Anonymous wrote:Well I don't tout MoCo, though I used to teach in a partial immersion middle school program there.

The program wasn't disorganized. About half of our students would test into one of the best International Baccalaureate diploma programs in the US. The high school program taught higher level IB language for half a dozen languages.

Do you have a IB Diploma program like that in....DC?? Do you have a big cohort of native speakers in the programs that aren't for...Spanish?

MoCo, while not perfect, does!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is a good reminder that public elementary schools in this city just aren't that great outside Upper NW and maybe Capitol Hill.

If UMC parents aren't hugely involved in the running of a school, and low SES are more than a small minority, quality becomes a real issue by the upper grades.

Charter immersion parents have almost no say in how their schools are run.

No need for a DC program to "copy MoCo" quality to be popular or fully funded indefinitely.

Your points above can be refuted if you are using the across the board standards of PARRC scores.

We don’t have a child at YY but if you look at PARCC scores, similar to schools WOTP. Kids do just as well in addition to picking up Mandarin.

Also, if you look at the PARCC scores and %at risk between Hardy and DCI, not a big difference. Kids in elementary schools (non-immersion WOTP vs immersion EOTP) feeding into the respective schools do similarly.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is a good reminder that public elementary schools in this city just aren't that great outside Upper NW and maybe Capitol Hill.

If UMC parents aren't hugely involved in the running of a school, and low SES are more than a small minority, quality becomes a real issue by the upper grades.

Charter immersion parents have almost no say in how their schools are run.

No need for a DC program to "copy MoCo" quality to be popular or fully funded indefinitely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Studies have also shown that little kids lose acquired language almost as easily as they pick it up. Fine to start with toddlers and little kids, but not much use if they stop learning the language as older kids or teens. If you're choosing a random language for your child to learn that won't be reinforced either at home or in your community, the results may not be too hot eventually. Your kid may not see the point of continuing with the language once they have a say in the matter, since they don't have to speak it to get along. I can hear the dip in my fully bilingual older kids' conversational ability in the language one of us speaks at home after they've been away at summer camp for a few weeks.

Depends on what the goal is, right?

Exactly. The YY basher who posts the same thing on every YY thread (lots of jeering at the kids' language skills, says teachers talk about the head right in front of her, recommends MoCo language schools, etc.) assumes fluency is/should be the goal. But there are other benefits--language exposure to set groundwork for future more intensive study, cognitive benefits, cultural exposure, stronger curriculum than IB school (perhaps especially for low SES families), etc. I don't think anyone but perhaps PK3 parents believes their kids will be perfectly bilingual after YY, or other language schools for that matter.

-no affiliation with YY nor any interest in Mandarin

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Studies have also shown that little kids lose acquired language almost as easily as they pick it up. Fine to start with toddlers and little kids, but not much use if they stop learning the language as older kids or teens. If you're choosing a random language for your child to learn that won't be reinforced either at home or in your community, the results may not be too hot eventually. Your kid may not see the point of continuing with the language once they have a say in the matter, since they don't have to speak it to get along. I can hear the dip in my fully bilingual older kids' conversational ability in the language one of us speaks at home after they've been away at summer camp for a few weeks.

Depends on what the goal is, right?

Exactly. The YY basher who posts the same thing on every YY thread (lots of jeering at the kids' language skills, says teachers talk about the head right in front of her, recommends MoCo language schools, etc.) assumes fluency is/should be the goal. But there are other benefits--language exposure to set groundwork for future more intensive study, cognitive benefits, cultural exposure, stronger curriculum than IB school (perhaps especially for low SES families), etc. I don't think anyone but perhaps PK3 parents believes their kids will be perfectly bilingual after YY, or other language schools for that matter.

-no affiliation with YY nor any interest in Mandarin

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that the YY basher is spot on.

We could really use far more serious elementary school immersion programs in DC, and language study in general.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Studies have also shown that little kids lose acquired language almost as easily as they pick it up. Fine to start with toddlers and little kids, but not much use if they stop learning the language as older kids or teens. If you're choosing a random language for your child to learn that won't be reinforced either at home or in your community, the results may not be too hot eventually. Your kid may not see the point of continuing with the language once they have a say in the matter, since they don't have to speak it to get along. I can hear the dip in my fully bilingual older kids' conversational ability in the language one of us speaks at home after they've been away at summer camp for a few weeks.

Depends on what the goal is, right?

Anonymous wrote:Good for MV. YY used to run a similar camp, but ditched it three of four years ago due to budget constraints.