by Gisela Jia
Dear J.,
You asked to hear our ideas about whether your child will stay with us to study Chinese or switch to his middle school Chinese class. Since you are not the only parent to ask this question, I'm writing this note to share with you what I know and have seen.
Studying Chinese language and culture, across many years, is a complicated project. There are road maps of all shapes, some fit some children better than others. That "fitness level" depends on family contexts and planning. It's this complexity that puts parents (often together with their children) in the best position to make the choice.
However, I do have a unique perspective to share. That is what I've seen among our students, over the past 17 years while our first cohort of students went from preschool to college age.
Suppressing my instinct to indulge in vivid memories of the interactions between us teachers and the long-time students throughout these years, I want to cool-headedly categorize our students into several groups based on the choices they have made.
Group 1: CCBG Chinese only
We've had students who studied with us until the 10th, 11th, or 12th grade. They invariably chose another language to study in middle and high school years, including Latin, Spanish, French and others. In college, some have kept up their intense study of Chinese language, and some have not taken one Chinese class.
Some of them come back to us for support in college years. Just during this school year, we tutored two of them intensely to help them pass a Chinese test to qualify for a prestigious internship position. Some others in colleges have reached out to ask us to provide information about some stories, poems, history that they learned from us for their current college projects. But this is not the reason for anyone to stay with us for that long because a program like ours, although we look forward to the next few decades but can only be sure about the next school year and the next summer.
The real reason seems to be this. These group of students tend to have a strong desire to master another language, and at the same time, parents find the team work between our program and the family sufficient to bring their children's Chinese language skills and cultural knowledge to an advanced level.
Group 2: Regular School Chinese only
Among these students, most have transferred from CCBG to their regular Chinese classes during the high school years, while a small number have done so during the middle school years.
Invariably, we heard they have done very well in their Chinese classes, if we judge by the grades they get in those classes. This is the case whether these students were once performing well or not so well in our program.
Most of these parents have involved us in the transition process. I have visited a number of schools and talked to many Chinese teachers. My mission for such visits is to advocate for our students' placements in the right level, learn about their curriculum and brainstorm with parents and students about effective paths of transition.
Group 3: Both CCBG and Regular School Chinese
We do have more and more students in this group. Some want to be sure to get good grades in their regular school Chinese class and use us as a support. Some want to get an exposure to a richer content through our curriculum. We have been able to help fulfill both types of goals.
These tend to be students who do not have a lot of exposure to Mandarin beyond CCBG regular school year classes such as nobody at home speaks Mandarin, no opportunity to do any summer Chinese, but at the same time, want to reach a certain level of Chinese before college years. So, CCBG and the regular school Chinese class make each other easier and jointly advance these students' level.
What to choose for your child?
I would say consider CCBG ONLY (or another quality program like CCBG) if -
a) Your child wants to study another language and lay the foundation before college years.
b) Your child has strong home support for Chinese learning and have adequate Chinese language and culture exposure in daily life so that the curriculum carried by the "60-hour Only per School Year CCBG class" is effectively pursued and your vision is largely fulfilled.
I would say consider regular school Chinese class ONLY if -
a) Scheduling and maintaining the schedule of the CCBG Chinese class has been constantly challenging.
b) Beyond the 60-hour CCBG class per school year, your child doesn't have much an exposure to Chinese, not allowing enough application practice of what's learned.
I would say consider doing both CCBG and a regular school Chinese class if -
a) CCBG can fill in major gaps of the regular school Chinese class, such as lack of enough opportunity to speak or receiving individualized feedback.
b) Your child has a big appetite for learning content through Chinese language. A few of our advanced level students have asked to study recent Chinese history, and as a result we've been engrossed in battles, treaties, reforms and intrigues.
Hope you find this note somewhat useful.
- Gisela
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