Not allowed to take a second language?

[Acamar 5]

I'm an IGCSE student in Hong Kong, soon to take IB courses. Everyone is fluent in Chinese and English in my school, so most people actually take 2 first languages, but there's still the option of lang B for either one. I'm very weak in Chinese (even though we speak it in the family ehehe), so I applied for Chinese B.

The school rejected me for reasons like "over 10 years of Chinese lessons", "speaks Chinese at home" and "the school might face consequences if IB finds a native Chinese speaker in Lang B", with no further elaboration. I can't find any information on the subject, so I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this...?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

[f0xes 14]

it's really up to your school, so I don't think you can do much about it. I have a friend who's done ~3/4 years of mandarin, and she's doing Chinese AB initio! There's even people who are almost fluent in french in my french B class - it's entirely up to the school's discretion. sorry

(quick question - do you speak canto or mandarin at home? our school does chinese B in mandarin and not cantonese!)

[Rosalina 256]

You cannot take an IB language course at the "AB Initio" or the "B" level if you have spent a certain amount of time studying the language or if it is a native language/ language that you speak with some fluency. It is up to your school to decide how much "experience" you have with the language.

 

 

[Carla Doyle 0]

It is also dependent on the classes that are available. Since you seem to have the option to take two at a 'fluent' level, and they believe you may have the capacity to do so, that's most likely why. At my school, we don't have the option to take French - or any language other than English - higher than "B", unless we do the studies on our own. But that's why quite a few kids in my French "B" class have taken French immersion and are practically fluent in the language. 

[Sandwich 2,412]

Your school are in fact correctly applying the IB rules. Some schools do, some schools don't, the IB don't seem to give a **** about it. As noted above you'll find plenty of people who are fluent in a language or who have done 3+ years of lessons somehow being allowed to sit B or AB. It's an unfair system, but it's been like that since the dawn of IB!

It used to be better back when A2 languages existed but now there's no real intermediate option.

[duff 2]

lol same.. i think we go to the same school 

Edited March 31, 2016 by duff

[Yugalarex 66]

Oh my gosh, this is the most HKG people I've ever seen on one thread. In my school, there are plenty of people who are fluent in Chinese but still take it at B, that's because we're an English-speaking school so English A is the normal option. If you're really not fluent then try make that argument or alternatively (last resort) just do really badly so they have to believe you.

[ellie 200]

Do you have any other B-language options offered? Could you consider these instead?