Anonymous wrote:It's true, the retention rate is impressive. But as a native speaker with bilingual kids who left YY, I still see a time of reckoning for the school, after several years of IB Diploma Chinese results have been made public.

More than 80% of AP Chinese test takers score 5s, and the SAT II test is so easy that students with just two years of HS instruction can ace it. So elite colleges aren't bowled over by middle-class kids scoring 5s and 700s on American standardized tests for Chinese. Problem is, the way YY teaches spoken Mandarin means that it will be next to impossible for kids without native speakers in the home to score high on IBD Chinese, where immersion students are supposed to stand out.

I can't see middle-class DCI kids standing out in the pack for their Chinese in admissions to national universities, where they will be competing with many dual-immersion program grads (mainly from the West Coast). YY parents seem to assume that their kids will emerge as Chinese-speaking standouts in college admissions, but I can't see it. Out of earshot of YY pals, my kids jokingly call YY Mandarin "I-pod GPS Chinese."

Hint: pushing admins to train Mainland teachers to put far more emphasis on speaking, bringing back summer camp, and partnering with local programs with native speaking kids couldn't hurt. Launching into skeptics/critics may feel good, but it won't help.

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Anonymous wrote:Whoah, weaknesses in Mandarin are not "easily correctible" at any age (says the musically talented ABC who speaks two dialects and reads OK, after attending heritage schools on Fri nights from K-12). I even spent a college year at a Chinese univ in a full immersion program without emerging as fluent in either dialect. In our experience, YY only gives good or excellent grades in speaking. Admins know that, with only a handful of true native-speaking kids in the school, speaking Mandarin is tied to SES: money for Chinese au pairs (native speakers without local grandparents often host them), tutors and immersion summer camps, preferably in China. Admins tell the Chinese teachers that it's unfair to grade kids down for speaking/listening ability, so they don't.

That sounds appropriate to me.

Some of us would prefer a more serious language program, working around limitations imposed by federal charter law, than what's "appropriate." YY could offer summer immersion camps with fees on a sliding scale. Many parents would happily pay. They could also start testing alleged heritage speakers for speaking ability on arrival and publishing the results. MoCo is doing all this.

I love it when people suggest what another enterprise should just "offer." Have you created a business plan? What's the curriculum? What's the staffing model? How many students will enroll (lower bound, estimated mean, upper bound)? What will be the costs and what's the price structure?

You realize that you're talking about creating a private program within a public school, right? This isn't an extension of what Yu Ying currently offers - that's a state-funded (or district-funded) model. This is entirely different. Nice that MoCo does it, have you considered moving there? Because DC does not. What's your proposal? What are the specifics?

If it's so easy, then you should have something in mind. Let's hear it.

Ummmm...a lot of DC charters have summer camps so I don't think this idea is all that crazy...

Really? That's splendid! Tell us please which DC charters run a "summer immersion camp"? The sort which might be described as "more serious language program, working around limitations imposed by federal charter law"? The sort for which "many parents would happily pay"?

You sound like a troll. LAMB has a 4 week summer camp. Another poster mentioned MV's. And some non-language charters (CM) do as well. So get a grip on what you are talking about prior to sounding like an unhinged weirdo.

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