As I have done throughout this blog, I have been trying to dispel myths about Mandarin Immersion programs and what is accomplished or not accomplished for a kid who goes through it.
I've ranted about this notion in different ways, but another way to present this Big Picture notion occurred to me recently.
A lot has been written about "whole child" learning. Oddly enough, in fact, American parents who tend to sign up for Mandarin Immersion seem to be strong proponents of this "whole child" learning. The irony, then, is why they simultaneously become proponents of Mandarin language curricula that is completely the opposite of whole child learning...
I don't understand it. But for future parents out there - this is something to look out for.
Herein lies my old problems with the ACTFL standards. ACTFL is not about whole child learning. Look at the content! ACTFL is about an old-school way of designing "Foreign Language" learning, as has been historically done in the United States.
For some, the battle of "accomplishment" inside the ACTFL standards seem to mean something. But look at the long history of those of us who went through the American system of foreign language education. It's a very long history and far too many (if they're being honest) are still alive to tell the tale - i.e., not much was learned that could survive real, live, active language. You hit the streets of Paris or Berlin, and you found that you could barely make heads or tails of what someone was saying to you.
Mandarin language education in America is still dialing back from that set up, too. And the impact upon kids in early elementary programs can be devastating.
So look at your school's curriculum with this kind of scrutiny. Everything that is taught in English + Everything that is taught in Mandarin should equal (=) a whole curriculum for a whole child.
But if that is not the case, and you find that 50% of your day is the equivalent of 1) content that is not complementary to the rest of what is happening in English, and 2) content reflects a severely lower grade level than where your child is at, then you have a serious problem. Your child is spending 50% of his/her day "accomplishing" content that does not, in fact, constitute a whole child education.
If you take a faux quantitative framework to the situation: It would be half the day, if what happens in English is up to par. And then it would be some kind of percentage that you could count, perhaps as 25% at best. So your 100% kid gets a 75% education, at best. If even. But if you add in your child's ability to absorb and master the content... then you are probably just getting 50% of the education that kids in "regular" American programs would be getting.
That is a severe deficit. I wouldn't call that "whole" in any way shape or form.
Can any of this be "made up for" in the after school hours? Yes, you then have to figure out how to do that.
ACTFL content was never designed with developmental age issues in mind. It began for college-level students. Dialing it backward into high school education is one thing, but dialing it further back into middle school and elementary education... I used to accept it as an interesting, giant experiment back when we were in K. Now at 4th grade, having witnessed all the developmental changes in my child, I see this affair as fantastically risky. I'm not sure I would recommend it to others with the kind of enthusiasm as I did before. And I wasn't even one of the blind ones who are going around saying Mandarin Immersion is like some magical elixir to their education woes. No way. But I look back and see that someone, whoever it was who decided that ACTFL could be used for K-8 education, they have severely damaged children all over from having the best they could get.
The only way I see it being salvaged, at the moment, is that you must have a curriculum in English that is at least one grade, if not two, above normal. And that gets tricky to design and implement. But whole child?
I am constantly tweaking my child's education. Constantly. But I can listen to and read the content she is being given in Mandarin/Chinese. And I can comprehend what is being delivered in English. So I can see the gaps and then fill them. But yes, I get it about the parents who cannot understand one of the languages. Which is why I am constantly mystified by the various claims by non-Chinese proficient parents.
You do have a crisis of whole child learning on your hands. But the crisis is not what you think it is. The crisis comes from having pushed for an "easier" slate of content in Mandarin, using ACTFL as your guide. It also comes from using ACTFL to align and integrate with the curriculum that happens in English. That leaves you scrambling for the rest of what you need for your "whole child" needs.
The superior way to handle this is to do what Utah is doing. Simply divide the content in half. Then, make up the "difference" by repeating some of the content in both languages. Then, make up further differences with additional staff. You must have classroom assistants. Then, last step, make up the difference in after school. Kids who are floundering during class are further supported during after school. This is not hard.
What it is, however, is political. That is another issue all together. Some parents don't want to be told that their kid needs help. Some parents don't want their kid to be in school but to be out playing soccer, instead. These parents don't believe that their kids need help because they simply don't understand the language. This inability to comprehend leads them to literally ignore what is happening.
And then they go on about "whole child learning"... Bizarre. Bizarre, indeed.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
New trick for Book Reports - Using the computer for essay writing
At 4th grade, I am using a new trick for getting home-based book reports done: use the computer.
My child already uses Google Docs as a way to submit writing assignments for school. She has become quite adept at this and even likes to share "secret" notes with her friends. Of course, the school keeps the accounts secure for all the kids. Their ID's are not connected to an active email account. The teachers are able to check in on any document that is created at any time.
So home-based book report assignments for Chinese are now on the computer, instead of being hand written. While this is a bit of a sacrifice, I am going to live with it.
Writing practice is still being supported via the ZW textbooks and in-school homework. But we can continue to drive reading comprehension and essay writing skills (which are still so critical to developing thinking skills) by allowing for the novelty of being on the computer.
My goal is to keep my child reading more stories and responding to them through writing. Given her increased impatience with how hard Chinese is compared to English, this is my latest pivot. I can't blame her - using pinyin is pretty awesome and efficient.
I do know there is some sacrifice, here. But I want to drive continued vocabulary acquisition through reading, which is vital but not so easy when you don't exist in a Chinese-speaking world.
My child already uses Google Docs as a way to submit writing assignments for school. She has become quite adept at this and even likes to share "secret" notes with her friends. Of course, the school keeps the accounts secure for all the kids. Their ID's are not connected to an active email account. The teachers are able to check in on any document that is created at any time.
So home-based book report assignments for Chinese are now on the computer, instead of being hand written. While this is a bit of a sacrifice, I am going to live with it.
Writing practice is still being supported via the ZW textbooks and in-school homework. But we can continue to drive reading comprehension and essay writing skills (which are still so critical to developing thinking skills) by allowing for the novelty of being on the computer.
My goal is to keep my child reading more stories and responding to them through writing. Given her increased impatience with how hard Chinese is compared to English, this is my latest pivot. I can't blame her - using pinyin is pretty awesome and efficient.
I do know there is some sacrifice, here. But I want to drive continued vocabulary acquisition through reading, which is vital but not so easy when you don't exist in a Chinese-speaking world.
Monday, November 10, 2014
New YCT Graded Readers from Hanban - great example of why the single character approach has been misunderstood
Take a look at these Level 1 YCT Readers. It's a set of 15 books, based on 80 characters.
The Hanban folks are not saying that if you memorize these 80 characters and their singular meanings that then you will have mastered Level 1. No. You must master the meanings of these 80 characters as they are used in these 15 storybooks.
And sure, at this level, these are "See Spot Run" types of "stories." But that is also part of the point.
Nonetheless, 80 characters combine for far more meaning that must be comprehended than just memorizing the 80 characters by themselves.
Hey, linguists and Chinese language educators out there - your message is being twisted on the ground by parents who don't know any better. When you count characters like this, then people who don't know the language are putting the characters on placemats and throwing them in front of their kids to help them "memorize" these characters.
These same parents are not engaging their kids in stories and contextual situations wherein those little kid brains are engaging in whole language. Yeah, I bet you didn't see that one coming. But that is what is happening. So the kids cannot hold on. They cannot keep it together as they get older. And then everyone is disappointed when the kid is 10, 11, 12 years old and all he/she can do is spit out a few - very, very few - characters and short phrases, but not much complete, rich thought.
The counting leads to some kind of weird obsessive-compulsive disorder that does not translate into greater engagement. Only counting.
The Hanban folks are not saying that if you memorize these 80 characters and their singular meanings that then you will have mastered Level 1. No. You must master the meanings of these 80 characters as they are used in these 15 storybooks.
And sure, at this level, these are "See Spot Run" types of "stories." But that is also part of the point.
Nonetheless, 80 characters combine for far more meaning that must be comprehended than just memorizing the 80 characters by themselves.
Hey, linguists and Chinese language educators out there - your message is being twisted on the ground by parents who don't know any better. When you count characters like this, then people who don't know the language are putting the characters on placemats and throwing them in front of their kids to help them "memorize" these characters.
These same parents are not engaging their kids in stories and contextual situations wherein those little kid brains are engaging in whole language. Yeah, I bet you didn't see that one coming. But that is what is happening. So the kids cannot hold on. They cannot keep it together as they get older. And then everyone is disappointed when the kid is 10, 11, 12 years old and all he/she can do is spit out a few - very, very few - characters and short phrases, but not much complete, rich thought.
The counting leads to some kind of weird obsessive-compulsive disorder that does not translate into greater engagement. Only counting.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Mythbusting on "the Tones"
OMG, again and again with the tones!! I'm just flabbergasted over this issue - it really drives me nuts. Because I have yet to encounter a professional of some sort who will firmly and loudly distinguish between "tones" and "accents."
Here is what I mean. Take a look at James Fallows' recent article in The Atlantic. One of many (well-deserved) reactions to Mark Zuckerberg's amazing live interview exchange in Mandarin at Qinghua DaXue (Tsinghua, for the old school transliteration/pinyin), Fallows is not only commenting on the Zuck's performance, but mainly reacting to some guy named Isaac Stone Fish (who I guess is the Asia editor at Foreign Policy) criticizing MZ for "speaking like a 7-year-old."
Fallows makes the point, but he doesn't make it strongly or clearly enough:
Look, fear and self-consciousness is a real concern for parents in Mandarin Immersion programs. It is a concern for any parent of a young child in any type of educational institution - your child's emerging self-esteem is at stake and you are conditioned and obligated to protect and nurture that emerging and tender trait.
But getting all caught-up in "the tones" needs further and amplified clarification. The more important issue here for parents and ALL students of the Chinese language to be concerned with primarily is Vocabulary Acquisition. Not tones.
Parents of one of my kid's classmates said to me once that the only criticism they had received from our classroom Chinese teacher during parent-teacher conference time was that their kid needed to work harder on pronunciation and tones. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. These are 8 year old kids we were talking about, in a Mandarin Immersion program wherein half the day is taught in Mandarin. Half your school day is taught in a language that is not your home or native language, and you think that the only problem your kid is having is one of pronunciation? Are you telling me that you don't, for even one half of a second, wonder about your kid's comprehension abilities???!!!??? Let me point out, again, something that you seem to already know - the language of instruction for 50% of your child's school day is NOT a language your child actually knows, that is he/she doesn't come from this language and doesn't have any kind of organic home context for this language... How many ways can I say, this is a foreign language for your kid... foreign... i.e., he doesn't really know it... but even if he did, do you ever wonder that your kid adequately understands the material that is being taught...? Isn't it normal to wonder whether your 8-year-old child is adequately understanding anything at all at any given moment? Or do you have telepathic powers with your kid's brian? If so, then why are you talking to me or about this...?
Please pause and think about that. Across any country in any language in the urbanized more highly educated (formal institutional education) world, who would ever say that the "only problem" your kid has in school, if he had a problem at all, was all about pronunciation and only about pronunciation. You might as well say the word "enunciation" - and then what? What would you even be talking about? Does your child need a speech therapist? Or is this a show of a bigger language processing and delay issue? Surely, the reaction would be "Let's keep an eye on this and maybe invite a professional to take a look."
Your child is not Eliza Doolittle. Your child is (hopefully) trying to get a basic education at the elementary level and beyond.
Vocabulary is the problem. When learners of Chinese speak with poor pronunciation/enunciation, but they have sufficient vocabulary to express their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the richness of their ideas, then we are really talking about speaking with an accent. This is not about tones.
I say this to people all the time - because we live in a major city in America and there are plenty of immigrants (not unlike my parents) who speak intelligently, but with light to heavy accents. They can be some of the most amazingly successful people in the world. They can come from all manners of accents, from Spanish to Italian, to French to Chinese, to Tagalog, to Albanian, and beyond. And they all find ways to be comprehensible in the English language, albeit speaking with an accent. But I continue to be amazed that I have to point this out at all, given that it is the Year 2014.
Is it possible to speak with an accent while speaking Mandarin Chinese? And still be understood? Damn those tones and all? Absolutely. There are lots and lots of "accents" for fluent Mandarin speakers, even native speakers. Sometimes those accents can color the pronunciation so that it takes a moment, even the need to demand clarity. That happens between native speakers of Mandarin, just like it happens between native speakers of English, like a Brit talking to an American Midwesterner, or someone from Tennessee.
But without sufficient vocabulary to express the richness of ideas, thoughts, feelings, and intentions, then, yes, your child will come across as younger and dumber than his/her age. Or, if you are an adult, then same thing.
What happens to many kids in early MI is that they are not acquiring enough vocabulary to keep up with their minds developing around all those ideas, feelings, thoughts, and intentions, whether from their own brain or from the world around them. So they come across as delayed.
Meanwhile, I hear parents in MI programs talking endlessly about tones, as if it has some bearing on anything at this stage. It doesn't - not really - and especially not in the face of the truly bigger crisis at hand - which is that your kid is not learning enough vocabulary all together.
And why is this the case? Because your kid is not reading, speaking, listening, or writing enough in the Mandarin Chinese language around a volume and diversity of topics as he/she could be in order to acquire that vocabulary. It is a simple as that.
Tones be damned. It has nothing to do with the fact that Chinese is a tonal language. All is learnable if you just learn the vocabulary. And that is what made Zuckerberg's performance so impressive. He learned the vocabulary to talk about his industry, his wife and her family, to make some jokes about their relationship, to express his desires to connect to China and Chinese people, and most importantly, he expressed the sincerity of his intentions by relentlessly trying to express himself, even with his limited vocabulary, albeit all in spite of his poor execution on pronunciation (and yes, his pronunciation of his "tones").
But it didn't matter. Because there was ENOUGH vocabulary in place for people to understand him at a much higher degree than they would have expected. With enough vocabulary in place, native speakers can understand you - it then just sounds like you speak with an accent.
Without much vocabulary in place, however, then sure, you leave native speakers guessing, especially if, on top of that limited vocabulary, your "tones" are executed poorly, thereby creating more confusion.
So parents in MI programs, stop thinking about the tones and start thinking about how to get your kids more vocabulary. Read more books, engage with more native speakers and better educated ones at that. That is the only way. But you can't keep going in circles from one Foreign Language Model textbook series to another, when all it does is repeat the same stuff, but maybe a slightly different order. There are only so many times your kid should be learning Chinese New Year vocabulary or features of the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. Perfecting your tones around such limited topics doesn't make you a more sophisticated Mandarin speaker.
Here is what I mean. Take a look at James Fallows' recent article in The Atlantic. One of many (well-deserved) reactions to Mark Zuckerberg's amazing live interview exchange in Mandarin at Qinghua DaXue (Tsinghua, for the old school transliteration/pinyin), Fallows is not only commenting on the Zuck's performance, but mainly reacting to some guy named Isaac Stone Fish (who I guess is the Asia editor at Foreign Policy) criticizing MZ for "speaking like a 7-year-old."
Fallows makes the point, but he doesn't make it strongly or clearly enough:
But tones in English mainly affect the shape and meaning of an entire sentence. In Chinese they signal the meaning of every single word. It's hard for English-speakers to grasp how confusing it must be for Chinese speakers to hear their language rendered without attention to tones, which is essentially what Zuckerberg did... A seven-year-old native speaker of Chinese would get all the tones right. That's what native speakers do, and that is what was wrong with the "like a seven-year-old" headline. The real point was closer to, "He speaks it like some cab driver from [name your bad-accent country] you can barely understand."Fallows turns the floor over to some dude named Kevin Slaten to, again, lamely make the distinction, but gets carried away on the mockery/fear issue when you're trying to (sincerely) speak a language that is not your own and you are merely a novice at doing so.
Look, fear and self-consciousness is a real concern for parents in Mandarin Immersion programs. It is a concern for any parent of a young child in any type of educational institution - your child's emerging self-esteem is at stake and you are conditioned and obligated to protect and nurture that emerging and tender trait.
But getting all caught-up in "the tones" needs further and amplified clarification. The more important issue here for parents and ALL students of the Chinese language to be concerned with primarily is Vocabulary Acquisition. Not tones.
Parents of one of my kid's classmates said to me once that the only criticism they had received from our classroom Chinese teacher during parent-teacher conference time was that their kid needed to work harder on pronunciation and tones. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. These are 8 year old kids we were talking about, in a Mandarin Immersion program wherein half the day is taught in Mandarin. Half your school day is taught in a language that is not your home or native language, and you think that the only problem your kid is having is one of pronunciation? Are you telling me that you don't, for even one half of a second, wonder about your kid's comprehension abilities???!!!??? Let me point out, again, something that you seem to already know - the language of instruction for 50% of your child's school day is NOT a language your child actually knows, that is he/she doesn't come from this language and doesn't have any kind of organic home context for this language... How many ways can I say, this is a foreign language for your kid... foreign... i.e., he doesn't really know it... but even if he did, do you ever wonder that your kid adequately understands the material that is being taught...? Isn't it normal to wonder whether your 8-year-old child is adequately understanding anything at all at any given moment? Or do you have telepathic powers with your kid's brian? If so, then why are you talking to me or about this...?
Please pause and think about that. Across any country in any language in the urbanized more highly educated (formal institutional education) world, who would ever say that the "only problem" your kid has in school, if he had a problem at all, was all about pronunciation and only about pronunciation. You might as well say the word "enunciation" - and then what? What would you even be talking about? Does your child need a speech therapist? Or is this a show of a bigger language processing and delay issue? Surely, the reaction would be "Let's keep an eye on this and maybe invite a professional to take a look."
Your child is not Eliza Doolittle. Your child is (hopefully) trying to get a basic education at the elementary level and beyond.
Vocabulary is the problem. When learners of Chinese speak with poor pronunciation/enunciation, but they have sufficient vocabulary to express their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the richness of their ideas, then we are really talking about speaking with an accent. This is not about tones.
I say this to people all the time - because we live in a major city in America and there are plenty of immigrants (not unlike my parents) who speak intelligently, but with light to heavy accents. They can be some of the most amazingly successful people in the world. They can come from all manners of accents, from Spanish to Italian, to French to Chinese, to Tagalog, to Albanian, and beyond. And they all find ways to be comprehensible in the English language, albeit speaking with an accent. But I continue to be amazed that I have to point this out at all, given that it is the Year 2014.
Is it possible to speak with an accent while speaking Mandarin Chinese? And still be understood? Damn those tones and all? Absolutely. There are lots and lots of "accents" for fluent Mandarin speakers, even native speakers. Sometimes those accents can color the pronunciation so that it takes a moment, even the need to demand clarity. That happens between native speakers of Mandarin, just like it happens between native speakers of English, like a Brit talking to an American Midwesterner, or someone from Tennessee.
But without sufficient vocabulary to express the richness of ideas, thoughts, feelings, and intentions, then, yes, your child will come across as younger and dumber than his/her age. Or, if you are an adult, then same thing.
What happens to many kids in early MI is that they are not acquiring enough vocabulary to keep up with their minds developing around all those ideas, feelings, thoughts, and intentions, whether from their own brain or from the world around them. So they come across as delayed.
Meanwhile, I hear parents in MI programs talking endlessly about tones, as if it has some bearing on anything at this stage. It doesn't - not really - and especially not in the face of the truly bigger crisis at hand - which is that your kid is not learning enough vocabulary all together.
And why is this the case? Because your kid is not reading, speaking, listening, or writing enough in the Mandarin Chinese language around a volume and diversity of topics as he/she could be in order to acquire that vocabulary. It is a simple as that.
Tones be damned. It has nothing to do with the fact that Chinese is a tonal language. All is learnable if you just learn the vocabulary. And that is what made Zuckerberg's performance so impressive. He learned the vocabulary to talk about his industry, his wife and her family, to make some jokes about their relationship, to express his desires to connect to China and Chinese people, and most importantly, he expressed the sincerity of his intentions by relentlessly trying to express himself, even with his limited vocabulary, albeit all in spite of his poor execution on pronunciation (and yes, his pronunciation of his "tones").
But it didn't matter. Because there was ENOUGH vocabulary in place for people to understand him at a much higher degree than they would have expected. With enough vocabulary in place, native speakers can understand you - it then just sounds like you speak with an accent.
Without much vocabulary in place, however, then sure, you leave native speakers guessing, especially if, on top of that limited vocabulary, your "tones" are executed poorly, thereby creating more confusion.
So parents in MI programs, stop thinking about the tones and start thinking about how to get your kids more vocabulary. Read more books, engage with more native speakers and better educated ones at that. That is the only way. But you can't keep going in circles from one Foreign Language Model textbook series to another, when all it does is repeat the same stuff, but maybe a slightly different order. There are only so many times your kid should be learning Chinese New Year vocabulary or features of the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. Perfecting your tones around such limited topics doesn't make you a more sophisticated Mandarin speaker.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Amanda Ripley's The Smartest Kids in the World
While I know, I am trying to establish a blog about being in a Mandarin Immersion program and progressing to the 3B ideal while growing up in America, I have to pause and recommend this book on education and parenting.
Amanda Ripley takes a deep dive into education from several countries, including the United States, and also lays out the premises of the international PISA test. Along the way, she cites many studies, including those on parenting styles.
Mandarin Immersion has, sadly, fallen victim to faulty trends in American culture, and the false juxtaposition of negatively connoted "Asian" "Tiger Mom" parenting styles as an impediment to successful bilingualism. If you listen to the playground chatter too much, the end result is that many Asian American parents - moms, especially - are being led to feel embarrassed by the parenting they received, and therefore handicapped that they don't know what is truly right from wrong.
Ripley has a small section in her book that summarizes this well, and, as it turns out, the professionals can show that Asian American parenting, by and large, actually plays out quite well, even in a superior fashion when you look at the broader numbers. Forget the extreme stories of the Amy Chua's of the world, this is about the larger subset. It isn't even about being Asian American, but that there are plenty of parents around the world who leverage a style of parenting that is termed "authoritative."
"Authoritative" is different from "authoritarian." I will defer to her passage to explain:
So what does this have to do with Mandarin Immersion? Something that many non-Chinese parent peers in MI programs seem not to understand - That when your kid is young, i.e., in elementary school, then you the parent need to be very hands-on when it comes to getting them through all the hard work to acquire the skills that become their foundation for middle and high school, and beyond. If you really want your kid to become bilingual and bi-literate, then you have to be an authoritative parent who says that the hard work is non-negotiable.
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg achieved a lot by studying hard as an adult for a few years. But he will never have the level of mastery that your kid could have if you start early, before the brain has fully closed and formed. The Zuck will always speak Mandarin like he has marbles in his mouth - and I don't doubt that he will remain totally illiterate at Chinese. Your kid can do better.
But your greatest chances of success are in being tougher when they are young. So yes, copying characters is a chore, but it is also a valuable skill. Singing songs in a language you don't know may seem weird to do endlessly, but after a while, that forced habit can become part of your life's joy. And what magic when your kid meets up with scores of other kids who already know that song? It's bound to happen some day, if you just keep going.
And for those of you who have been working hard, then you know, because you can see it right before your eyes as your child gets older, that they do, in fact, become more independent - especially at sticking with the Chinese - so that it gets a lot easier.
Amanda Ripley takes a deep dive into education from several countries, including the United States, and also lays out the premises of the international PISA test. Along the way, she cites many studies, including those on parenting styles.
Mandarin Immersion has, sadly, fallen victim to faulty trends in American culture, and the false juxtaposition of negatively connoted "Asian" "Tiger Mom" parenting styles as an impediment to successful bilingualism. If you listen to the playground chatter too much, the end result is that many Asian American parents - moms, especially - are being led to feel embarrassed by the parenting they received, and therefore handicapped that they don't know what is truly right from wrong.
Ripley has a small section in her book that summarizes this well, and, as it turns out, the professionals can show that Asian American parenting, by and large, actually plays out quite well, even in a superior fashion when you look at the broader numbers. Forget the extreme stories of the Amy Chua's of the world, this is about the larger subset. It isn't even about being Asian American, but that there are plenty of parents around the world who leverage a style of parenting that is termed "authoritative."
"Authoritative" is different from "authoritarian." I will defer to her passage to explain:
Around the world, people who studied parenting usually divided the various styles into four basic categories: Authoritarian parents were strict disciplinarians, the "because I said so" parents. Permissive parents tended to be indulgent and averse to conflict. They acted more like friends than parents. In some studies, permissive parents tended to be wealthier and more educated than other parents. Neglectful parents were just how they sounded: emotionally distend and often absent. They were also more likely to live in poverty.
Then there was the fourth option: Authoritative. The word was like a mash up of authoritarian and permissive. These parents inhabited the sweet spot between the two: they were warm, responsive, and close to their kids, but, as their children got older, they gave them freedom to explore and to fail and to make their own choices. Throughout their kids' upbringing, authoritative parents also had clear, bright limits, rules they did not negotiate...
When researcher Jelani Mandara at Northwestern University studied 4,754 U.S. teenagers and their parents, he found that kids with authoritative parents had higher academic achievement levels, fewer symptoms of depression, and fewer problems with aggression, disobedience, and other antisocial behaviors. Other studies have found similar benefits. Authoritative parents trained their kids to be resilient, and it seemed to work.
It is perilous to make sweeping generalizations about people based on their ethnic heritage, but the research does suggest patterns. In the United States, European-American parents are more likely to exhibit authoritative styles than Hispanic or African-American parents, who trend toward authoritarian styles of parenting. (Although all ethnicities include all four kinds of parents.) However, the Asian-American parenting style may be the most consistently authoritative.
For example, studies have shown that Chinese-American parents are more hands-on with their children when they are young, training them in the ways of reading, writing, and math, but then they give their kids significantly more autonomy as they get older (a model that sounds eerily similar to the stereotype of the Finnish parent). "In high school, Asian immigrant parents really have a more hands-off approach," says Ruth Chao, who has studied parenting styles for over two decades. "They're not doing direct instruction. They're not managing the child's schoolwork anymore. They feel that if they are still having to do that, then there's really a problem."
So what does this have to do with Mandarin Immersion? Something that many non-Chinese parent peers in MI programs seem not to understand - That when your kid is young, i.e., in elementary school, then you the parent need to be very hands-on when it comes to getting them through all the hard work to acquire the skills that become their foundation for middle and high school, and beyond. If you really want your kid to become bilingual and bi-literate, then you have to be an authoritative parent who says that the hard work is non-negotiable.
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg achieved a lot by studying hard as an adult for a few years. But he will never have the level of mastery that your kid could have if you start early, before the brain has fully closed and formed. The Zuck will always speak Mandarin like he has marbles in his mouth - and I don't doubt that he will remain totally illiterate at Chinese. Your kid can do better.
But your greatest chances of success are in being tougher when they are young. So yes, copying characters is a chore, but it is also a valuable skill. Singing songs in a language you don't know may seem weird to do endlessly, but after a while, that forced habit can become part of your life's joy. And what magic when your kid meets up with scores of other kids who already know that song? It's bound to happen some day, if you just keep going.
And for those of you who have been working hard, then you know, because you can see it right before your eyes as your child gets older, that they do, in fact, become more independent - especially at sticking with the Chinese - so that it gets a lot easier.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
3rd Grade vocabulary example
As promised, here is an example of vocabulary and homework. This was distributed in January, so about the middle of 3rd grade. As you can see if you can read somewhat, there is a mix of easy to mid-level vocabulary. But more challenging sentence/expression structures are appearing.
These weekly vocabularies and such are not the whole of the vocabulary that the students are acquiring. They are introduced as embedded in a story from their textbook. They are studied with focus each week - a lot of writing and skill development goes into these characters/expressions. They are required comprehend their usage in the textbook and demonstrate that comprehension through various exercises, including building their own sentences. Stroke order and pinyin are also emphasized for these characters/vocabularies.
These exercises do not include the math vocabulary, nor any vocabulary that comes from reading and book report or essay or poetry assignments.
Below, this worksheet asks that the vocabulary are filled in. Comprehension is supported further because the sentences are not from the story, but show the vocabulary used in another situation.
Vocabulary:
安慰
落
笑脸
穿
挂
头发
不如
藏
头顶
飘
年
手指
These weekly vocabularies and such are not the whole of the vocabulary that the students are acquiring. They are introduced as embedded in a story from their textbook. They are studied with focus each week - a lot of writing and skill development goes into these characters/expressions. They are required comprehend their usage in the textbook and demonstrate that comprehension through various exercises, including building their own sentences. Stroke order and pinyin are also emphasized for these characters/vocabularies.
These exercises do not include the math vocabulary, nor any vocabulary that comes from reading and book report or essay or poetry assignments.
Below, this worksheet asks that the vocabulary are filled in. Comprehension is supported further because the sentences are not from the story, but show the vocabulary used in another situation.
Vocabulary:
安慰
落
笑脸
穿
挂
头发
不如
藏
头顶
飘
年
手指
- 今天是二零一二年一月八日。
- 我写字写得不如姐姐那么快。
- 复活节的时候，我们要把鸡蛋藏起来，让别人去找。
- 我不开心的时候，妈妈会安慰我，告诉我： “没关系。”
- 我喜欢穿红颜色的衣服。
- 我和妹妹把手拿出来比一比，发现她的手指比我的长。
- 我今天早上没梳头发，所以看起来乱七八糟的。
- 我房间的门口挂着一串风铃。有风吹来的时候，会发出叮叮叮的声音。
- 下雪了，雪花从天上落下，一片一片地掉在我的头顶上。
- 昨天下午风很大，很多树叶在天空中飘。
- 在我难过的时候，只要看到妈妈的笑脸就会开心起来。
Mandarin Immersion - 4th grade Update
Now that we have settled into the start of 4th grade, an overview of what the school work is looking like... Our days are still half day in English and half day in Chinese. Each day begins with the alternate language of the previous day. Specialty classes like Science, Visual Arts and P.E. are taught in English. Science and P.E. happen twice a week, while Visual Arts happens once a week. Music is taught in English this year. (During K-2 it is taught in Chinese at this school.) It happens once a week and includes some movement-based performance, as well.
The Writing Workshop model out of Columbia Teachers College continues to be employed, with increased levels of sophistication. Like the previous 2 years, the language arts units are broken down by writing styles: personal narrative, informational, persuasive/opinion, and historical or historical fiction. The Writing Workshop writing process dictates the tasks which engage them to progress through cycles of brainstorming, drafting, and editing to get to the final product.
Meanwhile, something called "Word Study" continues to be the way through which kids learn phonics and spelling, and even vocabulary acquisition.
Reading is more independent, I think. I haven't heard of any reading partners this year. The focus seems to be on logging progress and a stepped-up move toward engagement and reflection by writing "Reading Responses" - which is basically using journaling as a way to further engage the student in the material. The kids receive a list of prompts to help them think of something they would like to journal about in response to the reading they did for that day on the book of their choice.
The class, meanwhile, does have a few books they plan to read together which is selected to be just above the majority of the kids' reading levels.
Math continues to be the UChicago Everyday Math curriculum, while adding a worksheet of advanced math reasoning problems which the kids are required to do over the course of the week and turn it in at the end. These problems are more abstract and take a lot of thinking and talking through. They are not problem sets.
The Chinese language arts development aims to mimic the English framework. There continues to be character practice and sentence structures delivered through worksheets. Quizlet, as mentioned prior, is used as an additional drilling tool to check for comprehension, as well as to deliver the drill in a quiz form.
The textbook is a curated selection done by the teaching faculty over the years. The topics connect with Social Studies and Health Science themes that have been identified by the faculty as the slate of content.
Daily reading is expected, whether it be repeating the class reading from the textbook or reading your own selection.
My opinion is that the textbook readings are just at my child's level without being a challenge. So I don't make her repeat read at home, unless I notice that it is more challenging. Meanwhile, we have returned to reading one short story or one chapter per day from our own collection.
Weekly book reports have begun. So far, all the kids in the class are supposed to write from the same story. The first one was not challenging in vocabulary, but more challenging in the forms of expression. This was reassuring to me - this is part of why you send your child to school. Because professional teachers can teach your child a literary or academic form of the language that you, the parent, probably could not (unless you are a professional educator and have expert levels in the language).
The form of the book reports have regressed a bit - back to using storyboarding as a tool. But I don't mind, as I see this time as also giving my child a break and allowing her to find moments of mastery. Always making things hard can have negative blowbacks.
The school has developed its own math in Chinese that follows the Everyday Math curriculum directly translated. They have also been mapping this material to the Common Core, which is labeled in the math workbooks. It makes me wonder if some of the Everyday Math is not exactly mapped to Common Core - likely. So what we get delivered to us is just that.
The Chinese teacher said that she will give students advanced math in Chinese from another curriculum, should some of the students show that they are ready for it. My child does not seem ready - the math reasoning of the language expressions in Chinese and English are different enough, in my opinion, that this is challenge enough. I am not looking for her to master math in Chinese. By 6th grade, math will be taught all in English. I have some additional thoughts on this that ought to go in a separate post...
The plus for having it now is the Chinese literacy support that happens. All the instructions for the worksheets are in Chinese, as are all the story problems. Most of the characters do not have pinyin over them. So if they did not learn them during class, then they have to look them up.
Overall, however, I am grateful for the levels and the quality of teaching. When we were in K and at another MI school, it was very hard to see what laid ahead, to know what to expect. Now, I see very clearly that there is no way that the 4th graders at our previous school would have ever been able to reach the level we are at now. Not for anything happening in English, not for anything happening in Chinese. These last 2 years of hard work are paying off, are the foundation for my child to continue the hard work that lays ahead.
When I have a chance, I will post more concrete examples...
The Writing Workshop model out of Columbia Teachers College continues to be employed, with increased levels of sophistication. Like the previous 2 years, the language arts units are broken down by writing styles: personal narrative, informational, persuasive/opinion, and historical or historical fiction. The Writing Workshop writing process dictates the tasks which engage them to progress through cycles of brainstorming, drafting, and editing to get to the final product.
Meanwhile, something called "Word Study" continues to be the way through which kids learn phonics and spelling, and even vocabulary acquisition.
Reading is more independent, I think. I haven't heard of any reading partners this year. The focus seems to be on logging progress and a stepped-up move toward engagement and reflection by writing "Reading Responses" - which is basically using journaling as a way to further engage the student in the material. The kids receive a list of prompts to help them think of something they would like to journal about in response to the reading they did for that day on the book of their choice.
The class, meanwhile, does have a few books they plan to read together which is selected to be just above the majority of the kids' reading levels.
Math continues to be the UChicago Everyday Math curriculum, while adding a worksheet of advanced math reasoning problems which the kids are required to do over the course of the week and turn it in at the end. These problems are more abstract and take a lot of thinking and talking through. They are not problem sets.
The Chinese language arts development aims to mimic the English framework. There continues to be character practice and sentence structures delivered through worksheets. Quizlet, as mentioned prior, is used as an additional drilling tool to check for comprehension, as well as to deliver the drill in a quiz form.
The textbook is a curated selection done by the teaching faculty over the years. The topics connect with Social Studies and Health Science themes that have been identified by the faculty as the slate of content.
Daily reading is expected, whether it be repeating the class reading from the textbook or reading your own selection.
My opinion is that the textbook readings are just at my child's level without being a challenge. So I don't make her repeat read at home, unless I notice that it is more challenging. Meanwhile, we have returned to reading one short story or one chapter per day from our own collection.
Weekly book reports have begun. So far, all the kids in the class are supposed to write from the same story. The first one was not challenging in vocabulary, but more challenging in the forms of expression. This was reassuring to me - this is part of why you send your child to school. Because professional teachers can teach your child a literary or academic form of the language that you, the parent, probably could not (unless you are a professional educator and have expert levels in the language).
The form of the book reports have regressed a bit - back to using storyboarding as a tool. But I don't mind, as I see this time as also giving my child a break and allowing her to find moments of mastery. Always making things hard can have negative blowbacks.
The school has developed its own math in Chinese that follows the Everyday Math curriculum directly translated. They have also been mapping this material to the Common Core, which is labeled in the math workbooks. It makes me wonder if some of the Everyday Math is not exactly mapped to Common Core - likely. So what we get delivered to us is just that.
The Chinese teacher said that she will give students advanced math in Chinese from another curriculum, should some of the students show that they are ready for it. My child does not seem ready - the math reasoning of the language expressions in Chinese and English are different enough, in my opinion, that this is challenge enough. I am not looking for her to master math in Chinese. By 6th grade, math will be taught all in English. I have some additional thoughts on this that ought to go in a separate post...
The plus for having it now is the Chinese literacy support that happens. All the instructions for the worksheets are in Chinese, as are all the story problems. Most of the characters do not have pinyin over them. So if they did not learn them during class, then they have to look them up.
Overall, however, I am grateful for the levels and the quality of teaching. When we were in K and at another MI school, it was very hard to see what laid ahead, to know what to expect. Now, I see very clearly that there is no way that the 4th graders at our previous school would have ever been able to reach the level we are at now. Not for anything happening in English, not for anything happening in Chinese. These last 2 years of hard work are paying off, are the foundation for my child to continue the hard work that lays ahead.
When I have a chance, I will post more concrete examples...
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Don't keep blaming the teachers - “Language and culture are linked ... and families should know what they are getting into.”
Heather Clydesdale has written an updated perspective on the state of Chinese immersion programs in America in this article for Asia Society:
Destination: Immersion - As recognition of language immersion’s wide-ranging benefits increase, and schools across the United States establish new programs, many are finding that the journey is rewarding, but also has hurdles.
She highlights insights from leading Mandarin Immersion educators, notably from Chinese American International School (CAIS), Yu Ying Charter, Yinghua Academy, and Pioneer Valley Charter.
They all concur that sustaining ongoing professional develop support for Chinese teachers is no easy task. A few years ago, this issue of "adequate" training for teachers was an oft-cited pain point for the success or failure of a Mandarin Immersion program. These teachers were having to bear the brunt of much undue blame. I think Asia Society bears some of the responsibility for over-simplifying the issues back then, and broadcasting the training challenge as a crisis of the teachers, rather than one of institutions and leadership.
Many of us who grew up bilingual and bicultural - as parents, we protested at the grassroots - we were in shock, really. How could it be this absurd? Haven't "we" (us ABC's) been around for quite some time for the obvious stereotyping blunders and the most unproductive assumptions to have been long dispelled? What, exactly, were we dealing with here? Because it could not be as obvious as saying that the divide between Chinese and English (languages) and the divide between Chinese and American cultures were vast. Hasn't everyone read/seen The Joy Luck Club already? And read most of Maxine Hong Kingston's books, or watched Bill Moyers' "Becoming Chinese American"... or any number of pop cultural forms of identity musings and whatnot? Aren't we in the post-post-post-cultural-modernist era, already? Identities have already morphed to triple and quadruple states, forget the age of the Hyphenated Someone...! So why did it feel so 1980s?
But who was going to believe us when such a viewpoint was not only being articulated by so-called leaders in the field, but also feeding into the general Blame-the-Teacher milieu generated by the likes of Bill Gates lately... Society continues to put all of its motley ills upon the doorstep of the poor, unsuspecting classroom teacher. Every learning, medical, socio-economic, and emotional disorder has been deposited before her with demands that they be fixed with a pile of worksheets and crayons. Now, it seems, Americans' chronic monolingualism would be cured by her solitary efforts, as well. At once heroic, yet maligned for expecting to be ordinary - that is, as ordinary as being available in your friendly neighborhood idyllically situated elementary school that everyone has the right to access upon any given day because this is America, land of the free... because every friendly neighborhood deserves an outstanding teacher who works magic as the true gatekeeper for opportunity in this land of freedom. As absurd as it has been, I do believe there have been these underlying assumptions at work.
Bridging Chinese and American cultures is no casual matter. Demanding that sole, lonely Mandarin teachers navigate this terrain without proper support... especially when some are being placed in outlying areas of the country where few Chinese people even exist in the first place... It was hard enough for the likes of us who grew up in far-flung American Suburbia over the last 20-30 years, but at least we began as kids and could grow with American culture more organically. And then look at how our Mandarin turned out.
We watched how our parents struggled with English. Even the most highly educated (and my parents had PhD's from Berkeley) still spoke English with accents and occasional grammatical errors, and a constant feeling of not really speaking their own language. So you want these full-fledged adults who have perfect Mandarin, but you want them to know everything else.
I would like to see some school adopt the model of taking a fully functioning adult American teacher who knows no Mandarin and teach her how to speak and teach Mandarin, while she also serves as the normal English-speaking elementary teacher that she already is. At least there won't be any complaints by the parent community about having "American style" cultural competence. I know, pure fantasy. But I think doing the reverse mental model is good for people to attain better perspective on any current enterprise.
These days, I look at the scene of Mandarin Immersion with a degree of constant anxiety. When is the other shoe going to drop? Will it ever cross the line? Will Americans ever get it? That is, will Americans who grew up monolingual and complacent in their "American" identity, rather than the ones who are aware of their "immigrant" identity - will these Americans ever get it?
Or will it be constant unspoken subtle ways of demanding that "the foreigner" pony up and get with their program? Just like American foreign policy is always first and foremost about America's agenda, rather than something that looks more equal and global...
I look at French and German immersion programs - they never experience the blowback that Americans "don't need to" learn the culture. If you said that to someone who was French or German, they would think you were crazy and look down on you. But people say that about Chinese culture all the time, that it's unnecessary to learn, but they want their kids to learn Mandarin... All I can do is look at them askance, with a degree of horror...
Nonetheless, I was glad to read that Kevin Chang, Director of CAIS' Chinese Program, was being quoted as standing tall and saying, "Language and culture are linked... and families should know what they are getting into."
In other words, don't expect the Chinese teachers to cater to your little Johnny's each and every sniffle. If you sign up for this cross-cultural and cross-linguistic experience, the whole point is that Little Johnny will have to make the crossing -- to the "other" side. He'll have a much better time of it if you, the parent, can figure out how to be supportive.
Destination: Immersion - As recognition of language immersion’s wide-ranging benefits increase, and schools across the United States establish new programs, many are finding that the journey is rewarding, but also has hurdles.
She highlights insights from leading Mandarin Immersion educators, notably from Chinese American International School (CAIS), Yu Ying Charter, Yinghua Academy, and Pioneer Valley Charter.
They all concur that sustaining ongoing professional develop support for Chinese teachers is no easy task. A few years ago, this issue of "adequate" training for teachers was an oft-cited pain point for the success or failure of a Mandarin Immersion program. These teachers were having to bear the brunt of much undue blame. I think Asia Society bears some of the responsibility for over-simplifying the issues back then, and broadcasting the training challenge as a crisis of the teachers, rather than one of institutions and leadership.
Many of us who grew up bilingual and bicultural - as parents, we protested at the grassroots - we were in shock, really. How could it be this absurd? Haven't "we" (us ABC's) been around for quite some time for the obvious stereotyping blunders and the most unproductive assumptions to have been long dispelled? What, exactly, were we dealing with here? Because it could not be as obvious as saying that the divide between Chinese and English (languages) and the divide between Chinese and American cultures were vast. Hasn't everyone read/seen The Joy Luck Club already? And read most of Maxine Hong Kingston's books, or watched Bill Moyers' "Becoming Chinese American"... or any number of pop cultural forms of identity musings and whatnot? Aren't we in the post-post-post-cultural-modernist era, already? Identities have already morphed to triple and quadruple states, forget the age of the Hyphenated Someone...! So why did it feel so 1980s?
But who was going to believe us when such a viewpoint was not only being articulated by so-called leaders in the field, but also feeding into the general Blame-the-Teacher milieu generated by the likes of Bill Gates lately... Society continues to put all of its motley ills upon the doorstep of the poor, unsuspecting classroom teacher. Every learning, medical, socio-economic, and emotional disorder has been deposited before her with demands that they be fixed with a pile of worksheets and crayons. Now, it seems, Americans' chronic monolingualism would be cured by her solitary efforts, as well. At once heroic, yet maligned for expecting to be ordinary - that is, as ordinary as being available in your friendly neighborhood idyllically situated elementary school that everyone has the right to access upon any given day because this is America, land of the free... because every friendly neighborhood deserves an outstanding teacher who works magic as the true gatekeeper for opportunity in this land of freedom. As absurd as it has been, I do believe there have been these underlying assumptions at work.
Bridging Chinese and American cultures is no casual matter. Demanding that sole, lonely Mandarin teachers navigate this terrain without proper support... especially when some are being placed in outlying areas of the country where few Chinese people even exist in the first place... It was hard enough for the likes of us who grew up in far-flung American Suburbia over the last 20-30 years, but at least we began as kids and could grow with American culture more organically. And then look at how our Mandarin turned out.
We watched how our parents struggled with English. Even the most highly educated (and my parents had PhD's from Berkeley) still spoke English with accents and occasional grammatical errors, and a constant feeling of not really speaking their own language. So you want these full-fledged adults who have perfect Mandarin, but you want them to know everything else.
I would like to see some school adopt the model of taking a fully functioning adult American teacher who knows no Mandarin and teach her how to speak and teach Mandarin, while she also serves as the normal English-speaking elementary teacher that she already is. At least there won't be any complaints by the parent community about having "American style" cultural competence. I know, pure fantasy. But I think doing the reverse mental model is good for people to attain better perspective on any current enterprise.
These days, I look at the scene of Mandarin Immersion with a degree of constant anxiety. When is the other shoe going to drop? Will it ever cross the line? Will Americans ever get it? That is, will Americans who grew up monolingual and complacent in their "American" identity, rather than the ones who are aware of their "immigrant" identity - will these Americans ever get it?
Or will it be constant unspoken subtle ways of demanding that "the foreigner" pony up and get with their program? Just like American foreign policy is always first and foremost about America's agenda, rather than something that looks more equal and global...
I look at French and German immersion programs - they never experience the blowback that Americans "don't need to" learn the culture. If you said that to someone who was French or German, they would think you were crazy and look down on you. But people say that about Chinese culture all the time, that it's unnecessary to learn, but they want their kids to learn Mandarin... All I can do is look at them askance, with a degree of horror...
Nonetheless, I was glad to read that Kevin Chang, Director of CAIS' Chinese Program, was being quoted as standing tall and saying, "Language and culture are linked... and families should know what they are getting into."
In other words, don't expect the Chinese teachers to cater to your little Johnny's each and every sniffle. If you sign up for this cross-cultural and cross-linguistic experience, the whole point is that Little Johnny will have to make the crossing -- to the "other" side. He'll have a much better time of it if you, the parent, can figure out how to be supportive.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Finding age-appropriate material - 哲学鸟飞罗系列
It is true, what other parents in MI programs have said, that the 4th-5th grade period is tricky. Cute bunnies are on their way out, but Chinese language reading ability is lagging... and increasingly lagging behind the English that races ahead like a jack rabbit.
I see glimmers of the pre-teen brain that does not want to cooperate with the enticements I've learned in prior years.
So I'm trying this one - 哲学鸟飞罗系列 "Philosophy Bird Series"
Meanwhile, Book 5 in the Jinan University ZhongWen series just took a massive jump in vocabulary style with the lesson on China's first manned satellite. Then it eased up with the next story about weighing an elephant.
And still, my child enjoys the tales of the mischievous "Xiao Pi" - a great series, but hard to find from American dealers (someone, please stock it). But you can find it on DangDang.com. Not the translation of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but the Chinese one "小屁孩子日记." You can find his years in Kindergarten at some of the American dealers, but the series continues up through 6th grade. My 4th grader is reveling in his escapades at 2nd grade. I hope she'll continue to find him interesting when both of them are a little older.
I know that once high school starts, the content expectation will become a lot more focused on history, geography, science, and everyday public affairs stuff. But to get there, her brain needs a foundation of solid storytelling and conversation.
I see glimmers of the pre-teen brain that does not want to cooperate with the enticements I've learned in prior years.
So I'm trying this one - 哲学鸟飞罗系列 "Philosophy Bird Series"
Meanwhile, Book 5 in the Jinan University ZhongWen series just took a massive jump in vocabulary style with the lesson on China's first manned satellite. Then it eased up with the next story about weighing an elephant.
And still, my child enjoys the tales of the mischievous "Xiao Pi" - a great series, but hard to find from American dealers (someone, please stock it). But you can find it on DangDang.com. Not the translation of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but the Chinese one "小屁孩子日记." You can find his years in Kindergarten at some of the American dealers, but the series continues up through 6th grade. My 4th grader is reveling in his escapades at 2nd grade. I hope she'll continue to find him interesting when both of them are a little older.
I know that once high school starts, the content expectation will become a lot more focused on history, geography, science, and everyday public affairs stuff. But to get there, her brain needs a foundation of solid storytelling and conversation.
Friday, September 19, 2014
"Some kids are not cut out for immersion..." or "My kid just doesn't like the French language"
I would like to put it out there that this myth needs serious busting. But who has the resources to do it? How would you design a longitudinal education study that would properly do this?
One of the biggest problems is having a proper control group. You simply can't.
Anecdotally, I would say that the biggest problem for kids not being able to stay in a language immersion program is that they don't have parents who are willing to meet their own kids' needs. That is more the problem than that "some kids" are not cut out for this.
But sure, most language immersion programs do not have the full slate of resources to meet each and every need or desire that the kid has. For example, it would be very progressive and cutting edge if a school was designed to have all of the following:
So when parents complain that their program is missing things, it is often an unrealistic slate. And when they say someone's kids or their own just aren't "cut out for language immersion," I think that it is because they, the parents, do not want to invest in the resources to help their kids achieve and succeed on the language front.
Why don't parents want to do this? Your guess is as good as mine. I think some don't really understand what it takes to "get there" in an English-dominant society when they simply lack the bilingual experience, themselves. I think others are too enamored of social status activities that keep them from focusing on something like language proficiency. For example, I see a lot of parents work really hard to support their kids for soccer, skiing, gymnastics, and piano. But they will not work as hard for the second language. Then they sit around and wonder why their kid doesn't have better proficiency outcomes for their language skills. Furthermore, if you challenge them on why they are investing so much time and energy on these other activities, usually without the expectation that their kids will reach professional levels, they say things like "it's good for them" in very general and vague ways.
I don't disagree that investing in anything is "good for" any kid. But that is the point. If you invest, then you will see outcomes. If you don't, then why do you expect better outcomes for not having invested, when you are clearly more invested in all these other things? Just admit you are not invested in the language outcomes and you would rather your child turn out to be a professional skier. (Even if global warming is negatively impacting the entire industry...)
And others, still - I think there are still too many people who think that their kids will do "just fine" if they "pick up" the language at a later point in their education. But all these perspectives goes back to a very shallow understanding of the 3B's.
Then there is a fringe minority out there who don't understand that being part of a low-performing language immersion program is not the goal at all. So when parents opt out of such a program, it has nothing to do with the characteristic of the program having such a strong language component, but that the targets are too low to constitute a "real" or "normal" or even "good" education. That is an entirely different thing. But I have heard parents out there use this as an excuse - that language immersion is not for everyone - therefore, no need to look at attrition rates as an indication that you might be in a low-performing program. These parents point the finger at those who leave, suggesting that the kids and parents who leave such a program are, themselves, deficient in talent and inclinations, while those who remain in such a program keep ignorantly strutting around in their chicken suits.
I believe that all kids are able to learn a second language through a good immersion program. But the kids need the right supports for their own learning styles, patterns, and mix of strengths and weaknesses. There is no one program that can meet all the needs of every learner out there. That is where parents need to figure out what their own kids need and be their kids' best advocates and sources of support. I think this is generally true for other types of learning, not just language.
But language is different - it is the vehicle of thought, not just thought, itself. It is one thing for someone to express a preference for a subject like math or science, or history or literature. But it's another thing to say, "Oh, my kid just doesn't like the French language." What does that even mean?
Imagine a French person saying that. Then, what? What would that child do? Not speak French? And therefore, not speak or write or think? Would that parent be okay with allowing their kid to halt all language faculties altogether simply because the kid had decided that s/he didn't like the French language?
Of course, this is a total absurdity. But these are the kinds of things I hear parents in Mandarin Immersion programs say. Or, some who perhaps aspire to be in them are saying such nonsense.
The bottom line is that every kid can do a language immersion program. But not all programs are good fits for every kid, nor are all programs even good at what they say they are supposed to do for the kids who would be good fits for their model. Then it is up to the grownups - no the kids - to figure out how to make the program good. And if the program can only be adjusted to meet the needs of the middle of the group, then the parents must do the extra that their own kids need.
One of the biggest problems is having a proper control group. You simply can't.
Anecdotally, I would say that the biggest problem for kids not being able to stay in a language immersion program is that they don't have parents who are willing to meet their own kids' needs. That is more the problem than that "some kids" are not cut out for this.
But sure, most language immersion programs do not have the full slate of resources to meet each and every need or desire that the kid has. For example, it would be very progressive and cutting edge if a school was designed to have all of the following:
- very high academic targets across all subjects (assuming elite college prep here, too),
- a high proficiency outcomes Mandarin language program,
- a high achieving soccer program with coaches who taught in Mandarin and English.
So when parents complain that their program is missing things, it is often an unrealistic slate. And when they say someone's kids or their own just aren't "cut out for language immersion," I think that it is because they, the parents, do not want to invest in the resources to help their kids achieve and succeed on the language front.
Why don't parents want to do this? Your guess is as good as mine. I think some don't really understand what it takes to "get there" in an English-dominant society when they simply lack the bilingual experience, themselves. I think others are too enamored of social status activities that keep them from focusing on something like language proficiency. For example, I see a lot of parents work really hard to support their kids for soccer, skiing, gymnastics, and piano. But they will not work as hard for the second language. Then they sit around and wonder why their kid doesn't have better proficiency outcomes for their language skills. Furthermore, if you challenge them on why they are investing so much time and energy on these other activities, usually without the expectation that their kids will reach professional levels, they say things like "it's good for them" in very general and vague ways.
I don't disagree that investing in anything is "good for" any kid. But that is the point. If you invest, then you will see outcomes. If you don't, then why do you expect better outcomes for not having invested, when you are clearly more invested in all these other things? Just admit you are not invested in the language outcomes and you would rather your child turn out to be a professional skier. (Even if global warming is negatively impacting the entire industry...)
And others, still - I think there are still too many people who think that their kids will do "just fine" if they "pick up" the language at a later point in their education. But all these perspectives goes back to a very shallow understanding of the 3B's.
Then there is a fringe minority out there who don't understand that being part of a low-performing language immersion program is not the goal at all. So when parents opt out of such a program, it has nothing to do with the characteristic of the program having such a strong language component, but that the targets are too low to constitute a "real" or "normal" or even "good" education. That is an entirely different thing. But I have heard parents out there use this as an excuse - that language immersion is not for everyone - therefore, no need to look at attrition rates as an indication that you might be in a low-performing program. These parents point the finger at those who leave, suggesting that the kids and parents who leave such a program are, themselves, deficient in talent and inclinations, while those who remain in such a program keep ignorantly strutting around in their chicken suits.
I believe that all kids are able to learn a second language through a good immersion program. But the kids need the right supports for their own learning styles, patterns, and mix of strengths and weaknesses. There is no one program that can meet all the needs of every learner out there. That is where parents need to figure out what their own kids need and be their kids' best advocates and sources of support. I think this is generally true for other types of learning, not just language.
But language is different - it is the vehicle of thought, not just thought, itself. It is one thing for someone to express a preference for a subject like math or science, or history or literature. But it's another thing to say, "Oh, my kid just doesn't like the French language." What does that even mean?
Imagine a French person saying that. Then, what? What would that child do? Not speak French? And therefore, not speak or write or think? Would that parent be okay with allowing their kid to halt all language faculties altogether simply because the kid had decided that s/he didn't like the French language?
Of course, this is a total absurdity. But these are the kinds of things I hear parents in Mandarin Immersion programs say. Or, some who perhaps aspire to be in them are saying such nonsense.
The bottom line is that every kid can do a language immersion program. But not all programs are good fits for every kid, nor are all programs even good at what they say they are supposed to do for the kids who would be good fits for their model. Then it is up to the grownups - no the kids - to figure out how to make the program good. And if the program can only be adjusted to meet the needs of the middle of the group, then the parents must do the extra that their own kids need.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Word of warning - some inappropriate content in CCTV's "快乐汉语"
We had this problem with the ”西样样“ (Xi YangYang) cartoon series, as well. It seems that material for kids coming out of the Mainland is still behind some of the values we are trying to promote here in America or Europe.
Xi YangYang is a very popular cartoon series, one that you can find in the U.S. on YouTube or easily from online and Chinese video/dvd stores, or even in the public libraries. But the characters behave more like Spongebob Square Pants and the Road Runner and Wiley Coyote, than the likes of Caillou or Curious George, or any material that one finds on PBS Kids.
I suppose it is a matter of parenting values - not just the divide between China and America. After all, if you watch the material on the popular Cartoon Network here in America, you will find all the snark (disrespectful sarcasm) and violence that exists in Xi YangYang.
For my own taste and values, this is not appropriate material for my young child. And as she gets older, I hope that she gravitates toward more sophisticated forms of storytelling. Snark and violence are cheap tools. I only tolerate snark in the form of political satire, and that's not interesting to young kids, anyway.
“快乐汉语” has some episodes wherein the father ends up getting drunk - not because he wants to, but because he finds it impolite to refuse the well-meaning offers of the family's "foreign" guest Susan, who is an American student. While she is practicing her “祝福” statements at dinner one evening, she gets carried away and keeps pouring a bit of alcohol for the dad, while trying out her new-found language skills. The dad, meanwhile, doesn't want to hurt her feelings or disrespect the moment, and culturally, must finish the glass each time it is poured as he is being praised.
The intention is to illustrate the cultural divide - which is great. It is great for high school or college kids. Not necessarily okay for your elementary aged child. ;)
The thing is, too, that since Americans don't get to experience the full range of language and culture here in the United States, this bit of consumption can cause problems. It can create a false impression about what is actually real or not real when it comes to Chinese culture. The humor makes the moment memorable, but it makes me wonder if that goes on to create an imbalanced view of what it is to be American and what it is to be Chinese.
I had a similar experience with a children's storybook, “生日飞球“ by 范锡林. One wants to support Chinese writers and illustrators. There is a lot of potential to consume modern children's stories, not just versions of the Classical Canon or stories translated from Western writers. But when suddenly towards the end there is a gun being pulled within a tale that seemed to have a lot of color and imagination - and even innocence - well, I fully understand that Chinese writers have a hard time discerning what is going on in America when things like Star Wars are so revered. But I would hope more and more of them could look to some of the alternative non-blockbuster productions that Disney is doing these days, in addition to PBS Kids.
Xi YangYang is a very popular cartoon series, one that you can find in the U.S. on YouTube or easily from online and Chinese video/dvd stores, or even in the public libraries. But the characters behave more like Spongebob Square Pants and the Road Runner and Wiley Coyote, than the likes of Caillou or Curious George, or any material that one finds on PBS Kids.
I suppose it is a matter of parenting values - not just the divide between China and America. After all, if you watch the material on the popular Cartoon Network here in America, you will find all the snark (disrespectful sarcasm) and violence that exists in Xi YangYang.
For my own taste and values, this is not appropriate material for my young child. And as she gets older, I hope that she gravitates toward more sophisticated forms of storytelling. Snark and violence are cheap tools. I only tolerate snark in the form of political satire, and that's not interesting to young kids, anyway.
“快乐汉语” has some episodes wherein the father ends up getting drunk - not because he wants to, but because he finds it impolite to refuse the well-meaning offers of the family's "foreign" guest Susan, who is an American student. While she is practicing her “祝福” statements at dinner one evening, she gets carried away and keeps pouring a bit of alcohol for the dad, while trying out her new-found language skills. The dad, meanwhile, doesn't want to hurt her feelings or disrespect the moment, and culturally, must finish the glass each time it is poured as he is being praised.
The intention is to illustrate the cultural divide - which is great. It is great for high school or college kids. Not necessarily okay for your elementary aged child. ;)
The thing is, too, that since Americans don't get to experience the full range of language and culture here in the United States, this bit of consumption can cause problems. It can create a false impression about what is actually real or not real when it comes to Chinese culture. The humor makes the moment memorable, but it makes me wonder if that goes on to create an imbalanced view of what it is to be American and what it is to be Chinese.
I had a similar experience with a children's storybook, “生日飞球“ by 范锡林. One wants to support Chinese writers and illustrators. There is a lot of potential to consume modern children's stories, not just versions of the Classical Canon or stories translated from Western writers. But when suddenly towards the end there is a gun being pulled within a tale that seemed to have a lot of color and imagination - and even innocence - well, I fully understand that Chinese writers have a hard time discerning what is going on in America when things like Star Wars are so revered. But I would hope more and more of them could look to some of the alternative non-blockbuster productions that Disney is doing these days, in addition to PBS Kids.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The Science of Smart - radio/podcast by American RadioWorks
This was just broadcast in August 2014:
http://www.americanradioworks.org/documentaries/the-science-of-smart/
Two areas of key insights for Mandarin Immersion programs -
So there is nothing out there that "proves" that your kid, with low levels of engagement and skill building while attending a language immersion program, will then turn out to be "smarter" just like those bilingual individuals that have, in fact, been studied.
As for the Utah programs, listen carefully to what they say. Utah is doing 50% of the day, not a dual immersion design. They know that they must be One-Way immersion, not Two-Way, because of their student population. But also, look into what and how they are teaching. They have a curriculum. They know what it looks like. They have native English speaking teachers teaching in English, and native Chinese speaking teachers teaching in Chinese. They do not need to force teachers to be fluent in both languages. This is not the case with the politics of every school district. Plus, the Utah programs have carefully and thoughtfully chosen content to be their guide in designing the curriculum, not the ACTFL standards. They may be mapping to ACTFL, and even to Common Core, but they are using the Common Core Content as their guides for the "what," not ACTFL.
There are more resources out there for Utah's MI programs. I will try to post here another day.
http://www.americanradioworks.org/documentaries/the-science-of-smart/
Two areas of key insights for Mandarin Immersion programs -
- A study on bilingual brains
- Utah's Mandarin Immersion programs
So there is nothing out there that "proves" that your kid, with low levels of engagement and skill building while attending a language immersion program, will then turn out to be "smarter" just like those bilingual individuals that have, in fact, been studied.
As for the Utah programs, listen carefully to what they say. Utah is doing 50% of the day, not a dual immersion design. They know that they must be One-Way immersion, not Two-Way, because of their student population. But also, look into what and how they are teaching. They have a curriculum. They know what it looks like. They have native English speaking teachers teaching in English, and native Chinese speaking teachers teaching in Chinese. They do not need to force teachers to be fluent in both languages. This is not the case with the politics of every school district. Plus, the Utah programs have carefully and thoughtfully chosen content to be their guide in designing the curriculum, not the ACTFL standards. They may be mapping to ACTFL, and even to Common Core, but they are using the Common Core Content as their guides for the "what," not ACTFL.
There are more resources out there for Utah's MI programs. I will try to post here another day.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
I've mentioned this book to many parents. No joke, it is worth reading.
All kids are capable of understanding and creating language. Read what he says. Now that I am 9 years into my own experiment of raising a trilingual child, I can attest to the insights as being valid and true.
The thing about language acquisition is that I think "the studies" are still in their infancy around the world. Sure, there is a lot that is true, a lot that has been figured out. But it is very difficult for any adult to track progress in a language that they do not know. So when you read something like "Studies show..." or "Researchers have found...," it is hard to know what they knew beforehand and what they really were able to discern throughout the process.
I had to do my own experiment, so I tried to learn as much as I could. Several of the themes Pinker discusses became phenomena we witnessed in our own child's development. Pretty exciting.
And how would it pan out for her overall intellectual development? Well, so far, so good. I've met a few other bilingual and trilingual households out there who have also taken similar approaches as we have.
So if you are a bilingual or trilingual household about to become new parnets, I highly recommend reading Pinker and then doing the early immersion work at home. Don't worry about the "mixing up" in the early years. It will figure itself out. And by all means, keep working, keep moving forward. Someday, we'll have more multilingual grownups out there who just might change the world for the better with their ability to literally understand more people. Then we will all be able to say that it really, really, really was worth it!
All kids are capable of understanding and creating language. Read what he says. Now that I am 9 years into my own experiment of raising a trilingual child, I can attest to the insights as being valid and true.
The thing about language acquisition is that I think "the studies" are still in their infancy around the world. Sure, there is a lot that is true, a lot that has been figured out. But it is very difficult for any adult to track progress in a language that they do not know. So when you read something like "Studies show..." or "Researchers have found...," it is hard to know what they knew beforehand and what they really were able to discern throughout the process.
I had to do my own experiment, so I tried to learn as much as I could. Several of the themes Pinker discusses became phenomena we witnessed in our own child's development. Pretty exciting.
And how would it pan out for her overall intellectual development? Well, so far, so good. I've met a few other bilingual and trilingual households out there who have also taken similar approaches as we have.
So if you are a bilingual or trilingual household about to become new parnets, I highly recommend reading Pinker and then doing the early immersion work at home. Don't worry about the "mixing up" in the early years. It will figure itself out. And by all means, keep working, keep moving forward. Someday, we'll have more multilingual grownups out there who just might change the world for the better with their ability to literally understand more people. Then we will all be able to say that it really, really, really was worth it!
More on motivation challenges while approaching adolescence
I met another parent of kids in an MI program who faced disappointment with outcomes during the middle school years. It seems that there is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that problems really become apparent at that time.
This parent said, "Well, my son just didn't like learning the language...Some kids don't take to learning language is readily as others do..."
I felt sad for this parent. The kids are at least part ethnically Chinese, too. But without a more holistic approach, they found "learning just the language" to be dry and meaningless.
I've heard this response from parents of students who have studied Chinese who come from non-Chinese, Chinese, and native-speaking Chinese backgrounds. The problem remains learning the language in a vacuum, a bubble, disconnected from the things they feel connected with. For that, learning all different aspects of the culture and dynamic ways of interacting with and in the language are critical.
There are plenty of methods and resources out there to support kids growing up in an English-dominant society. But parents have to be proactive in searching them out, plus getting their kids engaged early enough. At the right developmental age, kids are open and curious. But that openness and curiosity start to shut down as they approach adolescence, making it harder and harder to help them understand what is in front of them, and to light that spark that can carry the rest.
If kids learn to approach the "dry" and "boring" in a different way - then it will not be "dry" and "boring." But no doubt, there is the difference between "hard work" and doing "boring" things. Make sure you, as the parent, understand the difference and how your own values may stand in the way of knowing that difference.
All kids can learn another language. It just means accessing the right mix of approaches for that kid. But parents have to work with the teacher in figuring out what the best triggers might be. Being passive won't get results.
This parent said, "Well, my son just didn't like learning the language...Some kids don't take to learning language is readily as others do..."
I felt sad for this parent. The kids are at least part ethnically Chinese, too. But without a more holistic approach, they found "learning just the language" to be dry and meaningless.
I've heard this response from parents of students who have studied Chinese who come from non-Chinese, Chinese, and native-speaking Chinese backgrounds. The problem remains learning the language in a vacuum, a bubble, disconnected from the things they feel connected with. For that, learning all different aspects of the culture and dynamic ways of interacting with and in the language are critical.
There are plenty of methods and resources out there to support kids growing up in an English-dominant society. But parents have to be proactive in searching them out, plus getting their kids engaged early enough. At the right developmental age, kids are open and curious. But that openness and curiosity start to shut down as they approach adolescence, making it harder and harder to help them understand what is in front of them, and to light that spark that can carry the rest.
If kids learn to approach the "dry" and "boring" in a different way - then it will not be "dry" and "boring." But no doubt, there is the difference between "hard work" and doing "boring" things. Make sure you, as the parent, understand the difference and how your own values may stand in the way of knowing that difference.
All kids can learn another language. It just means accessing the right mix of approaches for that kid. But parents have to work with the teacher in figuring out what the best triggers might be. Being passive won't get results.
Quizlet as a resource
As I have repeatedly said, I am against the flashcard model of language learning. I believe fully in the fully immersive immersion model. (yes, I purposely was redundant)
That means eliminating "learning in translation" which flashcards often offer.
Our teacher this year, however, did something really fabulous. She set us up to use Quizlet, which, although not only about flashcards, but its main product offering is that - but the definitions for the weekly vocabulary are all in Chinese, as well. There are built-in sound buttons that recite the vocabulary and definitions for you.
The site then lets the teacher set up testing or "quiz" features. So first, the vocabulary with definitions can be set up as flashcards. Then, those definitions can be posted to require being matched in reverse. Moreover, all the characters can be posted as buttons wherein the student must input the right mix of characters in order to match it to a picture plus a written definition which they must learn to read on their own. The order of the list can remain the same, then it can be scrambled or even timed. There is additional feedback in that students can set up accounts so the teacher can see who completed what and how much of it, the rates of errors, how much time it took, etc.
The units can be set up as totally open links, as well, with no required account created in order to engage.
I have mixed feelings about the role of technology in education. But to me, this does not seem totally mindless, passive matching, so I guess I am okay with it. Moreover, my child is asking to do it. Our teacher is not requiring it. Especially if parents have other ways to help our kids master the vocabulary. It is a good option for parents without those skills or additional resources, however, especially if the teacher does it by using Chinese definitions, not English ones.
Still, it is not a replacement to good old fashioned independent reading and writing skills. At our stage, I am confident that my child will not be handicapped by exposure to this resource. Her writing abilities are very strong for her stage of development. She has a lot of brain and muscle memory built up, as well as having become acculturated to the writing in terms of habit and purpose (experiencing the beauty of the writing, as well as having learned structural meaning aspects like radicals and positioning).
So here is the link to Quizlet. If your teacher has the time, or if you have a parent in your community who can do this, then it can be a great resource on behalf of true Mandarin Immersion. (or any language immersion program)
That means eliminating "learning in translation" which flashcards often offer.
Our teacher this year, however, did something really fabulous. She set us up to use Quizlet, which, although not only about flashcards, but its main product offering is that - but the definitions for the weekly vocabulary are all in Chinese, as well. There are built-in sound buttons that recite the vocabulary and definitions for you.
The site then lets the teacher set up testing or "quiz" features. So first, the vocabulary with definitions can be set up as flashcards. Then, those definitions can be posted to require being matched in reverse. Moreover, all the characters can be posted as buttons wherein the student must input the right mix of characters in order to match it to a picture plus a written definition which they must learn to read on their own. The order of the list can remain the same, then it can be scrambled or even timed. There is additional feedback in that students can set up accounts so the teacher can see who completed what and how much of it, the rates of errors, how much time it took, etc.
The units can be set up as totally open links, as well, with no required account created in order to engage.
I have mixed feelings about the role of technology in education. But to me, this does not seem totally mindless, passive matching, so I guess I am okay with it. Moreover, my child is asking to do it. Our teacher is not requiring it. Especially if parents have other ways to help our kids master the vocabulary. It is a good option for parents without those skills or additional resources, however, especially if the teacher does it by using Chinese definitions, not English ones.
Still, it is not a replacement to good old fashioned independent reading and writing skills. At our stage, I am confident that my child will not be handicapped by exposure to this resource. Her writing abilities are very strong for her stage of development. She has a lot of brain and muscle memory built up, as well as having become acculturated to the writing in terms of habit and purpose (experiencing the beauty of the writing, as well as having learned structural meaning aspects like radicals and positioning).
So here is the link to Quizlet. If your teacher has the time, or if you have a parent in your community who can do this, then it can be a great resource on behalf of true Mandarin Immersion. (or any language immersion program)
“快乐汉语” （KuaiLe HanYu）CCTV episodes on YouTube
Our 4th grade teacher introduced us to this series, here is a link to Episode 01:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTLmiD17mc0
There are tons of episodes - thank you, YouTube! We love it. YouTube continues to be an amazing innovation, an amazing portal to access a lot of things that used to be so hard to get.
There is also a "cool" or "hip" quality built into the show. Here is a promo to give you an idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmAi21Tub4
While at the start of 4th grade my child still seems more "innocent" and open to "cute" in the form of bunnies and pandas, I do realize pre-teenhood and adolescence are just around the corner. These KuaiLe HanYu episodes include a range of characters, but the main ones are teens or young adults. That may make it automatically more appealing to that know-it-all-brimming-with-attitude creature who has possessed your previously sweet natured child.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTLmiD17mc0
There are tons of episodes - thank you, YouTube! We love it. YouTube continues to be an amazing innovation, an amazing portal to access a lot of things that used to be so hard to get.
There is also a "cool" or "hip" quality built into the show. Here is a promo to give you an idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmAi21Tub4
While at the start of 4th grade my child still seems more "innocent" and open to "cute" in the form of bunnies and pandas, I do realize pre-teenhood and adolescence are just around the corner. These KuaiLe HanYu episodes include a range of characters, but the main ones are teens or young adults. That may make it automatically more appealing to that know-it-all-brimming-with-attitude creature who has possessed your previously sweet natured child.
Mandarin Immersion Reflections - the public v. private option
I realize I have been remiss in finishing "a typical week's homework" for 3rd grade. My apologies. The summer was chock full of too much fun, I suppose... ;)
Meanwhile, we are starting 4th grade and I have a moment to reflect on where we've been and where we're going in this giant experiment of being in Mandarin Immersion for the elementary years. This is not to dismiss the experience of families who have done the experiment in the years past, whether in the 30+ years of private school history in America, or the 10+ years of public school experience that exists for either Mandarin or Cantonese immersion programs. But there is very little in the blogosphere from which parents can learn. So my input is to contribute to that gap.
To review for new readers - we spent K-1 and a couple months of 2nd grade in public at what is called a Dual Immersion or Two-Way program. These programs are designed as 90 to 60% of the day in Mandarin until it becomes 50% of the day for 4th and 5th grades, while the student population is supposed to be mixed as 1/3 native speakers from English, 1/3 native speakers from Mandarin, and 1/3 bilingual speakers.
Since that mix of demographics did not happen, then the District was supposed to tolerate a mix of 1/2 kids from English speaking families and 1/2 from Mandarin speaking families.
But since even that mix did not happen in the school we were at, then we saw how the program was failing with the other resources it had and resources it did not have. So we moved to private where the program design is entirely different.
How is it different? First, the instruction time is split 50/50 between English and Mandarin from the beginning through 5th grade. Half the day is in English, the other half is in Mandarin. Teachers who teach in English do not teach in Mandarin. They are native speakers of English and expertly trained as you would expect to find in most high-performing private schools in America. I haven't noticed any of these teachers knowing much Mandarin, but the Head of School is expertly trained in Mandarin and Chinese literature and history.
The Mandarin teachers are all native speakers of Mandarin from Taiwan or the Mainland. They are all generally fairly competent in English, although not expected to be able to teach in English nor expected to have perfect skills in communicating with parents in English. The teachers we have had have all been amazing. Even the assistant teachers have been really great.
Meanwhile, the student mix does not seem to be required to be anything. No formula for X number of kids from Mandarin or English speaking backgrounds. This is an area that could use improvement, I think. I think if the student population would increase to more Chinese proficient (regardless of home dialect, Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc.), then all the students would reach higher proficiency levels in both languages. As it stands, everyone is pretty much guaranteed to reach very high levels of proficiency in English for all subject areas, but the Chinese/Mandarin proficiency levels remain mixed.
Generally, those parents who can perceive these gaps then go on to interpret the state of things as "political." It is unfortunate. As with our experience of public school, there remains a group of parents who believe they are in control of the outcomes. They believe in their "formula" of "getting" Mandarin as "enrichment," rather than buying into the true point of "immersion" outcomes, which is to achieve what we sometimes characterize as "academic" level of language proficiency. That is a level that even native speakers running heritage schools are challenged to achieve. Hence the increased popularity of "immersion." But this level of the discussion seems to have been missed by the parents who only perceive the "enrichment" model and just don't get it.
I suppose the pushback on that is that they feel entitled to not "get it." After all, they are "getting" what they want, which is a lower level of Mandarin language proficiency as "enrichment."
While this "political" condition can translate into poor performance and outcomes across the board for everyone in the public school context (after all, we see how parents with low expectations chronically translate into low performing schools across the country, especially in the poorest and disadvantaged districts because the parents themselves are so disadvantaged having chronically been without the resources to envision a different outcome), this set up has not gotten in my way in the private context. Indeed, even the other parents I speak with who expect more from their own kids and more from themselves, we have agreed that this has translated well with the teachers.
Why does this happen? It is because the teachers are so well supported. The resources - financial, books, having assistant teachers, not having to teach in both languages, having a well-stocked administrative staff who deal with discipline and behavior - all of this allows the teachers to focus on teaching, to focus on their relationship with the kids. They have time to scaffold for kids who need more help on what they are learning, and more time and energy to give more advanced material to the kids who need and qualify for it.
All of the focus is on the curriculum - what can the kid do with the curriculum or what the kid needs help with doing. But if the issue is behavioral or social, then the teacher has support from administrative leadership or learning and behavioral counselors to consult and intervene.
This is vitally important. Sadly, in the public context, too many social workers, educational psychologists and administrative staff have been cut so that public school teachers are left doing all this work. As many of us in public had noticed, the volume of resources was so scarce that parents had to take up the mantle and make up the difference. But in the public school we were at, too many of the parents did not realize how bad the resource set up was, how poorly resourced the classrooms were, because they did not know the language to know how bad things were. And when some of us illuminated the problems, the cogs of denial kicked in hard. We hurt their pride - because somehow "Mandarin" has acquired notions like "elite" and "privileged" and "achievement" in ways that it didn't automatically deserve.
In a well-resourced environment, "the professionals" are able to take control. In a poorly-resourced environment, madness and mayhem rule. This rule is true of many areas of life, not just education or the giant experiment that is Mandarin Immersion.
Meanwhile, we are starting 4th grade and I have a moment to reflect on where we've been and where we're going in this giant experiment of being in Mandarin Immersion for the elementary years. This is not to dismiss the experience of families who have done the experiment in the years past, whether in the 30+ years of private school history in America, or the 10+ years of public school experience that exists for either Mandarin or Cantonese immersion programs. But there is very little in the blogosphere from which parents can learn. So my input is to contribute to that gap.
To review for new readers - we spent K-1 and a couple months of 2nd grade in public at what is called a Dual Immersion or Two-Way program. These programs are designed as 90 to 60% of the day in Mandarin until it becomes 50% of the day for 4th and 5th grades, while the student population is supposed to be mixed as 1/3 native speakers from English, 1/3 native speakers from Mandarin, and 1/3 bilingual speakers.
Since that mix of demographics did not happen, then the District was supposed to tolerate a mix of 1/2 kids from English speaking families and 1/2 from Mandarin speaking families.
But since even that mix did not happen in the school we were at, then we saw how the program was failing with the other resources it had and resources it did not have. So we moved to private where the program design is entirely different.
How is it different? First, the instruction time is split 50/50 between English and Mandarin from the beginning through 5th grade. Half the day is in English, the other half is in Mandarin. Teachers who teach in English do not teach in Mandarin. They are native speakers of English and expertly trained as you would expect to find in most high-performing private schools in America. I haven't noticed any of these teachers knowing much Mandarin, but the Head of School is expertly trained in Mandarin and Chinese literature and history.
The Mandarin teachers are all native speakers of Mandarin from Taiwan or the Mainland. They are all generally fairly competent in English, although not expected to be able to teach in English nor expected to have perfect skills in communicating with parents in English. The teachers we have had have all been amazing. Even the assistant teachers have been really great.
Meanwhile, the student mix does not seem to be required to be anything. No formula for X number of kids from Mandarin or English speaking backgrounds. This is an area that could use improvement, I think. I think if the student population would increase to more Chinese proficient (regardless of home dialect, Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc.), then all the students would reach higher proficiency levels in both languages. As it stands, everyone is pretty much guaranteed to reach very high levels of proficiency in English for all subject areas, but the Chinese/Mandarin proficiency levels remain mixed.
Generally, those parents who can perceive these gaps then go on to interpret the state of things as "political." It is unfortunate. As with our experience of public school, there remains a group of parents who believe they are in control of the outcomes. They believe in their "formula" of "getting" Mandarin as "enrichment," rather than buying into the true point of "immersion" outcomes, which is to achieve what we sometimes characterize as "academic" level of language proficiency. That is a level that even native speakers running heritage schools are challenged to achieve. Hence the increased popularity of "immersion." But this level of the discussion seems to have been missed by the parents who only perceive the "enrichment" model and just don't get it.
I suppose the pushback on that is that they feel entitled to not "get it." After all, they are "getting" what they want, which is a lower level of Mandarin language proficiency as "enrichment."
While this "political" condition can translate into poor performance and outcomes across the board for everyone in the public school context (after all, we see how parents with low expectations chronically translate into low performing schools across the country, especially in the poorest and disadvantaged districts because the parents themselves are so disadvantaged having chronically been without the resources to envision a different outcome), this set up has not gotten in my way in the private context. Indeed, even the other parents I speak with who expect more from their own kids and more from themselves, we have agreed that this has translated well with the teachers.
Why does this happen? It is because the teachers are so well supported. The resources - financial, books, having assistant teachers, not having to teach in both languages, having a well-stocked administrative staff who deal with discipline and behavior - all of this allows the teachers to focus on teaching, to focus on their relationship with the kids. They have time to scaffold for kids who need more help on what they are learning, and more time and energy to give more advanced material to the kids who need and qualify for it.
All of the focus is on the curriculum - what can the kid do with the curriculum or what the kid needs help with doing. But if the issue is behavioral or social, then the teacher has support from administrative leadership or learning and behavioral counselors to consult and intervene.
This is vitally important. Sadly, in the public context, too many social workers, educational psychologists and administrative staff have been cut so that public school teachers are left doing all this work. As many of us in public had noticed, the volume of resources was so scarce that parents had to take up the mantle and make up the difference. But in the public school we were at, too many of the parents did not realize how bad the resource set up was, how poorly resourced the classrooms were, because they did not know the language to know how bad things were. And when some of us illuminated the problems, the cogs of denial kicked in hard. We hurt their pride - because somehow "Mandarin" has acquired notions like "elite" and "privileged" and "achievement" in ways that it didn't automatically deserve.
In a well-resourced environment, "the professionals" are able to take control. In a poorly-resourced environment, madness and mayhem rule. This rule is true of many areas of life, not just education or the giant experiment that is Mandarin Immersion.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Typical week's worth of homework
I know a few parents who are chomping at the bit to get this kind of information... ;)
This is what a typical week's worth of homework looks like for our program. This is only for the homework that happens in Chinese, not anything that happens in English.
As you will see, none of it is very difficult. The teacher usually accepts a wide range of sentence qualities. Earlier in the year, they were required to write sentences with at least 13 charcters or more. I wonder if that requirement was dropped since they were now required to write book reports in addition to this homework.
Weekly homework packets were distributed on Fridays. Kids could decide if they wanted to get a jumpstart over the weekend, but official due dates were Tues through Friday for select pages. I've organized this by what was expected to be done, Monday through Friday.
I have also included the teacher's markings on my child's actual homework so you can see how the teacher corrected homework from Tues through Friday and returned those corrections directly to the student. This meant they were getting immediate feedback on their homework each day, so the assignments were not submitted into a void, but treated as very active parts of the current learning.
Each week introduced a set of characters and expressions based on narrative texts they were reading together in class. Here is what the kids received and worked on writing a few sentences to show comprehension:
Monday through Friday - there was always a reading assignment to 1) read the textbook and 2) read something of your own choice. The parents were required to provide a signature to indicate that they had held their kids accountable to this reading time.
Monday:
Tuesday:
Continued in the next post...
This is what a typical week's worth of homework looks like for our program. This is only for the homework that happens in Chinese, not anything that happens in English.
As you will see, none of it is very difficult. The teacher usually accepts a wide range of sentence qualities. Earlier in the year, they were required to write sentences with at least 13 charcters or more. I wonder if that requirement was dropped since they were now required to write book reports in addition to this homework.
Weekly homework packets were distributed on Fridays. Kids could decide if they wanted to get a jumpstart over the weekend, but official due dates were Tues through Friday for select pages. I've organized this by what was expected to be done, Monday through Friday.
I have also included the teacher's markings on my child's actual homework so you can see how the teacher corrected homework from Tues through Friday and returned those corrections directly to the student. This meant they were getting immediate feedback on their homework each day, so the assignments were not submitted into a void, but treated as very active parts of the current learning.
Each week introduced a set of characters and expressions based on narrative texts they were reading together in class. Here is what the kids received and worked on writing a few sentences to show comprehension:
Monday:
 |
| Character practice to match pinyin; write sentences for phrases of the week; provide an answer to an open-ended question based on the story being read in class. |
 |
| Story problems in Chinese; calculation skills practice. |
 |
| More character practice matched with pinyin; fill-in-the-blank to show comprehension. |
 |
| More math word problems and calculation skills reinforcement. |
Monday, June 9, 2014
From Memorization to Engagement and Association - Stroke Order
Now that I've got you "hooked" wondering what I mean by memorization being the wrong way to go...
It isn't to say that your brain won't "memorize" something - eventually. But it's more about how you go about doing it. And when it comes to your kid... well, rote memorization really is boring.
What you need to do is think about it as imprinting on the brain. How do you imprint successfully? Engagement and making associations are the best approaches. You might say, well, a language immersion program is supposed to be a high quality type of engagement. That is true. It's better than "learning in translation" wherein the teacher speaks English (or the native tongue of the students in class) and tells you "this" is what x means, or "this" is what y means...
But the critical piece of that immersion experience is engaging with a native speaker to find and create meaning in that moment of engagement. You can do more at home to increase the amount of time you are spending imprinting. In the old days, people listened to tapes. These days, you can do Child Road on the iPad.
So this is for listening/speaking engagement. I would also argue that reading/writing engagement requires copying characters. But some might object to this being rote. I disagree. Writing characters is a foundational engagement experience with the Chinese language.
Whether you look at it from a cultural perspective - the role of calligraphy - or from a brain imprinting perspective, this engagement experience is what makes learning and knowing the Chinese language at its core, in the same way that English speakers/writers might consider the experience of the typewriter or the QWERTY keyboard, or even the level of revere Spelling Bees have despite SpellCheck programs.
I look at my child's K-2 period and I am grateful to those few voices - Chinese mommies - who helped me feel all right in pushing my child to write every day and follow the correct stroke order. After all, this is what I grew up with. But like many parents, I did wonder if this was cruel torture. How tough should I be with something like stroke order? Our K teacher advised that it was very important, but not important to get the strokes very pretty. Plus, it was okay to mess up quite a bit. Developmentally, the hand-eye coordination and fine motor movements were still developing, so don't push too hard. But by First Grade, those motor skills are developing quite well and very quickly. So you want to capture that developmental stage and imprint the practice of writing (copying characters) and doing the correct stroke order.
This is another testament to the value of the Jinan University ZW Books. Daily character practice is built into each daily assignment. No need for teachers or parents to negotiate what, how much, and when to do this. A bunch of highly insightful professional linguists have already figured it out for us.
At First Grade, I had to spend a week overcoming the whining and melodramatic tears, but once that week was over, all has been good since. Through the course of 2nd grade up to now at the finish of 3rd, I can witness the ease and speed with which my child writes characters by hand. This ease and speed allows her to tolerate the difficulty of Chinese literacy more easily. It also allows her to "see" new characters more quickly because she has learned to deconstruct them. This is the genius of following the correct stroke order. Your brain eventually catches on to what is happening. But you cannot figure it out by passive engagement.
Looking at flash cards trying to memorize characters now seems so futile, in retrospect. During the K-1 years, I made a lot of flash cards, but we hardly used them. When I was a kid, we never made flash cards. I get that it's a common practice. But if you have limited time, I would suggest character writing practice is a much better use of your time.
Next up, I'll post about making associations.
It isn't to say that your brain won't "memorize" something - eventually. But it's more about how you go about doing it. And when it comes to your kid... well, rote memorization really is boring.
What you need to do is think about it as imprinting on the brain. How do you imprint successfully? Engagement and making associations are the best approaches. You might say, well, a language immersion program is supposed to be a high quality type of engagement. That is true. It's better than "learning in translation" wherein the teacher speaks English (or the native tongue of the students in class) and tells you "this" is what x means, or "this" is what y means...
But the critical piece of that immersion experience is engaging with a native speaker to find and create meaning in that moment of engagement. You can do more at home to increase the amount of time you are spending imprinting. In the old days, people listened to tapes. These days, you can do Child Road on the iPad.
So this is for listening/speaking engagement. I would also argue that reading/writing engagement requires copying characters. But some might object to this being rote. I disagree. Writing characters is a foundational engagement experience with the Chinese language.
Whether you look at it from a cultural perspective - the role of calligraphy - or from a brain imprinting perspective, this engagement experience is what makes learning and knowing the Chinese language at its core, in the same way that English speakers/writers might consider the experience of the typewriter or the QWERTY keyboard, or even the level of revere Spelling Bees have despite SpellCheck programs.
I look at my child's K-2 period and I am grateful to those few voices - Chinese mommies - who helped me feel all right in pushing my child to write every day and follow the correct stroke order. After all, this is what I grew up with. But like many parents, I did wonder if this was cruel torture. How tough should I be with something like stroke order? Our K teacher advised that it was very important, but not important to get the strokes very pretty. Plus, it was okay to mess up quite a bit. Developmentally, the hand-eye coordination and fine motor movements were still developing, so don't push too hard. But by First Grade, those motor skills are developing quite well and very quickly. So you want to capture that developmental stage and imprint the practice of writing (copying characters) and doing the correct stroke order.
This is another testament to the value of the Jinan University ZW Books. Daily character practice is built into each daily assignment. No need for teachers or parents to negotiate what, how much, and when to do this. A bunch of highly insightful professional linguists have already figured it out for us.
At First Grade, I had to spend a week overcoming the whining and melodramatic tears, but once that week was over, all has been good since. Through the course of 2nd grade up to now at the finish of 3rd, I can witness the ease and speed with which my child writes characters by hand. This ease and speed allows her to tolerate the difficulty of Chinese literacy more easily. It also allows her to "see" new characters more quickly because she has learned to deconstruct them. This is the genius of following the correct stroke order. Your brain eventually catches on to what is happening. But you cannot figure it out by passive engagement.
Looking at flash cards trying to memorize characters now seems so futile, in retrospect. During the K-1 years, I made a lot of flash cards, but we hardly used them. When I was a kid, we never made flash cards. I get that it's a common practice. But if you have limited time, I would suggest character writing practice is a much better use of your time.
Next up, I'll post about making associations.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Memorizing Chinese Characters is NOT the way to learn Chinese successfully
I kid you not - this is a huge myth that pervades learning Chinese. But I was glad to learn from a language teacher recently that I am not the only one who objects to this approach.
The thing is, I used to think this way. As an imperfect bilingual growing up in America, I really did think that the problem was that the Chinese language required us to memorize every single goddamn character - no wonder we were always struggling! And we didn't grow up with it all around us, so we couldn't compare ourselves to our brilliant parents. It just wasn't fair. Plus, we could make fun of their English. Yes, looking back, we were cruel. America had made us hard.
Now, of course, I have a different view. I realize how adolescent my own perspective had been. And wholly unrealistic, on top of that. First of all, I was a kid. The child's developmental stages, as any serious parent or developmental professional can attest to, is a far different reality than the adult brain. My parents, like many immigrants, did not know what it was like to learn both English and Chinese simultaneously as children. They did not start learning English until they got into high school. This is a very different developmental stage than ages 5-10, or K-5. (As many parents also know, 6th-8th grade is also another big developmental leap, as well as the changes that go on still at high school...)
So my parents, like many parents, as well as many professional native speaking Chinese teachers - they have struggled to understand what happens at these early ages of learning Mandarin while being surrounded by an English-speaking environment. I think it has been hard for them to speak against this "memorization" approach because they genuinely think that this is the approach that must be comprehensible to the English-speaking brain.
And my generation fully supported that view because we were made to do a lot of things we didn't understand as children, in order to learn this language. I went through most of my adult life up to having a child with the notion, "Yeah, learning Chinese is really hard; you have to memorize everything cuz there is no alphabet!" And oh, we were worked hard as slaves to do it, too! Yeah, right. Not so fast.
Now that I am a parent, and I've taken my child through these early K-3 stages, I can definitively say that "memorizing characters" as most people think of it, is not the way to go. I now see the illusions and even delusions - all mythologies that take people's focus away from the best practices, away from the things that really are different between the languages and could be better bridged. So in the coming months, I hope to illuminate why memorizing is not the way to go. Engagement is the way to go. And engagement in the right things. You might say, "Well, how is that different?"
My response, "Let's hope you have a giant light bulb moment after you read all that needs to be understood." It needs a paradigm shift in your thinking. Not a terribly big one. Not like Copernicus figuring out the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not the other way around, level of shift. But a significant one that will change your view on what memorizing characters adds up to being.
I get that this is hard. Like I said, I didn't understand this until becoming a parent. Now I see how faulty my own thinking had been, as well as even my parents or other Chinese teachers, and certainly the thinking of parents who don't know Chinese but are participating in this fast-growing experiment of Mandarin Immersion programs in America. I also think that Chinese teachers, despite their perhaps long tenures of teaching, it is hard for them to fully appreciate how powerful the faulty paradigms can be because they didn't grow up in English-dominant societies.
It is nobody's fault. These are the reasons that distinct languages and cultures exist in the first place. But to perpetuate the myths with hubris... that, I think, is distinctly American and needs to be left behind.
The thing is, I used to think this way. As an imperfect bilingual growing up in America, I really did think that the problem was that the Chinese language required us to memorize every single goddamn character - no wonder we were always struggling! And we didn't grow up with it all around us, so we couldn't compare ourselves to our brilliant parents. It just wasn't fair. Plus, we could make fun of their English. Yes, looking back, we were cruel. America had made us hard.
Now, of course, I have a different view. I realize how adolescent my own perspective had been. And wholly unrealistic, on top of that. First of all, I was a kid. The child's developmental stages, as any serious parent or developmental professional can attest to, is a far different reality than the adult brain. My parents, like many immigrants, did not know what it was like to learn both English and Chinese simultaneously as children. They did not start learning English until they got into high school. This is a very different developmental stage than ages 5-10, or K-5. (As many parents also know, 6th-8th grade is also another big developmental leap, as well as the changes that go on still at high school...)
So my parents, like many parents, as well as many professional native speaking Chinese teachers - they have struggled to understand what happens at these early ages of learning Mandarin while being surrounded by an English-speaking environment. I think it has been hard for them to speak against this "memorization" approach because they genuinely think that this is the approach that must be comprehensible to the English-speaking brain.
And my generation fully supported that view because we were made to do a lot of things we didn't understand as children, in order to learn this language. I went through most of my adult life up to having a child with the notion, "Yeah, learning Chinese is really hard; you have to memorize everything cuz there is no alphabet!" And oh, we were worked hard as slaves to do it, too! Yeah, right. Not so fast.
Now that I am a parent, and I've taken my child through these early K-3 stages, I can definitively say that "memorizing characters" as most people think of it, is not the way to go. I now see the illusions and even delusions - all mythologies that take people's focus away from the best practices, away from the things that really are different between the languages and could be better bridged. So in the coming months, I hope to illuminate why memorizing is not the way to go. Engagement is the way to go. And engagement in the right things. You might say, "Well, how is that different?"
My response, "Let's hope you have a giant light bulb moment after you read all that needs to be understood." It needs a paradigm shift in your thinking. Not a terribly big one. Not like Copernicus figuring out the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not the other way around, level of shift. But a significant one that will change your view on what memorizing characters adds up to being.
I get that this is hard. Like I said, I didn't understand this until becoming a parent. Now I see how faulty my own thinking had been, as well as even my parents or other Chinese teachers, and certainly the thinking of parents who don't know Chinese but are participating in this fast-growing experiment of Mandarin Immersion programs in America. I also think that Chinese teachers, despite their perhaps long tenures of teaching, it is hard for them to fully appreciate how powerful the faulty paradigms can be because they didn't grow up in English-dominant societies.
It is nobody's fault. These are the reasons that distinct languages and cultures exist in the first place. But to perpetuate the myths with hubris... that, I think, is distinctly American and needs to be left behind.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Learning Chinese is Hard - but it's not worth sacrificing your child's happiness
Yup, that's the bottom line. There is no escaping the need to apply yourself and work hard. I've heard so many parents try tricks and think there is some elusive, undiscovered "magic" method or pill they can get their hands on, that much time and energy is wasted missing the obvious.
Is the hard work worth it? I think so. I am so impressed with the ones who do it - especially the ones who don't come from a background that would make them do it otherwise. An entire world of wonder awaits you.
But you cannot escape the blood, sweat and tears. I know, your teacher didn't tell you. She didn't want to scare you. And you've got so many of your peers jumping on the Mandarin bandwagon that you think you must be missing out if you don't do it.
Learning to become literate in the Chinese language is even hard for native speakers of Chinese. I've noticed that some non-Chinese "American" parents seem to think that this only applies to native speakers who are uneducated or outright dumb and less capable than their very own brilliant little geniuses. Hmmm. Yah. Okay. Your kid is that much of a genius. Thumbs up. Keep at it... But don't say no one ever told you...
Think long and hard. If you do this, you will give your child a precious gift. If you don't commit, however, then you will have wasted his/her time when they could have been happier doing something else.
Teach your child the hard work early on. You will see how that becomes a life-long value that will carry him/her in so many other ways, including giving him/her the true "magical" insight into this amazing language.
Don't do it early enough - then if your kid doesn't develop a natural love for this, you will be sacrificing his/her happiness for something that you have to wonder if you really wanted in the first place.
A trend is still just a trend. Learning bad Mandarin is the equivalent of learning far less than a street ruffian. If all the other stuff is not in place - all the things that mean a "good" to "excellent" education in the language your child does, in fact, fully understand, then you are not giving your child a "good" education.
Is the hard work worth it? I think so. I am so impressed with the ones who do it - especially the ones who don't come from a background that would make them do it otherwise. An entire world of wonder awaits you.
But you cannot escape the blood, sweat and tears. I know, your teacher didn't tell you. She didn't want to scare you. And you've got so many of your peers jumping on the Mandarin bandwagon that you think you must be missing out if you don't do it.
Learning to become literate in the Chinese language is even hard for native speakers of Chinese. I've noticed that some non-Chinese "American" parents seem to think that this only applies to native speakers who are uneducated or outright dumb and less capable than their very own brilliant little geniuses. Hmmm. Yah. Okay. Your kid is that much of a genius. Thumbs up. Keep at it... But don't say no one ever told you...
Think long and hard. If you do this, you will give your child a precious gift. If you don't commit, however, then you will have wasted his/her time when they could have been happier doing something else.
Teach your child the hard work early on. You will see how that becomes a life-long value that will carry him/her in so many other ways, including giving him/her the true "magical" insight into this amazing language.
Don't do it early enough - then if your kid doesn't develop a natural love for this, you will be sacrificing his/her happiness for something that you have to wonder if you really wanted in the first place.
A trend is still just a trend. Learning bad Mandarin is the equivalent of learning far less than a street ruffian. If all the other stuff is not in place - all the things that mean a "good" to "excellent" education in the language your child does, in fact, fully understand, then you are not giving your child a "good" education.
Why MI programs might fail native speaker Chinese kids and high-performing bilinguals
I understand that most of what I've written on this blog is not very concrete, but more focused on describing attitudes and points of view. It is hard to "see" why someone like me would have so many objections to all the things going wrong in MI programs without seeing anything concrete.
I came across old summer homework that was post-1st grade for us. It is hard to look forward in these programs because parents like me, we never had MI as an opportunity or resource. With so many parents like me saying that Saturday Chinese School was terrible and thinking that full-time MI must be better, then it is hard to break down all the mythologies that seem to have been built up around Mandarin Immersion programs.
But I will assert something that one ABC mom had said to me awhile ago - "I expect my daughter to do at least as much as I did, and hope that she will be able to do more."
Example of why it was NOT as much as we did as kids in Saturday School:
Vocabulary box at the top has these characters/vocabularies listed inside:
回家， 多少，走路，都是， 再见， 笑话，每天，兔子，洗手，果汁，休息，汽车，飞机
Below are fill-in-the-blank exercises wherein one of the characters is missing and the child is supposed to write in the one that matches:
回——， 多——， ——路，——是，——见，——话，——天，——子，——手，果——，——息，——车，飞——
My child was assigned not one but several of these worksheets as summer review. For the finish of First Grade, going into Second Grade. Drawing lines to match 2 characters or circling them in a Word Search type format were also included.
Suffice to say, thankfully I have skills enough to have already pushed my child to do far more than this in the prior year. We were already doing this much and more from our K year and beyond, thanks to a teacher with higher expectations and the Jinshan University textbooks. (And to be completely fair to the teachers of that year, they were brand new to the school. This material was inherited from the prior teacher who had been a wonderful instructor in the way she held herself, but clearly had very low literacy expectations for these kids. I don't doubt it was derived from the student demographics and not from this teacher's own abilities, were she to be teaching in a heritage school.)
But how were the English-only (or non-Chinese-language-proficient) parents supposed to judge this material?
Any native speaker of Chinese should be looking at this in horror. Given the number of hours that your child is supposedly working hard during the school year, 9 months out of the year, 5 days per week, and a majority percentage of a 6 to 7-hour day... I expected my child to have accomplished far more than this level of mastery. Sure, there were more characters/vocabularies than what I've written above. But not by much. Even if you double or triple the numbers, here, you are not looking at a very high level of cognitive mastery to reflect the age of 6 years old. You aren't even reflecting the finish of Kindergarten for kids who are living in China or Taiwan or who are going to a well-functioning Chinese School on the weekends.
For the English-only crowd: all I can say is, without fully translating every word or what it represents in the entire canon of what you are presented with in these packets, it all sums up as "See Spot Run" vocabulary and expression. Moreover, without the requirement that you at least listen to CDs and/or DVDs or watch YouTube videos to get your child to sing songs in Chinese, then where is the whole language experience for your kid? And while teachers might say, this is only a bare minimum of writing and reading review, the total message becomes, "This is the total sum of what your child is expected to have mastered at this age."
I understand that both parents and teachers have witnessed some English-only kids (or those coming from a language that is not Chinese) who seem to be "doing better" and seem to be able to speak more. These kids are likely engaged with a tutor during the out-of-school times. But that engagement that is so focused on speaking/listening will not carry these kids into middle and high school, or even beyond with functional proficiency. Why? How do I know this? It all comes from the high rates of bilinguals in this country who did not get academic training in their parents' native language. Low levels of heritage language training can be found in lots of ethnic communities. Plenty of Chinese kids grew up with this level of language and even more so in the home, but cannot speak like an adult or necessarily read even to that low elementary level.
Without the literacy to match all that burgeoning skill in speaking and listening, then very little of it will stick. Moreover, without engaging in literature that keeps pace with the grade level academics, then your kid will only master language that is about classroom management ("sit up" "stand over there" "line up," "raise your hand") and whatever activities your tutor reinforces. If you are not making sure that your child gets consistent, systematic training that continuously goes forward, while simultaneously circling back to review and reinforce, then there is no way your poor child can hang on to so many words and ideas coming at him and constructed in a syntax that is so completely different from the language he knows. Without the experience of "whole language" through good literature, then unless you can afford paying a bunch of highly eloquent educated Mandarin speaking adults to be around your kid much of the time, then you are seriously out of luck with this weak listening/speaking osmosis approach.
Going back to this homework - many of us parents then asked, if this is where things are for First Grade, do things get exponentially harder during 2nd grade so that the kids can end up somewhere reasonable for the amount of time that is being invested? As it turned out, the answer was "No." Then, looking at 3rd grade homework, truly, not much more was being accomplished. The rate of both volume increase and difficulty was not even at a high linear slope. Very gentle, barely sloping increase. (For the character counters out there, this wasn't just about the number of characters, but also the quality of the vocabularies and expressions.)
Part of sticking around is about making the calculation of just how bad will it be. Can I supplement at home? Is it still worth it to have Chinese every day? Is it still better than Saturday Chinese School? Can I tough it out at home and teach Chinese myself? Do I have the resources to go elsewhere? There are no easy answers to these questions for both the native speaking Chinese and the higher-performing bilinguals.
As I pressed some of the teachers to provide answers to those of us who knew that this was bad, we got a variety of answers. The teachers who were from ABC backgrounds and had achieved their high levels of Chinese through studies in America (Chinese heritage schools and college, graduate school), they also knew that this was less than what we had gotten at Chinese school as kids. But they were convinced by their training that this was all that a majority English-only group of kids could do, especially with the paucity of resources they were given. I could not argue with that perspective.
Then there were the native speaker Chinese teachers. Here is where a combination of life experience and professional teaching experience may fail everyone. Teachers who have little background in understanding what ABC's have been able to do in America, then they might couple their lack of understanding with what they witness as the high rates of ABC's with very poor Chinese language skills, that they are convinced all of it is a struggle, anyway. So I can see how difficult it would be to convince them of "more" being better. Moreover, none of these teachers want to be pegged as the main culprits for failure.
I don't blame them. They are stuck in a complicated situation. There has been far too much blame assigned to teachers and teachers alone (not ever administrators or policy makers who are, in all cases, making 2 and 3 times the money that classroom teachers are making) for student failure. Keep the standards low, then it will be easier to get more kids over this bar. Raise the standards higher... well, that is, in fact, a crazy proposition when faced with so many kids who simply don't know Mandarin Chinese at all.
All of these teachers, however, are vulnerable to caving to parent pressure. Whether ethnically Chinese or non-Chinese American, I hear from Mandarin teachers everywhere that many parents simply complain that learning Chinese is too much work. They don't like the homework; it's too hard to get their kids to sit through it; they have their own ideas about how their genius kids will get to high levels of mastery (which seem not to include homework or any sort of focus or dedication). Parent complaints, then, end up being the single largest reason that decent and even good Chinese language teachers become ineffective teachers in the eyes of native Chinese parents and the higher-performing Chinese-American parents.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Laughing your way to the 3B's: Fun and Funny Stories to keep your kid engaged
Many of us ABC's grew up with content that was rather "stuffy." We didn't have access to books and stories that were more modern. Sun Wu Kong, or the Monkey King stories were the most fun we could get. And he was a riot, no doubt.
But the classical canon for Chinese literature then feeds the problem of putting all things Chinese into a box. I think this explains why you might hear a few too many Chinese Americans who claim they "hate" things that are Chinese or can only shudder and shake their heads when they think about Saturday Chinese School. I have even heard from native Chinese who come to America as teens or adults, that they have met (with horror) Chinese Americans or ABC's who just outright don't want anything to do with anything Chinese or anybody who is Chinese. Their memories of how they grew up were that bad. Very sad.
Taking it out of a box is what will get you to the 3B's. That experience can go in many different ways - out of the classroom, out of the family, out of the usual touristic adventures, out of the textbooks, out of the flash cards... just out. Anything that expresses spontaneity or a much more organic interaction, rather than one that is contrived, can help you. And while I am a fan of the classical Chinese canon, I can also see why it can be limited, especially if that is all that you learn about what it means to be Chinese. And certainly, many have taken things too far in throwing it all away. That is not the solution either. People need to find a healthy dynamic in balancing the old with the new.
Humor is the topic of this post. I mentioned the readers Learning Chinese Through Stories as a great help in learning to drop Pinyin. These stories are also really funny. But it's probably for about 3rd grade when your kid has the developmental maturity to understand the more subtle irony that is communicated.
Prior to that, the Diary of a Kid readers are great. The first two books chronicle 小屁 Xiao Pi's adventures in kindergarten. They capture the innocence and naivete of a child's earnest but mischief-making perspective on the world that my kid found very easy to relate to and enjoy. It made bedtime reading fun and not a chore. 小屁 is silly just in the way that 5, 6 and 7 year olds are silly. Sometimes, his reasons for why he does things is exactly how your child would think, but then we find out how that child-like reasoning creates more of a mess than anyone imagined.
Plus, all the pinyin helped me as a parent with imperfect Chinese reading skills. And now, my child can largely read it on her own with all the pinyin support. Along the way, your child's vocabulary will increase with less effort through the stories of these situations that s/he will be able to relate to directly, since they all have to do with being at school or at home. This series continues up through the elementary grades. Nanhai Books only have the first 2 in the series. We have bought them to follow 小屁 through 6th grade from DangDang.com.
Another similar series is to follow a child named 小朵朵 Xiao Duo Duo, and another named 小豆豆Xiao Dou Dou. These stories are similarly cute and hilarious, and you and your child can follow these kids while they go through the elementary years.
As I've mentioned again and again, content matters. The brain doesn't want to go through boring drills and droning memorization work. If that is your child's only experience of a language, then it does not mirror what s/he experiences with the English language. Not even close. The "immersion" method is supposed to mimic what one experiences with one's native language. Full engagement. But just like kids around the world who fully enjoy the content from Sesame Street in their own language and with their own cultural content, then your kids need appropriate content engagement in the Mandarin Chinese language. And sure, not all the content is going to match the American and Western culture with which your child is familiar, but modern Chinese life is really not that far off from what your kid experiences. S/he will see that through these stories.
But the classical canon for Chinese literature then feeds the problem of putting all things Chinese into a box. I think this explains why you might hear a few too many Chinese Americans who claim they "hate" things that are Chinese or can only shudder and shake their heads when they think about Saturday Chinese School. I have even heard from native Chinese who come to America as teens or adults, that they have met (with horror) Chinese Americans or ABC's who just outright don't want anything to do with anything Chinese or anybody who is Chinese. Their memories of how they grew up were that bad. Very sad.
Taking it out of a box is what will get you to the 3B's. That experience can go in many different ways - out of the classroom, out of the family, out of the usual touristic adventures, out of the textbooks, out of the flash cards... just out. Anything that expresses spontaneity or a much more organic interaction, rather than one that is contrived, can help you. And while I am a fan of the classical Chinese canon, I can also see why it can be limited, especially if that is all that you learn about what it means to be Chinese. And certainly, many have taken things too far in throwing it all away. That is not the solution either. People need to find a healthy dynamic in balancing the old with the new.
Humor is the topic of this post. I mentioned the readers Learning Chinese Through Stories as a great help in learning to drop Pinyin. These stories are also really funny. But it's probably for about 3rd grade when your kid has the developmental maturity to understand the more subtle irony that is communicated.
Prior to that, the Diary of a Kid readers are great. The first two books chronicle 小屁 Xiao Pi's adventures in kindergarten. They capture the innocence and naivete of a child's earnest but mischief-making perspective on the world that my kid found very easy to relate to and enjoy. It made bedtime reading fun and not a chore. 小屁 is silly just in the way that 5, 6 and 7 year olds are silly. Sometimes, his reasons for why he does things is exactly how your child would think, but then we find out how that child-like reasoning creates more of a mess than anyone imagined.
Plus, all the pinyin helped me as a parent with imperfect Chinese reading skills. And now, my child can largely read it on her own with all the pinyin support. Along the way, your child's vocabulary will increase with less effort through the stories of these situations that s/he will be able to relate to directly, since they all have to do with being at school or at home. This series continues up through the elementary grades. Nanhai Books only have the first 2 in the series. We have bought them to follow 小屁 through 6th grade from DangDang.com.
Another similar series is to follow a child named 小朵朵 Xiao Duo Duo, and another named 小豆豆Xiao Dou Dou. These stories are similarly cute and hilarious, and you and your child can follow these kids while they go through the elementary years.
As I've mentioned again and again, content matters. The brain doesn't want to go through boring drills and droning memorization work. If that is your child's only experience of a language, then it does not mirror what s/he experiences with the English language. Not even close. The "immersion" method is supposed to mimic what one experiences with one's native language. Full engagement. But just like kids around the world who fully enjoy the content from Sesame Street in their own language and with their own cultural content, then your kids need appropriate content engagement in the Mandarin Chinese language. And sure, not all the content is going to match the American and Western culture with which your child is familiar, but modern Chinese life is really not that far off from what your kid experiences. S/he will see that through these stories.
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