Immersion schools-is Mandarin too weird for Austin? (Houston, San Antonio: 2014, transfer)

[Adamson865]

Yep. Besides, there was just someone around these parts a few days ago who was worried about Texas reminding her family of Lyndon Johnson!

(My only painful Texas association is that Harry Butt Jr guy who had those awful one-minute spots on KLBJ radio.)

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by rah62

Yep. Besides, there was just someone around these parts a few days ago who was worried about Texas reminding her family of Lyndon Johnson!

(My only painful Texas association is that Harry Butt Jr guy who had those awful one-minute spots on KLBJ radio.)

Florence butt (founded the original grocery)
Howard Butt (named it HEB)
Howard butt Jr (laity lodge and the one minute spots - they are on 2K stations)

[FalconheadWest]

Abercorn International in Lakeway does Spanish and Mandarin. It's not immersion, but they do the lessons everyday.

[hsc2]

there are several options for schools that offer mandarin in austin including magellan and abercorn international. meggie was a teacher at abercorn when they started i believe. neither school offers immersion but I think parents supplement with either chinese nannies or extra classes if the mandarin is that important to them.

i think austin has a lot more to offer than houston as a city and the private schools are as good or better. its also a much nicer place to live.

[sxrckr]

Originally Posted by hsc2

there are several options for schools that offer mandarin in austin including magellan and abercorn international. meggie was a teacher at abercorn when they started i believe. neither school offers immersion but I think parents supplement with either chinese nannies or extra classes if the mandarin is that important to them.

i think austin has a lot more to offer than houston as a city and the private schools are as good or better. its also a much nicer place to live.

I would disagree that it has a lot more to offer as a city, unless you are talking some specific outdoorsy things. In fact quite the opposite, these are two totally different tier of cities and to assume otherwise is a bit ridiculous. I don't know much about private schools there, however.

[madrone2k]

All things being equal, I would probably prefer to live and raise kids in Austin. (That is not to say that one and one's kids can't have a great life in Houston.)

However, it is also true that there are many more opportunities in Houston to interact with people from China, as well as enjoy aspects of Chinese culture. Also, the new Mandarin Language Immersion school here will be located in Bellaire, which is a nice and convenient location.

[mr&mrs_k]

I second Abercorn International in Lakeway. Mandarin is a part of their curriculum from the earliest age. I don't know to what degree though, you would have to contact the school and ask. If the food served at the school is important to you, you will be happy to hear that Abercorn only serves organic food to all the students, prepared by a local eatery on a daily basis. We took a tour of the school a while back, and was impressed. It is expensive, about 15k a year. There is a sibling discount of some sort. We haven't decided yet what to do about education for our own children, they're still toddlers, but I consider Abercorn to be a great alternative to homeschooling, which is my current wish and plan.

[zhugeliang1]

On the other hand I would come home from school and watch tv for 2-3 hours - totally wasted time.

Really, that was like me now I wish my parents had FORCED me to go to Chinese School instead of park me in front of a TV.....and we lived in Urbana, Illinois where there were tons and tons and tons of Mandarin speakers so that Chinese School was *big*.

Austin is somewhat like Urbana, Illinois where you have a large population of Mandarin speakers drawn to a university so that should bode well for the Doss Chinese immersion program. I always thought it was kind of weird that there was the Magic Dragon Chinese immersion preschool but no elementary level Chinese immersion available...until this fall I think.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by zhugeliang1

Really, that was like me now I wish my parents had FORCED me to go to Chinese School instead of park me in front of a TV.....and we lived in Urbana, Illinois where there were tons and tons and tons of Mandarin speakers so that Chinese School was *big*.

Austin is somewhat like Urbana, Illinois where you have a large population of Mandarin speakers drawn to a university so that should bode well for the Doss Chinese immersion program. I always thought it was kind of weird that there was the Magic Dragon Chinese immersion preschool but no elementary level Chinese immersion available...until this fall I think.

there are many people that speak mandarin but almost none that are in the elementary education field. Chinese school in urbana was taught by the wives of professors. Very much old style chinese teaching methods.

[zhugeliang1]

there are many people that speak mandarin but almost none that are in the elementary education field.

Actually that is starting to change. Well, no, now that I think about it, my first advisor in special ed was a Mandarin speaker from Taiwan and that was about 15 years ago!

Chinese school in urbana was taught by the wives of professors. Very much old style chinese teaching methods.

Actually, I did know many of the Chinese teachers in the Urbana school. Not very many were wives of professors, most were wives of graduate students or were students themselves teaching on weekends. Old style back then, yes, but the weird thing is they gave me a set of their textbooks from 1986 and I actually use them with my own kids now. My kids are teens, they didn't like the content of most of today's textbooks, said they were silly and babyish. So I cracked open the box of old style textbooks and presto! old school textbooks for the....uh...new age.....