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[rxk22]

I tried looking for Japan specific threads on this. The only thing that came up was a thread from Gaijinpot from 2010. I would like to discuss raining children in Japan, specifically from teaching them to be bilingual.

My wife and I have 2 kids, both of whom are not in Elem school yet. When we first had our oldest, we thought that One Language One Parent would be good enough. Turns out it wasn't, she would not respond in full English, she would give basic answers like 'no' 'yes' or 'not hungry'. We decided to switch to Minority Language at Home. Though we weren't very strict, my wife and I still talk in front of out kids in Japanese, and only respond to them if they speak English. My daughter now is very conversational and very comfortable using English, and does so freely. Her Japanese is also fine.
We also show our kids mostly English shows. Books are 50/50 Eng/Jpn, but it may go mostly Eng when they hit Elem.
Skype also seems o be great, they like talking to their Grandparents in English, and when we visit, there isn't a language barrier.


It was a really easy change for us, but many here have spouses with low English ability, making it hard to do MLAH. We were pretty nervous when our daughter refused to speak full sentences, and we are still worried when our kids will go to Elem. As it is very different from regular Kindergarten.

Does anyone have any success stories? Especially ones not involving sending your kids to International School. As paying 150,000 yen a month isn't an option for most of us here. I would love to hear some, as I don't see many half kids here who are actually bilingual. Their output, at least seems to be at the same level as reg Japanese kids.

Some things I have noticed, is that often times the Japanese Mom will interrupt. If a kid is hungry and they can't say what they want to say in English fast enough, the J-Mom will interrupt and take the conversation into Japanese very quickly. They end up being a crutch for the kids,a nd make them lazy about English.

[kzjohn]

Excellent resource: http://www.bsig.org/faq I wrote up some experiences with our kids back in the 90s for some of the early monographs. #8 looks good, but others would also be worth their fees. Quality is probably better and you go up the series.

We used MLAH but it kind of grew into a mishmash. Buy as many books as possible and read, read, read. There's undoubtedly more and better software now, used some of that where possible.

Teach them to type on a regular keyboard. I 'paid' our younger one in middle school to transcribe TOEIC questions for me--told her she was helping with materials but never got around to actually using what she did. The point was to keep her engaged with the language. We also had a big selection of graded readers when kids' books got left behind. I used my research budget at work for those--probably had a hundred or so.

Oddly, at least to my expectations, our younger one's English came out better. She now is able to just about max the TOEFL. (had 113 iBT, and then spent a year in Vancouver and summer school in the US) She'll finish in March and is planning on grad school in the US next fall--something to do with RNA and molecular biology.

Older one is good and uses some English at work, video-conferencing with europe, but she still makes some mistakes.

Both went through the regular j-schools, nothing international around here. Both got into 国立 uni.

When younger, I traveled with both of them a number of times separate from my wife, visiting family in the US, and then a couple times to New Zealand (month-long trips, I was an escort for my uni students and brought the older girl along once, and a second trip brought both, and was able to get them into four weeks of school there).

(might add more later)

[rxk22]

Wow thank you for the reply. Also thanks for the link. I'll see what I can get from it.
Really glad to hear that your kids turned out pretty fluent. My wife was really worried, as we haven't met any Half kids who could speak English at a decent level.

Books, and reading seem to be some sort of key. Everyone tells us to do it. We read to them a lot. I also find that asking questions helps as well. It makes them produce.

They are still a while away from using keyboards, but I will keep that in mind. I want them to be able to spell and to be able to write in English as well.

[kzjohn]

(Probably obvious, but as for questions, ask wh-questions & avoid yes/no.)

[kzjohn]

On the unfortunate side, tho I have three sibs in the US, the older girl of ours only has one relevant cousin (two more, boys, a fair amount older). I was always jealous of co-teachers who had family back home that they could send a kid or two for a long stay, pretty much on their own. I got married late (36?) and so family & kids' ages kind of missed what might have otherwise been a natural staging of kids of my sibs. Even my father, in the grandparent role, didn't parallel others' experiences. He only died last year (at 97), but my blood mother died young (I was 23-24), and tho my father remarried, a step-grandparent is a different thing from a real one when looking at their grandkids.

Two other things...

Our girls never went to juku (tho the older one did take a kind of gap year before uni--she didn't get what she wanted out of HS and spent a year studying, Sundai, and then went thru the process again, which in retrospect, was a very, very good thing). IMO, prolly wife's too, it is unnecessary. The english texts and tests at the JHS and HS level are really pretty good--the trick is to get the kid to somehow absorb/understand it all instead of ignoring it or just getting by. And another oddity, tho my wife and I are both language teachers, both girls ended up choosing 理系 in HS, and going on in sciences at uni. Go figure.

And now I've forgotten my second point...!

So I'll invent another one: While Dave's here is good for many things, you might want to explore some other forums, such as https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/ or maybe http://www.jref.com/find-new/3226622/posts

Each place seems to have its own character, so try browsing around.

[rxk22]

Thanks for the links. I think that every family situation is very different, but I guess having kids relatively late like you, would make it harder to meet up and play with cousins.

Still not a lot of success stories, even after I have browsed. Really seems like raising a bilingual Half kid here is pretty rare. There doesn't seem to be a big priority put on it here. People assume that an English speaking parent alone is enough. And it almost never is enough.

[kzjohn]

One thing I'd recommend is that any kid should be primarily grounded in one language--I've met a few who didn't seem to have complete native-level ability in either.

They might not be fully literate in Japanese, or maybe not good honorifics (敬語)--or something similar on the English side.

[santi84]

I can't speak for Japan sorry, but I do have quite a bit of experience in this area both personally and professionally (bilingual delays in pre-K to grade one children). It's normal for one language to appear lagging. It can even feel like it creates a developmental delay. It's natural. Children don't acquire grammar rules at birth (as we all know), but need to do this through trial and error. The languages won't be linear for a long time, if ever, but proficiency levels can and will level out if continued effort is made.

I think part of your concerns are rooted in a misunderstanding of child language acquisition. I highly recommend reading some information geared towards speech development. For example, "I like how you tried to sound out xyz!" at face-level can reinforce a positive association with xyz vocabulary and teach facial movement for sounds. In the end, much of it comes down to permitting difficulty and delays which are natural. There is an unrealistic notion that one parent, one child creates perfect bilingualism.

I have raised mine in this manner (L1-A and L1-B) yet L1-B still lags in expressive ways. Patience.

[rxk22]

of course one language will lag. Or, from what I read a lot of, both will lag until age 6 or so. That said, my kid's English was severely limited output wise, like many kids here, she wouldn't speak at all unless forced to. Her output was minimal and was far behind her Japanese.

MLAT really changed that, and now both languages are comfortable for her. I fully understand that my kids will never have full native level English. In response to your comment, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect my kids to be able to use either language. I think we have seen a great success with our kid's ability to use and understand both languages.
And again, I have yet to see any half kids in Japan that can speak English, yet didn't go to international school

[kzjohn]

[rxk22]

Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for the link. I am going to look into it. It would be great to see and meet people who were able to raise fully bilingual kids. It's not that we are doing a good job, it's that we are trying to learn from others, and learn from others mistake.

[Nagoyaguy]

Hi;

Very late reply here.

Situation: My wife and I have one child, born when we were both relatively young. He lived 3 years abroad (Canada) before we moved back to Japan permanently. All his schooling has been in Japan, no summers back home or semesters back in Canada in school. No jukus, eikaiwas, or expensive international schools either.

We decided on a very strict "MLAH" policy, including only speaking English with each other (our "couples" language is English). IMHO this is crucial to the success of the policy. If kids are always prompted to use English, but don't see their parents using it with each other, it is a bit of a mixed message and shows the kids that English really isn't crucial. Home became 90% English- English books, software, tv shows (Cable tv and SkyPerfect), and most importantly casual conversations. We also used English everywhere when we were together as a family- restaurants, on the train, shopping, etc.

It was not that hard after a while. It just became a habit. My wife's Engilsh is far better than my Japanese, which helped a lot. Honestly, as an aside, I can't imagine the relationships where there isn't a common language between the spouses. Both parties stumbling along with a mediocre understanding of the others' language seems a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, the results were good. Our son passed the Eiken pre-first grade test in the first year of JHS, and the first grade in the first year of HS. He hit 930 on the TOEIC test in second year HS. More important, he is comfortable using and listening to English both here and back in Canada on visits to his extended family.

Actually, I am going to do a research project on this very topic in the very near future. I hope I can rely on the good people of ESLcafe to help out and volunteer their stories!

[kzjohn]

One thing not mentioned yet, and that I think is important to consider, is that kids easily recognize that their parents are also bilingual (or not).

This means that, whatever method is used, both parents need to become models for their kids' bilingualism by being/becoming bilingual themselves.

Why ask/expect your kids to become something that you are not able to model yourself?

on edit: I didn't realize this POV until our kids were midway thru school. Once it was pointed out to me, it was obvious that I had been kind of selfish being an English-only parent. I can't say as there was much actual damage done, but still..., I was expecting bilingualism from them, but was not expecting it of myself. YMMV.

[rxk22]

[rxk22]