Mandarin immersion school, is it a good idea without learning Spanish? (Houston: high school, college)

[Vicman]

For the vast majority of Chinese, this may not be the case... Chinese Education Evaluators Are Passing Failing Schools | Seeing Red in China - Cheating is pervasive, and many schools don't fail anyone...

Originally Posted by Dopo

Whatever they are doing is better than what we are doing in the US,
90% of people getting a graduate degree in electrical engineering in my university were from India and China (That's a reason to learn chinese )

[Vicman]

PMMD, that blog entry is talking about critical thinking. For the vast majority of PRC Chinese schools, getting good grades in school, and on the gaokao, is all about rote memorization. There are "correct answers" to every question. The concept of "think of how to solve this problem" and "there is no wrong answer, just justify it" is an alien concept in Chinese education.

This has a historical basis - success in the Confucian exams meant memorizing entire passages of books.

Originally Posted by pmmd

I could care less about creative thinking if CRITICAL THINKING is an integral part of the curriculum. I would have no problem with students being taught to a test that relied upon skills that were academically relevant and would prepare students for life beyond high school. All children, not just a select few. Every child who passes through the public school system needs to learn to think, and understand above a 5th grade level, even cashiers at McDonalds.

Significant numbers of HCC students that graduate from Houston area not eligible for college level classes, instead they take high school level courses, again. What was the purpose of wasting my tax payer dollars, if theses same students will receive subsidized tuition at taxpayers expense once they enter the community college system. That is shameful and a blight on the public school system.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by Glucorious

How is that a "good point" ? 1.3 billion people live in China and they send a crap load of people to Universities around the world. That's the reason. Same with India. They simply have a much larger population to draw from.

Engineering Trends - 1005A - Education Trends in Materials Science and Engineering - Enrollments, Degrees, Gender, Ethnicity and Research Expenditures

India isn't even on the list.

I'm sure the universities in China and India are full of American students getting Masters and Phds

[nervouslaughter]

Learning Mandarin is not so you can get a job in China. It's quite the opposite. If you want to get business from China as an American company, and you happen to know Mandarin even if they know English, you will get the competitive edge all other things being equal. Again, if I see Mandarin on someone's resume who grew up in an English speaking household, I will rank that person much hire than someone similar with Spanish fluency.

Just to open another can of worms, I'd rather learn to play golf than soccer, even though soccer is the most played sport in the world and I happen to be one hell of a soccer player.

[LisaBrown713]

Originally Posted by pmmd

I could care less about creative thinking if CRITICAL THINKING is an integral part of the curriculum. I would have no problem with students being taught to a test that relied upon skills that were academically relevant and would prepare students for life beyond high school. All children, not just a select few. Every child who passes through the public school system needs to learn to think, and understand above a 5th grade level, even cashiers at McDonalds.

Significant numbers of HCC students that graduate from Houston area not eligible for college level classes, instead they take high school level courses, again. What was the purpose of wasting my tax payer dollars, if theses same students will receive subsidized tuition at taxpayers expense once they enter the community college system. That is shameful and a blight on the public school system.

True. Too many/majority of the public schools are lacking and kids aren't ready/prepared to take college level classes even though they have graduated high school.

I am hoping my kids are able to take dual credit college classes while in High school. That is a long time from now so that is on the back burner.

[LisaBrown713]

Originally Posted by nervouslaughter

Learning Mandarin is not so you can get a job in China. It's quite the opposite. If you want to get business from China as an American company, and you happen to know Mandarin even if they know English, you will get the competitive edge all other things being equal. Again, if I see Mandarin on someone's resume who grew up in an English speaking household, I will rank that person much hire than someone similar with Spanish fluency.

Just to open another can of worms, I'd rather learn to play golf than soccer, even though soccer is the most played sport in the world and I happen to be one hell of a soccer player.

Exactly! I wasn't doing this so my child could get a job in China. But for them to be able to Learn a very difficult task and be able to understand and communicate fluently, learn and transcribe a new writing system other than the alphabet, and if that helps them further in the future for jobs then great.

Plus Students that are bi-lingual or know multiple languages have been shown to outperform Monolinguals on tests.

[LisaBrown713]

Originally Posted by pmmd

If you haven't any qualms with HISD, and think that the program and leadership are fine, go for it

This is a great opportunity, and as your child is 2nd grade or younger and you are willing to supplement their education at home, I think that you should give MCLIMS a chance.

Thanks, especially for your point of view. I am going to go for it......... But I do have qualms about HISD, not with the top Magnet schools(elementary) like Kolter, West Univerisy, Roberts, but with all of the rest. So I am praying this school turns out to be in top Magnet.

[MIBS98]

We're a mixed race family and my kids have lived overseas for most of their young lives so they have learned a few languages and I speak 4. From my own experience it is important to be realistic about how language is learned and what your kids are likely to pick up.

I am of the opinion that the only way to become fluent in a language is to be surrounded by it 24/7. Short of that, even for young kids it is tough to be fluent. My wife is Korean and has spoken nothing but Korean to our kids since the day they were born. We lived in Korea for 4 years. My kids went to Korean nursery schools. All of their friends were Korean. They were surrounded by the language and easily became fluent. Their only English came from me and, as a result, their English was much weaker than their Korean.

After 4 years we moved to Thailand and the kids went to the Australian school where (obviously) the main language was English with some teaching in Thai. My wife continued to speak Korean to them and they had some Korean friends but the dominant language in their lives was English. Their English quickly became strong, they switched from speaking only Korean to each other to speaking only English. More importantly, their Korean speaking skills began to decline despite continuing to hear Korean from my wife day-in, day-out. We were in Thailand about 18 months.

About 1 year ago, we moved back to Houston. Same situation as Thailand - wife still speaks Korean to them, they still have a few Korean friends. Despite this, their Korean has weakened to the point that they no longer want to speak Korean with their mother as it is difficult to express themselves fully and they get frustrated.

My understanding of the Chinese immersion school is that teaching will be 50/50 between Chinese and English. So, your kids are going to listed to Chinese half of the school day then walk out the door and be surrounded by English as they will have limited access to Chinese outside of school. Contrast this with Spanish where you can become immersed even in Houston.

My point is this: if you want your kids to become fluent in a language, there is a much greater chance that they would become fluent in Spanish while living in Houston. I could be wrong, but even in an immersion school I would not expect that they would get much past understanding Chinese when it is spoken to them and being able to speak just about enough to get by which will quickly fade once out of school unless they have follow on opportunities. If you want it to go much beyond that, you'll have to find ways to keep them heavily exposed to the language outside of school.

[pmmd]

Originally Posted by LisaBrown713

Thanks, especially for your point of view. I am going to go for it......... But I do have qualms about HISD, not with the top Magnet schools(elementary) like Kolter, West Univerisy, Roberts, but with all of the rest. So I am praying this school turns out to be in top Magnet.

A parent gave me the following advice to help my child learn and retain his 2nd language that neither I nor my husband speak.

1) don't allow your child to watch television in English, instead only show Mandarin language cartoons and television shows. Even i you only have 1 DVD, daily repetition is the best way to learn.

2) play the same music over and over again in the car. Once again, the repetition is excellent for the child. If the teacher plays music in the class, obtain the same songs for personal use.

Next year I will pay a middle school student $10 for 30 minutes of help. She will either assist with homework, read to my child,or simply engage him in conversation.

Perhaps you could find someone who speaks Mandarin to babysit for you twice a month, or have dinner with a Mandarin speaking family once a week or a few times a month.

Or perhaps you might know a Mandarin speaking family and you all could swap childcare on occasion to allow your child time to spend time alone in a home with other speaking the 2nd language.

Think outside the box for creative ways to keep your child immersed in the language.

[Dopo]

Sorry but I don't want my next post to be lost at the bottom