Math in English, Math in Mandarin...

I have now bailed on our second Mandarin Immersion program. And while you could say we are in yet another one, it's not exactly, technically "immersion."

One of the biggest reasons I bailed is because of the math instruction. From K-4, we have had a lot - and I mean majority in that "a lot" - of math instruction that has been delivered in Mandarin.

While this seems "progressive" or even "advanced" on the surface, it really is not that helpful.

K-1 was math instruction 100% in spoken Mandarin, while the written work was in English. But your kid is just learning to read at that point, so it doesn't seem like a big deal. Numbers are numbers, geometric shapes are geometric shapes, and visual patterns like rows of penguins or candy canes are just...penguin and candy cane pictures.

From 2nd grade through 4th grade, our math instruction was 50% in English and 50% in Mandarin. This time, the written work - story problems - in Mandarin was written in Chinese. While this seems great on the surface, and I was super positive during 2nd grade, because all this reinforced Chinese literacy, there are hidden pitfalls.

The school we were at basically took the entire math curriculum and split it in half. One half was taught in English, while the other half was taught in Chinese. Then there were portions, select lesson plans or skills or units, that the teachers selected to be taught in both languages. The idea was that this select portion would be enough to help the kids stitch together the other concepts and skills which they were only learning in one language. Additionally, since the teaching staff are different for each language, then we are not working with one bilingual teacher who knows what everyone did on a day-to-day basis.

While all this sounds like a good idea on the surface, it was a near failure in my eyes. By the middle of 3rd grade I started to suspect what was going on. By the end of 3rd grade I knew we could not continue. And all through 4th grade, I followed my child's progress in math with tremendous anxiety.

Math reasoning and basic skills were all taking a hit. Since the majority of these skills were only being learned in one language for only 50% of the time that average kids would learn these things, then nothing was being learned well. Chinese language syntax also impacted learning the calculations needed for basic story problem solving, because some of it is flipped nearly opposite in the way you would say something in English (example, how you say fractions). And while this is all great experience for language development, it's not so good for math skills and math reasoning development that is only in its early stages.

And sure, you could say that it just takes more time to be more complete. So, how are you going to further extend the school day? That is what you must do if you keep going like this.

Most of the parents at our school were unaware of this development. You have to be 1) bilingual/bi-literate enough and 2) involved with your kid's homework enough. And maybe 3) at least a minor math geek to figure out the content and sequencing of the math curriculum. I think a select number of parents just assumed math would need bolstering and so they do extra in English.

In any case, my kid's confidence in math was tanking. This was not tolerable. But 2 months of solid math instruction in the hands of a deftly skilled and caring teacher who teaches math 100% in English, and we've been golden. All is good, back on track. My child loves math. Problems in her brain's math reasoning skills all resolved.

In fact, we spent the last 2 months of 4th grade getting extra tutorship in math in Chinese. And that definitely helped my kid believe that she was understanding her teacher during regular math time in Chinese. But I did not see this as a longterm solution.

Here's the thing - little kids are too little to be real translators. Sure, you might hear about high school kids from China testing into advanced classes in American high schools, but that is much more advanced math. That is not "basic skills." Those high school kids got to master basic skills in one language. When they are doing those basic skills in their heads, without talking to you or anyone else because the test is on paper (or a computer), then it's all in Chinese. I guarantee it. They are talking to themselves in Chinese. But the symbolism of advanced analytical mathematics is all the same. Essentially, there is very little English language attached to it.

This is not the same thing as Elementary math.

Not to mention - if you're gonna stay here in America, the math tests to get into a selective high school or college are still all in English.

CCTV Spring Festival Gala 2015

Last year, we found clips on Youtube for the annual CCTV Spring Festival Gala show. In the past, we've seen it sold and aired in Chinese video shops - most notably when we saw Wang Leehom rocking out on a big screen back in 2013.

I read about the partnership to air the 2015 CCTV Gala show with Google/Youtube in the news. So I want to thank the leaders of the Chinese government and those of Google and Youtube for setting aside their political differences and coming together on this cultural event. If my parents were alive, they would be thanking you, as well. Despite any political differences, whatsoever. If it is, as stated, one of the targets was Overseas Chinese, I, as a Heritage Chinese of Overseas Chinese, thank you, immensely for bringing together technology and opportunity to offer something I would have loved to have experience as a child growing up here in America.

The next level would be a show that would integrate English into the show, or do more subtitled versions, so that English-only speakers and Heritage Chinese with mixed levels of Chinese proficiency can then understand and enjoy the show.

I made it a point to watch at least part of the marathon event during the Lunar New Year. Since, my 9-year-old child has surprised me with continuously watching various parts during free time. Youtube is like her encyclopedia, her go-to resource to find information and learn about anything. Teachers rely on it for Chinese cartoons and other language teaching shows. My child and her friends regularly follow various kid channels, from crafting to baking to music videos.

Some of my child's favorite parts of the CCTV Gala Show have been the comedy skits. Some of them are hard to follow because of the heavy Beijing-style accents or the speed of delivery, or even the jokes, themselves. But she loves it!

So yes, I have to figure out why. I ask her how much she understands, or what she understands. She is able to explain enough to me for me to get some insight. Then, I realize I am experiencing a new moment in the joy of all the hard work, committing to this Mandarin Immersion pathway. All the extras, all the setting aside of other things in order to do THIS...

What do I see? At age 9, no matter how imperfect my own Mandarin has been, no matter how incomplete my child's experience in MI classrooms has been, the combination, at the very least, has gotten my child to this moment when she does not shy away from following long segments of oration and skits, but readily embraces the entertainment as... entertainment. She enjoyed watching this show as much as she has enjoyed any Disney or Pixar or Dreamworks production. Frozen didn't even have as long of a moment as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala show.

In addition to laughing her head off, my child also got to experience all the family-oriented messages throughout the show. There were everyday people on the street who recorded messages of love and longing for their parents, messages of appreciation for all the years of hard work; there were songs about "The Long Road Home" or honoring Mama for holding a child's hand from birth to adulthood. People made New Year's resolutions to be better to their families. Comedy skits expressed pivotal moments in trying to reunite with one's child or getting a parent's blessing for an engagement and pivotal life change.

My child cried at all these moments, but especially during the song about moms.

Laughter and Love. Simple, profound. But these are indicators of what "immersion" really means. It isn't just about the "language" or the words and their sequences expressing thought. It is also about becoming "immersed" in the emotions that language conveys. There. That is a "key indicator." If your child can experience emotions in this language that is not exactly a "first language," then that is critical link.

I also think it was probably a critical missing link for a lot of Heritage Chinese kids, hence the lack of being able to hold on to the language later in life.

Listen to Wang Shuang Shuang - "Attach great importance...to writing..."

Esteemed Chinese language educator Wang ShuangShuang is about to give a webinar through CLERC about her methods for success. She is the author of a popular textbook series Mastering Chinese Language and Culture that was later adopted by the Hanban Institute.

In the description of the webinar, she has summarized her top 3 goals for success:

1. At the lower grades: concentrating on fostering interest and love for Chinese through rhyming texts, engaging interactive activities, and vivid colorful illustrations.
2. From middle grades up: to challenge and satisfy with the profound Chinese culture the thirst and curiosity of students at this age to discover and learn new knowledge.
3. Attach great importance from the very beginning to writing and teach different genres of writing at different stages as a means to consolidate transform the language students learned into language proficiency.

Now that my child is in 4th grade, I would say that I echo this summation. But I am far from expert, as compared to a mother and experienced teacher like Wang Laoshi. But I was gratified to read this. I would say that that has been my gut instinct, trying to match what I experienced while growing up in America with what I see are the developmental changes in my child.

I also want to echo the advice we got from our K Mandarin Immersion teacher a while ago - and that was the importance of "attaching" to the writing. I didn't fully know how it would play out when my child was only 5 years old, but now I see it. Because she is adequately "attached" to the writing, then it is not a huge burden for her at age 9. She can speedily write sentences and look up characters on Pleco with the handwriting function. She knows how hard it is to become literate in Chinese vs. English. She embraces the hard work.

I also want to give a shout-out to Wang XiaoNing, founder of ChinaSprout.com. She communicated the value of "vivid colorful illustrations" in beautifully inspiring storybooks for children. And so it is that we have been avid customers of her wonderfully curated books. She has amazing taste! Don't let it pass you by.

And lastly, I do want to clarify that I am still a fan of the Jinan University Zhong Wen series for young children, and especially for those of us in non-Chinese speaking or half-Chinese speaking households. This series provides more written guidance for syntax and grammar than Wang Laoshi's series. But I also have her series for when my child will be in middle school years and wanting that level of subject matter engagement for history, philosophy, geography, and even some science.

Pleco, Pleco, Pleco - I love you, Pleco

I met a set of MI parents recently who did not know about Pleco. Their kid has been in MI for quite a few years, but they never heard of it. I don't know how this happened. I cannot stress enough that tools like Pleco and Childroad will make your child's life learning the Chinese language so much better, so much more efficient, and your kid's brain able to immerse in the aspects of the language that are important.

There are a lot of other tedious things that you need to do to learn Chinese well. But counting strokes and looking up characters in a paper dictionary is not it. Pleco takes out all of that stress.

English, Pinyin, handwritten character - Pleco will take all these inputs. With a few upgrades, which are all very cheap, they will give you word associations and sentence examples, too. It also has a voiced pronunciation feature - a feature that many people have liked about the Yellow Bridge Dictionary. But Pleco is more all-inclusive and portable.

I have heard that they have an OCR function that allows you to shine your camera lens on a set of characters and then translate it for you. I heard this was useful for a non-proficient spouse who used it to read travel and transportation signs in China back in the day when Pleco was in its early development.

Who knew. Not me. But since my kid was in K, I've learned to use it as an ABC - and wow! If only we had had such tools as kids!! Perhaps life learning Chinese would not have been as much toil.

Pleco, I love you. Thank you for being so clever. My child is so proficient with your tool that it keeps her moving fast and not crumpling under endless page-flipping. We have it on the iPhone, the iPad, and the Kindle Fire. It's fast, easy, and brilliant.

Seal of Biliteracy standards lower than good Chinese schools' goals

Note the California Department of Education's press release on the Seal of Biliteracy being awarded for the first time in 2012:

More than 70 percent of students earned the seal by demonstrating proficiency in Spanish, followed by French (10 percent) and Mandarin (7 percent), with Japanese, Cantonese, and German registering at 2 percent each. Altogether, students earned the seal for demonstrated proficiency in 40 different languages, including American Sign.

To qualify for the State Seal of Biliteracy, high school graduates must meet all of the following criteria:

• Completion of all English-language arts requirements for graduation with an overall grade point average of 2.0 or above in those classes.

• Passing the California Standards Test in English-language arts administered in grade 11 at the "proficient" level.

• Proficiency in one or more languages in addition to English, demonstrated by passing a foreign language Advanced Placement examination with a score of three or higher or an International Baccalaureate examination with a score of four or higher; or by successful completion of a four-year high school course of study in a world language and attainment of an overall grade point average of 3.0 or above in that course of study.

AP Chinese score of at least 3. And yet, many Chinese schools have had a goal of 5 for a long time.
I think it is time that someone else comes up with a certificate that can reward the many students who are doing much better than a score of 3.

But if these are standards endorsed by the State, then one can imagine what happens when put into the hands of the unknowing...

Beyond Tourist Language

In her piece "Calibrating Content and Language in the Immersion Classroom," Heather Clydesdale of Asia Society gets it right about the challenges of any language immersion program. This challenge is particularly pronounced during the Elementary grades for immersion programs, not only because of the developmental stages of the students, but also because of the American educational curriculum framework. In fact, it is the same framework of most formal educational infrastructures around the world.

During elementary years, while there might be distinct subjects like Math or Reading or Social Studies, in practice, this learning can be integrated into projects and not distinct subjects. This gets a little harder to do as one progresses up the line through middle and high school grades. Progressive educators might argue against the dominance of single-subject teaching, but it is what prevails in the older grades.

Despite all the great work Asia Society has been doing to educate people across this landscape, it is truly unfortunate that San Francisco Magazine made this big splash recently regarding Mandarin Immersion programs:

See "So You Want Your Kid to Speak Mandarin" in the April 2015 issue of San Francisco Magazine.

Learning Mandarin, or as I often hear it so crassly stated by these plebes, "doing Mandarin" - has become so trendy that it is somehow a signal of wealth, luxury and being "on trend." What a mess.
Meanwhile, dual language immersion programs that were designed to on-board immigrant ESL kids to more successful English proficiency has been turned on its head, twisted around, and spat out as no more than a luxury accessory.

More profoundly twisted is that these programs are being perverted into targets as anti-diversity engines. Says Rachel Levin, the writer of this very misinformed article in SF Magazine:

That’s not to say that everyone’s a happy customer. Some white parents just want a more multicultural experience for their kids—and then are shocked by what being a minority in middle school can actually mean.

Language immersion programs were not designed to be "diverse." They were designed in response to the pivotal lawsuit Lau v. Nichols and the highly contentious battle over language in the education field, itself. But sure, never mind these "minor" details when you're writing for a magazine whose parent company is Modern Luxury. No wonder the parents quoted in this article are so deluded by what they think they are doing. I hope they know the end result of their kids' educations will be sub-par. If there is a weak curriculum and no support for the coherent DLI model, or no literacy pathway, or weak enforcement of the pathway, or the pathway sputters out by 4th grade, or the parents don't care about homework (not to mention that they literally are not able to track the homework because they are so illiterate in Chinese), then there will be no success.

Who are the culprits committing all these offenses in Mandarin Immersion? Put 2 and 2 together... ;)

Meanwhile, let's turn our attention back to some people who know what they are talking about. All that Clydesdale's article points out, and thus what the teachers, themselves, point out - all is relevant in both directions, for learning English and for learning Mandarin. The point is not lost on French Immersion educators in this country. But it is certainly lost on those who sign up for Mandarin. And that precious point is that

Immersion is based upon the premise that learning content through a new language builds proficiency in both the content and language. Yet, whatever the model (ranging from 80 to 50% of instruction in the target language), the reality is that teachers must carefully calibrate what they teach in order to realize these two goals.

“Why? Because we have to teach not just the language, we also have to teach the content,” asserts Pat Wen-Tsui Lo, a Resource Specialist of the New York State Statewide Language Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network (Language RBERN) at New York University. “That is our balancing act. Math, social studies, and science on one hand, and Chinese language arts on the other.”

Lo notes that “language arts” goes beyond vocabulary, characters, and grammar. It encompasses structuring main ideas, supporting details and sequencing, as well as manipulating rhythm and rhyme. 

I've been trying to make this point over and over again in this blog. But don't take it from me. Take it from the experts.

Too many parents and educators have approached this entire Mandarin Immersion affair as if the goals were nothing more than what kids now achieve in high school level Mandarin 1, 2, 3 and AP classes, or even what kids might achieve as college undergraduates. This is horribly wrong. Imagine if those textbooks dictated the entirety of what your kid would learn during elementary years. When Mandarin Immersion goes wrong, this is how, where and why it is going wrong.

Your elementary school child must learn far more during these years than what is laid out in a Chinese school or even college level Chinese language textbook that might be used here in America, whether in a Saturday Chinese school setting or an elite university. Without learning all that content, then your kid will be in trouble by middle school years. Your child will not have the foundation to do well in other subjects at that time, let alone doing well during high school. Why? Simply because your child didn't learn enough math, English language arts, social studies, science and all the critical thinking skills that come with those subjects. Your kid has to learn these subjects quite intensively at the elementary level in order to comprehend those same subjects during 6-8th grades, while preparing to do those subjects during 9-12th grades. But with only a foundation of knowledge that has been dictated by ACTFL (hence my overriding objection to using the ACTFL standards for elementary immersion all together), then your kid has simply not gotten a good education with sufficient content that would serve as an adequate springboard to the subsequent grades.