Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 12:55     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In India, students learn English via one-way. In Japan, students learn English via one-way. In South Korea, students learn English via one-way. In Finland, students learn English via one-way. In Germany, students learn English via one-way. In the Czech Republic, students learn English via one-way. All over Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, students learn English via one-way instruction. And millions of it learn it very well. Some of them learn it well enough to take your job.

Obviously. Obviously language can be very successfully learned via one-way instruction.

The YY kids are fortunate that they're being taught by native speakers, which is an advantage that most language-learners don't have. But if you think it's necessary to recruit Cantonese kids to Yu Ying in order for language instruction to be successful, then you're willfully delusional and you overvalue your snowflake's potential benefit to the class. The school and the students will continue to thrive and be well educated without the Cantonese snowflakes.



Someone who learns via one-way immersion, is at a disadvantage to someone who learned the target language via two-way immersion; all other things being equal. I'm not saying they won't learn anything via one-way...just not as well.



And I'm saying who cares? By any definition they are learning Mandarin. They are learning a lot of it, and much more than anyone else in the city. They are learning an extraordinary amount, and no matter how much you wish it weren't so, it is entirely possible for English-speaking children to learn excellent Mandarin from Mandarin-speaking teachers. This, in spite of the fact that there are no Cantonese-speaking children in the classroom.

Go figure.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 12:15     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:In India, students learn English via one-way. In Japan, students learn English via one-way. In South Korea, students learn English via one-way. In Finland, students learn English via one-way. In Germany, students learn English via one-way. In the Czech Republic, students learn English via one-way. All over Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, students learn English via one-way instruction. And millions of it learn it very well. Some of them learn it well enough to take your job.

Obviously. Obviously language can be very successfully learned via one-way instruction.

The YY kids are fortunate that they're being taught by native speakers, which is an advantage that most language-learners don't have. But if you think it's necessary to recruit Cantonese kids to Yu Ying in order for language instruction to be successful, then you're willfully delusional and you overvalue your snowflake's potential benefit to the class. The school and the students will continue to thrive and be well educated without the Cantonese snowflakes.



Someone who learns via one-way immersion, is at a disadvantage to someone who learned the target language via two-way immersion; all other things being equal. I'm not saying they won't learn anything via one-way...just not as well.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 12:13     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Uh, the best Chinese speaking kids in the city are growing up in Chinese-speaking immigrant, guest worker and diplomatic families.

What I see happening at YY is that once the current principal moves on, a new hire who is fluent in Mandarin will make many changes. The changes will include more emphasis on kids learning to understand and speak everyday Chinese, and less emphasis on writing and grammar. The new head will work to draw in more native speaking families. As a result more will come and dialect transition support will creep in. I see this happening in 5-10 years.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 12:13     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Have you heard the English spoken by any of these Chinese students who learned English in a one-way immersion setting? I have, and without exception, it has always been heavily accented (sometimes impossible to understand) and grammatically incorrect. And English isn't a level 4 language.



Considering it's a designation by the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) of the U.S. State Department, that's not exactly surprising. Our government expects its own employees to speak English, Sherlock.

For non-speakers of English, it's actually a very complex language being based 60% on Germanic languages and 40% on Latin-based languages. It's not the only hard language to learn, but like Russian and Mandarin it is one of the hardest.

https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/learning-english-hard.html

And yet people do it.

Given the enormous advantages and resources the YY kids have, they're easily going to be the best Chinese speakers in the city, perhaps the region, and they are going to do that without the Cantonese snowflakes.


That's not saying much. They will definitely NOT be the best Chinese speakers in the region.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 11:49     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:Have you heard the English spoken by any of these Chinese students who learned English in a one-way immersion setting? I have, and without exception, it has always been heavily accented (sometimes impossible to understand) and grammatically incorrect. And English isn't a level 4 language.



Considering it's a designation by the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) of the U.S. State Department, that's not exactly surprising. Our government expects its own employees to speak English, Sherlock.

For non-speakers of English, it's actually a very complex language being based 60% on Germanic languages and 40% on Latin-based languages. It's not the only hard language to learn, but like Russian and Mandarin it is one of the hardest.

https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/learning-english-hard.html

And yet people do it.

Given the enormous advantages and resources the YY kids have, they're easily going to be the best Chinese speakers in the city, perhaps the region, and they are going to do that without the Cantonese snowflakes.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 11:35     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
In India, students learn English via one-way. In Japan, students learn English via one-way. In South Korea, students learn English via one-way. In Finland, students learn English via one-way. In Germany, students learn English via one-way. In the Czech Republic, students learn English via one-way. All over Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, students learn English via one-way instruction. And millions of it learn it very well. Some of them learn it well enough to take your job.

Obviously. Obviously language can be very successfully learned via one-way instruction.

The YY kids are fortunate that they're being taught by native speakers, which is an advantage that most language-learners don't have. But if you think it's necessary to recruit Cantonese kids to Yu Ying in order for language instruction to be successful, then you're willfully delusional and you overvalue your snowflake's potential benefit to the class. The school and the students will continue to thrive and be well educated without the Cantonese snowflakes.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 11:17     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Have you heard the English spoken by any of these Chinese students who learned English in a one-way immersion setting? I have, and without exception, it has always been heavily accented (sometimes impossible to understand) and grammatically incorrect. And English isn't a level 4 language.


I'm not sure it's comparable, actually. YY has only native speakers AND the kids are getting two years of full immersion starting at 3. These kids are going to have excellent tones.


The push to learn English in China is a state/government-sponsored endeavor. Thus, many of the teachers are also native English speakers (i.e., American, Australian, English, etc).
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 11:03     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:Have you heard the English spoken by any of these Chinese students who learned English in a one-way immersion setting? I have, and without exception, it has always been heavily accented (sometimes impossible to understand) and grammatically incorrect. And English isn't a level 4 language.


I'm not sure it's comparable, actually. YY has only native speakers AND the kids are getting two years of full immersion starting at 3. These kids are going to have excellent tones.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 11:01     Subject: Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Have you heard the English spoken by any of these Chinese students who learned English in a one-way immersion setting? I have, and without exception, it has always been heavily accented (sometimes impossible to understand) and grammatically incorrect. And English isn't a level 4 language.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 11:00     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I do wish I had your crystal ball. It's so great that you can tell the future of DCI and all of its college admissions, ever, even though it's oldest students are only in ninth grade and there are two other tracks in addition to Chinese. And that it all could be miraculously fixed if YY would drop all of its other priorities and fight tooth and nail to get the tiny number of elementary aged native Cantonese speakers who live in DC to attend. Hire new administrators! Get Congress to change DC charter laws! Develop special curricula to support Cantonese speakers to transition to Mandarin! It's all so simple, why don't you idiots just listen to me!


This post isn't reasonable.

*Congress wouldn't need to change DC charter laws to give preference to native speakers at immersion charters, at least to replace drop-outs. This is a common misconception. All that would need to change would be the LEA arrangement for individual charters. This is a change the DC City Council could effect if DCPC pushed for it. DCPC isn't motivated to push for the change because they haven't been asked to by a coalition of charter immersion parent associations and admins. But DCPC will almost certainly make this change eventually, even if the schools don't ask for it. This is because running large charter immersion programs with a handful of native speakers is too far from best practice in North American K-8 school immersion language instruction to be sustainable.

*DCPC could require immersion charter school boards to hire principals fluent in the language of instruction. No real controversy there. No language immersion charter but YY has hired a principal without a command of the language of immersion, let alone fluency. Principals routinely move on after a decade, or less, on the job. YY's will go eventually, and be replaced by a fluent Mandarin speaker.

*Dialect transition support is standard at Mandarin immersion schools around the country. See web sites of those in Cal, NC and NY to gain insight. No development of special curricula needed, only a single staff member with background in dialect transition support to implement the system, drawing native speakers to the program.

*Running language immersion charters where native speaking kids are a tiny fraction of the school population (probably 1% at YY) is a practice worth working to end. A large corpus of academic literature supports dual-immersion, and, by extension, any baby steps taken to move in that direction.

But don't listen to me, consider doing more research.







One ponders all those Chinese students learning English in their schools, and it is obvious that immersion does not have to be dual to work. Is it the best model? Possibly. Is it the only effective model? Obviously not. Obviously. not. The world is managing to learn English without us having to insert ourselves into their schools. We can pull off the reverse right here in DC.


Have you heard the English spoken by any of these Chinese students who learned English in a one-way immersion setting? I have, and without exception, it has always been heavily accented (sometimes impossible to understand) and grammatically incorrect. And English isn't a level 4 language.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 10:17     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:

I do wish I had your crystal ball. It's so great that you can tell the future of DCI and all of its college admissions, ever, even though it's oldest students are only in ninth grade and there are two other tracks in addition to Chinese. And that it all could be miraculously fixed if YY would drop all of its other priorities and fight tooth and nail to get the tiny number of elementary aged native Cantonese speakers who live in DC to attend. Hire new administrators! Get Congress to change DC charter laws! Develop special curricula to support Cantonese speakers to transition to Mandarin! It's all so simple, why don't you idiots just listen to me!


This post isn't reasonable.

*Congress wouldn't need to change DC charter laws to give preference to native speakers at immersion charters, at least to replace drop-outs. This is a common misconception. All that would need to change would be the LEA arrangement for individual charters. This is a change the DC City Council could effect if DCPC pushed for it. DCPC isn't motivated to push for the change because they haven't been asked to by a coalition of charter immersion parent associations and admins. But DCPC will almost certainly make this change eventually, even if the schools don't ask for it. This is because running large charter immersion programs with a handful of native speakers is too far from best practice in North American K-8 school immersion language instruction to be sustainable.

*DCPC could require immersion charter school boards to hire principals fluent in the language of instruction. No real controversy there. No language immersion charter but YY has hired a principal without a command of the language of immersion, let alone fluency. Principals routinely move on after a decade, or less, on the job. YY's will go eventually, and be replaced by a fluent Mandarin speaker.

*Dialect transition support is standard at Mandarin immersion schools around the country. See web sites of those in Cal, NC and NY to gain insight. No development of special curricula needed, only a single staff member with background in dialect transition support to implement the system, drawing native speakers to the program.

*Running language immersion charters where native speaking kids are a tiny fraction of the school population (probably 1% at YY) is a practice worth working to end. A large corpus of academic literature supports dual-immersion, and, by extension, any baby steps taken to move in that direction.

But don't listen to me, consider doing more research.







One ponders all those Chinese students learning English in their schools, and it is obvious that immersion does not have to be dual to work. Is it the best model? Possibly. Is it the only effective model? Obviously not. Obviously. not. The world is managing to learn English without us having to insert ourselves into their schools. We can pull off the reverse right here in DC.
Anonymous
Post 09/30/2016 10:13     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours

I do wish I had your crystal ball. It's so great that you can tell the future of DCI and all of its college admissions, ever, even though it's oldest students are only in ninth grade and there are two other tracks in addition to Chinese. And that it all could be miraculously fixed if YY would drop all of its other priorities and fight tooth and nail to get the tiny number of elementary aged native Cantonese speakers who live in DC to attend. Hire new administrators! Get Congress to change DC charter laws! Develop special curricula to support Cantonese speakers to transition to Mandarin! It's all so simple, why don't you idiots just listen to me!


This post isn't reasonable.

*Congress wouldn't need to change DC charter laws to give preference to native speakers at immersion charters, at least to replace drop-outs. This is a common misconception. All that would need to change would be the LEA arrangement for individual charters. This is a change the DC City Council could effect if DCPC pushed for it. DCPC isn't motivated to push for the change because they haven't been asked to by a coalition of charter immersion parent associations and admins. But DCPC will almost certainly make this change eventually, even if the schools don't ask for it. This is because running large charter immersion programs with a handful of native speakers is too far from best practice in North American K-8 school immersion language instruction to be sustainable.

*DCPC could require immersion charter school boards to hire principals fluent in the language of instruction. No real controversy there. No language immersion charter but YY has hired a principal without a command of the language of immersion, let alone fluency. Principals routinely move on after a decade, or less, on the job. YY's will go eventually, and be replaced by a fluent Mandarin speaker.

*Dialect transition support is standard at Mandarin immersion schools around the country. See web sites of those in Cal, NC and NY to gain insight. No development of special curricula needed, only a single staff member with background in dialect transition support to implement the system, drawing native speakers to the program.

*Running language immersion charters where native speaking kids are a tiny fraction of the school population (probably 1% at YY) is a practice worth working to end. A large corpus of academic literature supports dual-immersion, and, by extension, any baby steps taken to move in that direction.

But don't listen to me, consider doing more research.


Anonymous
Post 09/29/2016 23:37     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:More than already about the bitter heritage dad boogeyman. I don't think he exists, but if he does, he seems to have moved on. You might want to do the same. At the end of the day, the joke is unlikely to be on the native speakers.


enough already.
Anonymous
Post 09/29/2016 23:36     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So glad we chose Oyster and have stayed for jr. high. We're planning to move to MoCo next year, hoping to crack Richard Montgomery IBDP (probably the strongest pu;lic IBDP in the US).

Sorry folks, you can't do language immersion well wi/out native speakers in class (unless you have them at home). And you can't blow IB Diploma exams out of the water wthout doing language immersion right. higher level IB exams are a whole lot harder than AP on DCUM. This mirrors my own experience as a teenager in suburban NJ. I remember being stunned when I got a 4 of 7 on IBD Spanish at my private school after scoring 5 on AP Spanish. I expect my kids to beat me "hands down" as the objecting poster likes to say. Call me a witch, too. Problem is, I'm right babe.



We all are very happy for you and your child. Our loss is MoCo's gain. Adios.


Fingers crossed that this obnoxious Oyster poster will stop posting repeatedly how we are all jealous and dying to send our kids there when she's at whatever school in Maryland.


Sounds like she wants IB Diploma studies for a white kid without a public option in DC. Banneker's all minority, Eastern is all but hopeless, and DCI doesn't have a high school yet. Wilson offers AP classes, not IBD.
Anonymous
Post 09/29/2016 22:55     Subject: Re:Chinese "immersion" outside of school hours
More than already about the bitter heritage dad boogeyman. I don't think he exists, but if he does, he seems to have moved on. You might want to do the same. At the end of the day, the joke is unlikely to be on the native speakers.