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I'll soon have to decide whether to enroll my child in the dual language immersion program at our public elementary school. Subjects such as math, social studie

by jtsnow 12y ago

I'll soon have to decide whether to enroll my child in the dual language immersion program at our public elementary school. Subjects such as math, social studies, science are taught in Chinese. Anyone have experience with or know of any good studies on kids learning language in this way? How valuable is it for an American to speak Chinese vs something like Spanish or French?

dublinben 12y ago
Immersion is definitely the best way to learn a language, at any age. With very few exceptions, it is much more valuable for an American to know Mandarin than Spanish or French.
- jtsnow 12y ago
  But is a 3-4 hours per day for 4-5 days per week true immersion? And is it enough to master a complex language such as Mandarin Chinese? I suspect that, using this model with Chinese, a child can become conversationally proficient and gain some basic reading comprehension. Whereas, with a more simple language, they may be able to read, write, and speak on the same level as a native-speaker. Looking for evidence to prove me wrong.
zhemao 12y ago
> Subjects such as math, social studies, science are taught in Chinese. Why? I don't really see much use in this unless the sole aim is for your children to become fluent in Chinese. Having an understanding of math, history, and science will be more useful to them in the future than being fluent in Chinese. I don't think Chinese fluency is worth making it more difficult for them to learn the other subjects by having it taught in a language they aren't as familiar with. For math and science especially, this doesn't really make much sense, as English is the lingua franca of the technical world. My father is a native Chinese speaker and a biologist. I majored in computer engineering and now work as a software engineer. Many of my classmates and coworkers are native Chinese speakers. Even when they speak in Chinese, the technical vocabulary is all English because that is the language they learned the material in.

by jtsnow 12y ago

dublinben 12y ago

Immersion is definitely the best way to learn a language, at any age. With very few exceptions, it is much more valuable for an American to know Mandarin than Spanish or French.

jtsnow 12y ago
But is a 3-4 hours per day for 4-5 days per week true immersion? And is it enough to master a complex language such as Mandarin Chinese? I suspect that, using this model with Chinese, a child can become conversationally proficient and gain some basic reading comprehension. Whereas, with a more simple language, they may be able to read, write, and speak on the same level as a native-speaker. Looking for evidence to prove me wrong.

zhemao 12y ago

> Subjects such as math, social studies, science are taught in Chinese. Why? I don't really see much use in this unless the sole aim is for your children to become fluent in Chinese. Having an understanding of math, history, and science will be more useful to them in the future than being fluent in Chinese. I don't think Chinese fluency is worth making it more difficult for them to learn the other subjects by having it taught in a language they aren't as familiar with. For math and science especially, this doesn't really make much sense, as English is the lingua franca of the technical world. My father is a native Chinese speaker and a biologist. I majored in computer engineering and now work as a software engineer. Many of my classmates and coworkers are native Chinese speakers. Even when they speak in Chinese, the technical vocabulary is all English because that is the language they learned the material in.