and found several ways to throw him into situations where he's speaking Mandarin with natives, to see how it goes and what they have to say about his skills. First of all, as early as the end of 1st grade there were very few things that anyone would say to him in Chinese that he didn't understand. He wasn't always able to find the best words to answer, but even that early there was abundant back and forth and the people he was speaking to ALWAYS commented on how good his comprehension was, how great his tones are, and they can't believe he can converse like that. And it's just gotten better since 1st grade.
Also, on playdates with other YY kids they will often on their own start speaking Chinese, although more often it's by a parent suggesting it. But they really do do it on their own as well.
While I understand (according to many native speakers) that Chinese people are gracious and unlikely to say anything super-negative about a child's language skills in these kinds of contexts, it always annoys me when people dismiss the positive feedback some of us get as if NO ONE Chinese is capable of being sincere or clear about their impressions. There is almost always clear surprise and clear appreciation for his skills, most people are very specific about what impresses them.
And most importantly, to the original question, his conversations are real conversations. Not just broken "What you say when ordering at a restaurant". At this point I can't remember the last time somoene said something to him in Mandarin and he didn't understand and answer, on his own, with no prompting.
So I don't know what's in these pages, but our experience at YY is far from unusual- it's very common. I don't know any kids in his grade with poor or really incomplete Mandarin skills, although I obviously also don't know every single kid in his grade. But the ones we do know, and the ones we see out and about in contexts where there are adult native speakers, do very very well and are always highly praised and we get lots of great feedback. And it's not always the same - sometimes kids get different feedback on specific things, like tones. But overall it's far far more advanced than cute little phrases or canned exchanges.
We hope you're on the mark, but since you don't speak Chinese, who knows.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:56
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Right, but Latin's HS still has a very tough time hanging onto its strongest MS students - they run off to Wilson, Banneker, Walls, privates and the burbs. The difference in MS and HS demographics there remains pronounced. It took parents ten years of concerted pushing for advanced middle school math classes to be created, just last year. Change has been slow and hard won.
This. The road ahead for DCI, whatever childish names you're calling one another.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:53
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
This conversation is already 21 pages long so I haven't read (and probably won't read) all that came before, just gonna give my experience.
My child is a 3rd grader now, so been at YY for 4 full years (PreK4 through 2nd), and now early in his 3rd grade year. None of us are of Chinese origin, and none of us spoke Chinese before he started at YY. He also gets no supplementary Chinese instruction or tutoring, we don't go to any weekend classes or other classes outside of his regular work at YY, and we don't have any nanny or au pair.
My experience with his Mandarin language skills is very positive. Because this is DC, we have sought out and found several ways to throw him into situations where he's speaking Mandarin with natives, to see how it goes and what they have to say about his skills. First of all, as early as the end of 1st grade there were very few things that anyone would say to him in Chinese that he didn't understand. He wasn't always able to find the best words to answer, but even that early there was abundant back and forth and the people he was speaking to ALWAYS commented on how good his comprehension was, how great his tones are, and they can't believe he can converse like that. And it's just gotten better since 1st grade.
Also, on playdates with other YY kids they will often on their own start speaking Chinese, although more often it's by a parent suggesting it. But they really do do it on their own as well.
While I understand (according to many native speakers) that Chinese people are gracious and unlikely to say anything super-negative about a child's language skills in these kinds of contexts, it always annoys me when people dismiss the positive feedback some of us get as if NO ONE Chinese is capable of being sincere or clear about their impressions. There is almost always clear surprise and clear appreciation for his skills, most people are very specific about what impresses them.
And most importantly, to the original question, his conversations are real conversations. Not just broken "What you say when ordering at a restaurant". At this point I can't remember the last time somoene said something to him in Mandarin and he didn't understand and answer, on his own, with no prompting.
So I don't know what's in these pages, but our experience at YY is far from unusual- it's very common. I don't know any kids in his grade with poor or really incomplete Mandarin skills, although I obviously also don't know every single kid in his grade. But the ones we do know, and the ones we see out and about in contexts where there are adult native speakers, do very very well and are always highly praised and we get lots of great feedback. And it's not always the same - sometimes kids get different feedback on specific things, like tones. But overall it's far far more advanced than cute little phrases or canned exchanges.
My child is a 3rd grader now, so been at YY for 4 full years (PreK4 through 2nd), and now early in his 3rd grade year. None of us are of Chinese origin, and none of us spoke Chinese before he started at YY. He also gets no supplementary Chinese instruction or tutoring, we don't go to any weekend classes or other classes outside of his regular work at YY, and we don't have any nanny or au pair.
My experience with his Mandarin language skills is very positive. Because this is DC, we have sought out and found several ways to throw him into situations where he's speaking Mandarin with natives, to see how it goes and what they have to say about his skills. First of all, as early as the end of 1st grade there were very few things that anyone would say to him in Chinese that he didn't understand. He wasn't always able to find the best words to answer, but even that early there was abundant back and forth and the people he was speaking to ALWAYS commented on how good his comprehension was, how great his tones are, and they can't believe he can converse like that. And it's just gotten better since 1st grade.
Also, on playdates with other YY kids they will often on their own start speaking Chinese, although more often it's by a parent suggesting it. But they really do do it on their own as well.
While I understand (according to many native speakers) that Chinese people are gracious and unlikely to say anything super-negative about a child's language skills in these kinds of contexts, it always annoys me when people dismiss the positive feedback some of us get as if NO ONE Chinese is capable of being sincere or clear about their impressions. There is almost always clear surprise and clear appreciation for his skills, most people are very specific about what impresses them.
And most importantly, to the original question, his conversations are real conversations. Not just broken "What you say when ordering at a restaurant". At this point I can't remember the last time somoene said something to him in Mandarin and he didn't understand and answer, on his own, with no prompting.
So I don't know what's in these pages, but our experience at YY is far from unusual- it's very common. I don't know any kids in his grade with poor or really incomplete Mandarin skills, although I obviously also don't know every single kid in his grade. But the ones we do know, and the ones we see out and about in contexts where there are adult native speakers, do very very well and are always highly praised and we get lots of great feedback. And it's not always the same - sometimes kids get different feedback on specific things, like tones. But overall it's far far more advanced than cute little phrases or canned exchanges.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:34
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have a polite suggestion for YY parents who react defensively to any hint of the ABC threat.
Simple, if you don't like the beatings you take on these threads, head them off by wowing your critics.
Your ELA scores do not rock for any demographic. For the most part, your students' spoken Mandarin is a poor advertisement for your immersion program. The paucity of native speakers (including your HOS) in your program is downright embarrassing. There seems to be considerable scope for improvement despite your immutable limitations.
Make it happen with DC charter and your admins. Go on to DCI and ensure that your kids knock it out of the park on all manner of standardized tests and college acceptances. Only then will your detractors probably lose interest in poking fun at you.
OK I'm sure this is horribly racist but why am I reading this and picturing the mom on Fresh off the Boat saying/typing this while being a drama queen? (not a YY parent, don't want to give the school a bad name)
It's a guy who continually refers to his sad self as "Heritage dad".
Get a life. Some of the posts criticizing YY have come from current YY parents.
Yes but most are from you, "mate".
Also- your dumb HL mandarin idea is still dumb.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:33
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have a polite suggestion for YY parents who react defensively to any hint of the ABC threat.
Simple, if you don't like the beatings you take on these threads, head them off by wowing your critics.
Your ELA scores do not rock for any demographic. For the most part, your students' spoken Mandarin is a poor advertisement for your immersion program. The paucity of native speakers (including your HOS) in your program is downright embarrassing. There seems to be considerable scope for improvement despite your immutable limitations.
Make it happen with DC charter and your admins. Go on to DCI and ensure that your kids knock it out of the park on all manner of standardized tests and college acceptances. Only then will your detractors probably lose interest in poking fun at you.
OK I'm sure this is horribly racist but why am I reading this and picturing the mom on Fresh off the Boat saying/typing this while being a drama queen? (not a YY parent, don't want to give the school a bad name)
I really like that actress. She's not like that in real life.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:32
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have a polite suggestion for YY parents who react defensively to any hint of the ABC threat.
Simple, if you don't like the beatings you take on these threads, head them off by wowing your critics.
Your ELA scores do not rock for any demographic. For the most part, your students' spoken Mandarin is a poor advertisement for your immersion program. The paucity of native speakers (including your HOS) in your program is downright embarrassing. There seems to be considerable scope for improvement despite your immutable limitations.
Make it happen with DC charter and your admins. Go on to DCI and ensure that your kids knock it out of the park on all manner of standardized tests and college acceptances. Only then will your detractors probably lose interest in poking fun at you.
OK I'm sure this is horribly racist but why am I reading this and picturing the mom on Fresh off the Boat saying/typing this while being a drama queen? (not a YY parent, don't want to give the school a bad name)
It's a guy who continually refers to his sad self as "Heritage dad".
Get a life. Some of the posts criticizing YY have come from current YY parents.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:32
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Any strong HS student who studies Chinese for a few years can score a 4 or 5 on AP Chinese. More than 80% of AP Chinese test takers earn 5s, the greatest percentage of any AP test. Really no need to bother with 50% Chinese immersion in ES and partial immersion in MS to get there.
Communicating in polite tones in English just isn't the strong suit of East Asian immigrants to this country. The great majority missed the Civil Rights Movement and don't understand institutionalized racism. They have many redeeming features though, particularly pragmatism, a strong work ethnic, and high levels of educational attainment as families, no matter where they start on the socioeconomic ladder.
If you're an unrepentant racist, you have NO redeeming features.
I concur, no redeeming features. So why put your kids in a 50% immersion language program to learn the language of hordes of racist bastards?
There's a cultural disconnect issue at play that can be studied, deconstructed and understood. Or you can leave things at calling calling Chinese immigrants unrepentant racists.
My children attend Oyster (thank God!). I read all language immersion threads, and felt compelled to comment on this post. Current YY parents: you have really dodged a bullet by keeping families like the PP out. I would take so-so Mandarin any day over sharing space with such distasteful people.
If these people are calling you distasteful, you might need to rethink what you've been posting.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:31
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Right, but Latin's HS still has a very tough time hanging onto its strongest MS students - they run off to Wilson, Banneker, Walls, privates and the burbs. The difference in MS and HS demographics there remains pronounced. It took parents ten years of concerted pushing for advanced middle school math classes to be created, just last year. Change has been slow and hard won.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:27
Subject: Re: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have a polite suggestion for YY parents who react defensively to any hint of the ABC threat.
Simple, if you don't like the beatings you take on these threads, head them off by wowing your critics.
Your ELA scores do not rock for any demographic. For the most part, your students' spoken Mandarin is a poor advertisement for your immersion program. The paucity of native speakers (including your HOS) in your program is downright embarrassing. There seems to be considerable scope for improvement despite your immutable limitations.
Make it happen with DC charter and your admins. Go on to DCI and ensure that your kids knock it out of the park on all manner of standardized tests and college acceptances. Only then will your detractors probably lose interest in poking fun at you.
OK I'm sure this is horribly racist but why am I reading this and picturing the mom on Fresh off the Boat saying/typing this while being a drama queen? (not a YY parent, don't want to give the school a bad name)
It's a guy who continually refers to his sad self as "Heritage dad".
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:27
Subject: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Nah, they have better things to do than seethe, like raising their bilingual kids to thrive in their connection to the rising China while making good use of JKLM, Brent, privates, MoCo programs etc. Give me a break, the AA principal isn't the issue - it's the HOS that doesn't speak the language of immersion for ten years now that's a joke. I bet they'd applaud her if she were fluent in Mandarin, have lived in Taiwan or China, and hired a Cantonese speaking admin to connect to the small DC immigrant community.
We're in Spanish immersion but I don't see pointless venom on immersion threads, I see a lot of fair points in a school system that's a whole lot better at pretending to promote excellence than actually doing it. Can't wait to see those IB Diploma scores for the many YY families with the million dollar houses on Cap Hill, in Brookland etc. Yea, some of them could attain Singapore IB Diploma heights if they bothered to put nose to the grindstone.
Well, you won't know until 2020 when the very first DCI class graduates, so I hope you're not holding your breath.
No problem waiting. As a parent who earned the IB Diploma, taught in an IB World School, and bailed on YY, I can say with confidence that DCI scores are going to hit high SES families hard for many years. BASIS isn't pretending in the same way, they're meticulously building their AP success. Their facilities are weak, but their planning prowess and work ethic merits a little respect. Washington Latin, too. Kids can't go on to score in the 30s and 40s on IB exams on the strength of DCI feeder and DCI academics unless perhaps parents supplement like mad for a lot of dough.
Also an IB grad and we are not bailing our DCI feeder. But then I have a real job, not just a sad sack talking about my brief experience as an IB teacher.
Anonymous
10/11/2017 14:10
Subject: Yu Ying - Do/Can Non-Native Kids Actually SPEAK Chinese?
Anonymous wrote:
Well, you won't know until 2020 when the very first DCI class graduates, so I hope you're not holding your breath.
No problem waiting. As a parent who earned the IB Diploma, taught in an IB World School, and bailed on YY, I can say with confidence that DCI scores are going to hit high SES families hard for many years. BASIS isn't pretending in the same way, they're meticulously building their AP success. Their facilities are weak, but their planning prowess and work ethic merits a little respect. Washington Latin, too. Kids can't go on to score in the 30s and 40s on IB exams on the strength of DCI feeder and DCI academics unless perhaps parents supplement like mad for a lot of dough.
I truly don't think most high SES families currently enrolled at DCI care about the IB Diploma scores all that much. If they were the kinds of parents who did, they would not be in a start-up charter school to begin with; they would have bailed along the way for a more sure thing.
Now that may not be true for younger families whose students are in one of the feeder schools now. But the first few classes at any charter school are made up of people who are a little more risk tolerant. That can certainly be said of the parents of the oldest students at BASIS now and the first 2-3 years of Washington Latin high school graduates.
I bet you're right, but demographics change fast in the DC public ed universe. Hundreds of high SES parents of little kids are getting on the DCI train for a path to 12th, never mind if the middle and high school kids can really speak the languages being taught in the feeders. Expectations seem much higher on the part of the early childhood and lower elementary grades crowd than the current DCI parents. Feeder and DCI admins would be smart to plan to manage expectations.
Cmon - the first graduating class of Washington Latin went to school in six different locations. We should all be thankful to those families who stuck with it. It's not until the class of 2021 that a graduating Latin class will have only spent time in its current location. That's a lot of families who made do and figured it out so that now all the rest of us can benefit (that is those who get in - and no, we're not one of the lucky ones). There is no way the school in its early years is the same as the school now.
Let's cut some of the current DCI families a break and show them some gratitude and compassion - because of them, future students will have a stronger school to go to - will it be as strong as you like? Maybe not, but without them, there's no chance. This is DCI's 3rd year. The principal has shown remarkable leadership in the face of the tragic student death, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the school unfolds.