Help w/ a language debate

[JFSinIL]

My concern is will the district provide continued classes in that language through the high school years. Otherwise what is the point?

[Parrothead]

My concern is will the district provide continued classes in that language through the high school years. Otherwise what is the point?

:iagree:That is what I am wondering. Two years of Mandarin or Cantonese is only going to be baby steps. It really would have to be required in grades 7-12 for the students to be anywhere near fluent.

 

So, no. I do not think it is a good idea.

 

Is it a political ploy? Who know? It could very well be. But, I'd think it would be more of an economic benefit to require on language over another. When we lived on the other side of the state, French was required in grades K-12 because the community was so very close to Quebec. Before the borders were tightened up, it was nothing to go 15 miles north and have to speak French to buy a cheeseburger.

 

What economic or political gain would there be for kids in Florida to learn Chinese for 2 years? I think it would be a waste of time and effort.

[regentrude]

I still don't get why it should be a POLITICAL ploy. Huh? A couple of kids learning Chinese is going to overthrow anything? Give me a break.

As behind as this country is where language instruction is concerned, nothing can be worse than the status quo.

[Mimm]

I pretty much don't think just about anything should be required. :p That said, your vote choices are a little stark. I did vote no, because yeah, it does feel like some kind of political agenda but if there was a political agenda, why not Spanish? It's the fastest growing language used in the US. (I think...)

[angela in ohio]

Nope, Chinese is the fad of the moment. It was Spanish when I was in elementary, then Japanese when I was in high school, then Russian when I was in college, now Chinese, and I keep hearing that German will be the next. I wouldn't mandate anything that is likely to go out of fashion soon.

[hornblower]

China is the most populous country in the world. With 1.3 billion people, it's not something I'd dismiss as a fad. We will be doing lots of business with China in the years to come.

[Rosie_0801]

What is different is that Chinese language isn't written phonetically, so I am guessing that it is read in a different part of the brain. It is read visually/symbolically.

 

 

Written language is written language and is stored in the same area of the brain. All writing is symbolic. Yes, Chinese is read visually/symbolically; but so is English. The alphabet, or any alphabet, is a bunch of symbols that we pronounce in a certain way. Chinese characters are a bunch of symbols that are pronounced in a certain way. Heck, Braille is read symbolically, just not visually.

 

Rosie

[kokotg]

I have to say that it seems like a waste of time if the kids will not press on with it. In 7th grade, the TAG program I was in did this except it was Russian.

 

:iagree:

 

I took a year of Russian in college. I remember how to say "apartment" because our Russian textbook was pretty obsessed with people moving into new apartments. And I made up a joke about my cat in Russian. I still remember that. I think a couple of years of Spanish or a couple of years of Latin, on the other hand, can actually be useful long term.

 

I don't know much about Chinese, but I have a friend who was born in Vietnam and lived there until she was 4. She doesn't speak Vietnamese anymore (she moved here with her family and spoke only Vietnamese until starting school). She can understand it, but she says she won't try to speak it because she can't pronounce it properly and the pronunciation is so important to being understood. It's my understanding that Chinese is similar.

 

I don't think it's a political plot, and if I loved a program in other ways, mandating Chinese wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me. But I'd much rather my kids focus on Spanish early and stick with it all through school; there are many more opportunities to practice it, I think it's more useful for kids in the US, and I think it's easier to gain fluency in.

[Perry]

Written language is written language and is stored in the same area of the brain. All writing is symbolic. Yes, Chinese is read visually/symbolically; but so is English. The alphabet, or any alphabet, is a bunch of symbols that we pronounce in a certain way. Chinese characters are a bunch of symbols that are pronounced in a certain way. Heck, Braille is read symbolically, just not visually.

 

Rosie

I'm not sure about this. Might be nitpicking, but...

 

Developmental dyslexia in Chinese and English populations: dissociating the effect of dyslexia from language differences

 

 

In normal readers (i.e. those with no history of dyslexia), recent evidence suggests differences in brain activation for reading in Chinese and English. Specifically, the left posterior superior temporal cortex is activated in English but not Chinese reading, while the left middle/inferior frontal cortex is more activated in Chinese than English readers (Tan et al., 2003, 2005). A plausible explanation for these brain activation differences in Chinese and English is that higher left superior temporal activation for English versus Chinese reading reflects phonological decoding, i.e. the process of assembling the sounds of letter combinations into the sounds of whole words (Tan et al., 2005). In contrast, left middle frontal activation in Chinese readers may be involved in the direct mapping of visual characters to their monosyllabic sounds which, in the absence of phonemic cues, increases the demands on visual and verbal short-term memory (Siok et al., 2004, 2008). By directly comparing brain activation in Chinese and English readers, with and without developmental dyslexia, we independently manipulated the effects of dyslexia from differences in Chinese and English reading. This allowed us to determine whether the left frontal region, reported to be more activated in Chinese normal readers than Chinese dyslexics (Siok et al., 2004, 2008), is the same as the left frontal region that is expected to be more activated in Chinese relative to English normal readers (Tan et al., 2003, 2005).

[Brenda in FL]

I would have to pick both options!!

 

My husband is of the opinion that learning Chinese will definitely be a plus as China seems to be becoming the economic powerhouse of the world. And we will be encouraging my 7th grader to try it.

 

Making it a requirement goes along with educating children to fit into our society and making them assets for our country and society - developing our future business leaders so that our country can benefit.

[Rosie_0801]

I'm not sure about this. Might be nitpicking, but...

 

Developmental dyslexia in Chinese and English populations: dissociating the effect of dyslexia from language differences

 

A lot more detail than I was thinking! Perhaps I was taught the "lies to small children" version It wouldn't be the first time. :glare: I had wondered. It seemed reasonable that vocabulary would be stored in one area of the brain, no matter the language, ditto with syntax. I was told the interpreting of language happened in the brain the same way, regardless of the language, and that bit didn't make sense. Well, I could accept that the brain worked the same way in interpreting different spoken languages, but I was quite sure my brain was working differently in English than Auslan. We didn't do more than touch on written languages, and your attached link shows I was delivered the lies to small children version. (I hate that.)

 

Groovy :)

 

Rosie

Edited August 21, 2010 by Rosie_0801

[eclipse]

When I was in 5th grade (in a gifted program), we had to learn Japanese. They had a Japanese college student (from Japan, here for college) come to teach us, and we even did a play in it (I played the Evil Step Mother in the Japanese Cinderella!). The reason they picked it? Because they had someone available and willing and enthusiastic to teach us. And we had to do it because we were in the program and that's what they were teaching - just like we "had" to learn piano and "had" to have weekly lessons from a professional artist and we "had" to do science fair projects and Invention Convention. At that level, they were all about expanding our educational horizons. Personally, I think it was a great learning experience. I still remember way more than I think I should, 24 years later. The next year we did French, which was great, too. I continued with French rather than Japanese entirely because Japanese was not offered at my jr. high. In any case, if a person eventually enters into international business or many technology fields, having an Asian language at their disposal could be very, very helpful. Even if they don't continue in high school, if they decide they want to learn it in the future, it would probably be much easier to learn, if only because the sounds you learn to make and hear in childhood and adolescence stick with you, even if the vocabulary doesn't. That's why my French accent is so much better than my Spanish accent, I'd imagine.

[JFSinIL]

When we lived on the other side of the state, French was required in grades K-12 because the community was so very close to Quebec. Before the borders were tightened up, it was nothing to go 15 miles north and have to speak French to buy a cheeseburger.

 

Growing up in S. California, most kids took Spanish. As they do here, where we have a huge Latino population. Just makes sense.

 

So - of course my newbie college freshman decided to switch to...Swedish!! ;-)

[Aubrey]

Sorry, Aub, but I can't vote between those two extremes. Great idea? I don't think so. But as Abbey said, it's an optional program. Don't like it, don't participate. No great shakes. Political ploy? Stuff and nonsense. "Other" it is.;)

 

Maybe it should have said, "It doesn't bother me," or "I don't see a problem with it."

 

But really...the more I think about it...I think it's an exciting experiment, & I look forward to seeing what comes of it. Perry's information is basically what I was trying to...suggest. I don't really know anything about it, but dh is up. in. arms. he thinks it's so bad. Not to offer it, but to require it.

 

But then, he had truly awful jr high experiences. Mine were decent, & I'm sure we're both just projecting. :001_smile:

[Aubrey]

When I was in 5th grade (in a gifted program), we had to learn Japanese. They had a Japanese college student (from Japan, here for college) come to teach us, and we even did a play in it (I played the Evil Step Mother in the Japanese Cinderella!). The reason they picked it? Because they had someone available and willing and enthusiastic to teach us. And we had to do it because we were in the program and that's what they were teaching - just like we "had" to learn piano and "had" to have weekly lessons from a professional artist and we "had" to do science fair projects and Invention Convention. At that level, they were all about expanding our educational horizons. Personally, I think it was a great learning experience. I still remember way more than I think I should, 24 years later. The next year we did French, which was great, too. I continued with French rather than Japanese entirely because Japanese was not offered at my jr. high. In any case, if a person eventually enters into international business or many technology fields, having an Asian language at their disposal could be very, very helpful. Even if they don't continue in high school, if they decide they want to learn it in the future, it would probably be much easier to learn, if only because the sounds you learn to make and hear in childhood and adolescence stick with you, even if the vocabulary doesn't. That's why my French accent is so much better than my Spanish accent, I'd imagine.

 

This is the kind of program I'm imagining, & I think it sounds brilliant.