Anonymous wrote:I do find it a bit odd that you admit you are insular and reserved but still feel free to make sweeping judgments about YY families (none of them know any Chinese people, their kids mumble and do not understand anything other than Chinese baby talk, they don't travel to China except perhaps for the YY trip, they don't have any cultural connection or awareness, and--my favorite--they don't even know the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin). While that may very well be true of the YY families you know from your neighborhood, it is absolutely not representative of all or even most families.

NP, Christ, everybody knows that boatloads of parents without "cultural connections" or "awareness" throw their names in every language immersion charter school hat every winter. What else are they supposed to do, enroll their children in in-boundary schools with dismal proficiency pass rates or move to McClean?

Sweeping judgments, ha ha. Try reality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

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.

Anonymous wrote:It's still not free and you have to have a car and time to get out to the suburbs each week. It's a major commitment of time, and some money.

DCI is in DC, it's free, has IB diploma, former AP from Deal, and founder of YY at the helm. That's not to say I "believe in" in DCI, whatever they means, but I certainly am hopeful about it. Because if it doesn't work out, I'll be stuck playing the lottery or moving to the burbs. So, fingers crossed!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they are behind in DCI, they were behind at their HRCS. The continuation of the target language is the draw. [/b]Why waste six years of language instruction, especially in Mandarin which is a hard language.

[

Every parent I know who has decided to send their child to a different middle school, past and currently, has continued or will continue with Mandarin education for their children. What makes you think we would not for our children? Before DCI, which is only in its first year of operation, we had continuation plans beyond Yu Ying.

Not everyone is as well-resourced (i.e. wealthy) as you. Many whose kids currently attend Yu Ying would have ZERO options for continuing Mandarin for free, at that level, if our kids didn't go to DCI. So bravo for you that you have that option, but perhaps if you broke out of your apparently selective group a little, you'd meet plenty of parents who would not have that option. The PP you're responding to apparently knows a wider range of parents than you and your friends.

Not buying this. Hope Chinese School is cheaper than a pair of Lebrons. Parents don't have a problem affording those.

Anonymous wrote: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?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they are behind in DCI, they were behind at their HRCS. The continuation of the target language is the draw. [/b]Why waste six years of language instruction, especially in Mandarin which is a hard language.

[

Every parent I know who has decided to send their child to a different middle school, past and currently, has continued or will continue with Mandarin education for their children. What makes you think we would not for our children? Before DCI, which is only in its first year of operation, we had continuation plans beyond Yu Ying.

Not everyone is as well-resourced (i.e. wealthy) as you. Many whose kids currently attend Yu Ying would have ZERO options for continuing Mandarin for free, at that level, if our kids didn't go to DCI. So bravo for you that you have that option, but perhaps if you broke out of your apparently selective group a little, you'd meet plenty of parents who would not have that option. The PP you're responding to apparently knows a wider range of parents than you and your friends.