<p>I really can’t think of a downside. I know many people who went through Japanese, Spanish, and Anishinaabemowin language immersion and none of them regretted it.</p>
<p>The reason Chinese speak to each in English sometimes (or often) is because there is more than one speaking dialect. Mandarin is the standard, but most Chinese in the US or HKG do not speak Mandarin. A lot of less educated Taiwanese (older generation) do not speak Mandarin. Most well educated Chinese speak English, or have some understanding of it. It is why no matter how important Chinese economy becomes, Chinese (Mandarin) will never be that important of a language.</p>
<p>I’m with everyone else who says that the perceived importance of Chinese language is overblown. Sure, it might be useful to know, but Chinese/Mandarin is not the language of the future. I wouldn’t sacrifice learning of the other important subjects in favor of learning Chinese though. Does this program have a good reputation for education in non-Chinese language fields (English, Math, History)? If so, then why not enroll him? You haven’t mentioned the school so it’s not as if anyone here can tell you if it’s good or not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I highly doubt this happens much outside of the Pacific Northwest and SF Bay Area. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What about places where an American would typically do business (assuming this American is doing international business - which is a very small percentage of Americans). Probably narrows it down quite a bit, yes?</p>
<p>Having lived in both Germany and Japan, I can say more speak English than do not. Now that doesn’t mean they will willingly speak English because even if they know the language most will not speak it. </p>
<p>As for the value of immersion programs, my cousins son was a program in the DC area for many years and thoroughly enjoyed it unfortunately as a College freshman he speaks very little and has lost much of what he learned. Which is similar to what we heard when we were trying to decide whether to place out then 2nd grader into a German school, we were told unless we planned on a way to keep her language skills, ie stateside tutor, the long term benefits would be limited.</p>
<p>Re: #24</p>
<p>Perhaps an immersion school at the K-6 level may be most helpful if it is a language with a sufficiently large immigrant community speaking that language so that the student will be able to reinforce his/her use of that language frequently outside of the classroom, thereby retaining the language skills even if s/he is no longer in the immersion school.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! My sister is so for it, her husband who travels globally is not.
My D has taken 4 years of Latin and loves it. However, her grandfather who was born in Egypt says her pronunciation is not correct. Grandfather grew up in Europe and speaks several languages fluently. He tells wonderful stories of his education in Italy and travels throughout Europe.</p>
<p>I agree with many of the posters. English is pretty much the language of business so the importance of Japanese and Chinese decreases as their younger generations move up in the business world. There are studies that show it is easier to learn a second language at a young age. If a small child were interested in learning another language and it didn’t appear to be a stressful thing I see no harm. The word “immersion” relative to 6 year old sounds scary, but hopefully it’s just a fun learning experience and the word immersion doesn’t mean what it means literally.</p>
<p>As someone whose kid has spent lots of time and effort studying Chinese, I will agree that it is not necessary to know Chinese because most educated people in China do speak English. On the other hand, it seems to me that there are several advantages that a young American person has if she knows Chinese. The first–and I suspect that this is part of why my D started studying Chinese in 9th grade–is that it impresses people. She has heard, “Wow, Chinese is a really hard language to learn” many, many times. A more meaningful advantage is that it provides a bridge to experiencing the culture of China. If you just want to conduct business, then Chinese is not all that helpful. But D has spent the summer in China, and she has been invited out by her Chinese coworkers–who do speak English but are more comfortable speaking Chinese–to meet their families and to various cultural things. When they are not working, they speak a combination of English and Chinese–their English is about at the level of my D’s Chinese, so it works. And finally, the internship she has–with a major international shipping firm that is headquartered in the US, but does alot of business in China (and elsewhere in the world)–she got in part I believe because she has studied Chinese. Even though English is the primarily language that is spoken in her office (in China), I think that her having studied Chinese siad that she was interested in working in a global setting. So her knowledge of Chinese has not been necessary but I do think it has been helpful.</p>
<p>
Yes, but even a business person may want to socialize with people other than other businessmen or other parts of the country. We were in Japan for a conference on the southern island. I was taking kids to see the sights and quickly found museums etc. where English simply was not spoken. Luckily I’m not too freaked out about using pictures and I actually know a couple hundred characters from the year I tried to teach myself Chinese. I’ve been lots of places where no or little English is spoken. (My father was a foreign service officer, I spent a gap year in France and five years in Germany.)</p>
<p>I know a set of twins who are going into the tenth grade who have been in a Chinese immersion program since Kindergarten. It’s been fabulous for them-- they are completely fluent, have a rich cultural knowledge, and have also just had so much fun with it over the years. They’ve won national competitions for speeches in Chinese by non-native speakers, next year are going on an exchange program to China for a semester, and they even use Chinese as their secret language when they want to annoy their parents. It doesn’t seem to have hindered them at all academically or socially-- as they entered middle school they went to mainstreamed classes except for two electives to keep up their Chinese, and did fine. They’ve never been completely overwhelmed by homework, either-- they’ve worked hard, but exposure to the language at such a young age is what really made the difference. One of the brothers wants to go into business, where speaking Chinese will likely be useful, and the other isn’t quite sure what he wants to do, but he says that even if he never uses his Chinese for anything practical, he’s still glad he did the program.</p>
<p>If you read studies on immersion programs, students who do full-day immersion end up doing better than their peers at normal schools in most subjects (including English) by about the fourth grade.</p>
<p>Learning a foreign language at a young age also makes connections in the brain.</p>
<p>I’ve studied Spanish, Latin, and French. I’m starting German in the fall. Taking a language for 45 minutes every day in school does very little compared to actually fully immersing yourself.</p>
<p>Also, if a child starts a program in kindergarten, teachers knowingly instruct students with lots of big motions and diagrams. They know students don’t understand at first, but within a short while, students start making connections and learn to learn the language.</p>
<p>Students who come from immersion programs have native ability to read, write, and listen in the foreign language and near-native ability to speak.</p>
<p>The benefits also don’t stop with language. Knowing a second language is helpful in many areas due to the connections made in the brain at a young age.</p>
<p>Lol, I’ve been living in China since I was 5 and i’m not yet fully native - maybe it’s because of the ample amount of English exposure I received in Hong Kong.</p>
<p>There is an advantage for math in Chinese so learning the basics in that language in elementary school may help in the future. This is because of the structure of words for numbers. English and several other European languages make the connection between words and numbers harder. One to ten is fine then the rules for teens with eleven and twelve before the thirteen, fourteen… follow the same rules. French has other problems English doesn’t. I’ve seen articles addressing this issue as one reason Chinese have more facility with math- they have fewer steps correlating numbers and words for them in their brains.</p>
<p>OP, tell her to look closely at the program exit levels in Chinese. Try to get some input from someone not involved with the school or school system (like a Chinese member of the community who is familiar with the program). </p>
<p>I am a great believer in foreign language education. My kids attended a full-day immersion program and I seriously considered choosing Chinese as the language. They would have been in the first year or so of the program. I am glad I didn’t. What they eventually found is that even though these students had done the BULK of their schooling in Mandarin, they were not fluent and didn’t have the proficiency that kids had who graduated from the other immersion programs which happen to be in romance languages. What I found from having my kids in immersion is that they follow the state curriculum-- which means the curriculum is not that tailored to the target language. The other thing which is extremely helpful is if someone in the family knows the family and can help the student. So if your sister or her husband know Chinese and can help the student, then go for it. If not, do your research carefully if what you want is fluency. </p>
<p>Oh, and to address the concerns regarding levels in English. Yes, while they are in the programs, the students often don’t test as well in English as they probably would have if they had attended programs only in English. However, when they complete the programs, their levels usually exceed monolingual students. I interpret that to mean that sending a kid to an immersion program is a long-term commitment. </p>
<p>“Students who come from immersion programs have native ability to read, write, and listen in the foreign language and near-native ability to speak.”</p>
<p>It depends on the program. I attend a school system where the immersion program is highly regarded and my family was involved with immersion programs in another major school system. These kids do not have near-<em>native</em> fluency. I would not use the word native near them. They have tremendous vocabulary but generally do not have the grammar first-generation kids have innately. The structure of most immersion programs means that the kids spend quite a bit of time together and reinforce their mistakes. In other words, they don’t ‘hear’ the errors the way a first generation kid would. If you want your kid to have near-native fluency, you need to expose them to native speakers outside the classroom. If the parents speak the language, the kid can have near-native ability. Otherwise, for near native ability, you or the child will need to pursue this actively (which is why it matters if the kid is interested in the language): have them watch television in that language; go to religious services in that language and, optimally, have them spend summers in that language. If you want near <em>native</em> fluency, it’s a big commitment.</p>
<p>I would love it if we had access to this sort of thing. As long as the core subjects are not simply taught in Chinese, so the children miss out, I would go for it. But for a portion of the day to have the Chinese would be great.</p>
<p>Interesting posts. I have a couple of comments:</p>
<p>First off, I am an immigrant from China, came over 25 years ago. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Learning a new language for a kid is a piece of cake. I started learning English over radio from the age of 10. A bit late. But that did not overwhelm by brain and stop me from getting my Ph.D. In fact, humans have the capacity to learn 10 or more different languages when they are young. My father is an example.</p></li>
<li><p>“Chinese is not an important language”. That is true, if you are not going to interact with 1/5 of the world population. </p></li>
<li><p>Over 200 years ago, Chinese GDP was over 30-40% of all countries combined. The reason why China fell so backward later on? They considered themselves as far superior than another people, considered China is the center of the world. In Chinese, “China” literally means Middle Kingdom… They refuse to learn from the “barbarians”. See what happened later in 1800-1900: China became the Sick Man of the East. A lesson worth learning from.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Cheers!</p>