![]() ![]() The administrator ignored my story entirely □ I explained that I understood-I also had a similar experience returning to Japan in 2nd grade from the US and that I had to learn quickly. They also expressed concern that he wouldn't be able to fully communicate with his peers at this level and that he may have a hard time adjusting. ![]() The administrator snapped back with "See? He feels you understand him without him having to speak Japanese! So you have to tell him 'the correct way to say that is.' to force him to speak properly!" □ I explained that whenever my child says something in other languages, I echo back what he said in Japanese (so he'd hear the words- a classic approach). They advised me to do more to support his language acquisition at home, suggesting that perhaps as a youngest child, he'd never had to fully express himself everyone understands him anyway. They pointed out that he couldn't conjugate adjectives correctly and his Japanese vocabulary wasn't very extensive, although he seemed to understand what the teacher was asking. Entropy wasn't speaking Japanese at the same level of his fully Japanese peers. The educators looked grave that our 6-y.o. And comforting to learn that I wasn't imagining things, that we're part of a trend. ![]() It was eye-opening to learn the history of the Japanese schools and see where our family's experience falls. And the schools aren't quite sure what to do with them. Those families are turning to Japanese schools as a way to keep their children in touch with their heritage (like us!). Her article explains the history of the overseas Japanese schools and how these schools were from the start created to address the "problem" of bringing overseas Japanese children back into the fold.Ĭharlotte Murakami also points out that there are increasing numbers of overseas Japanese (or part-Japanese) families without any plan to "return" (like ours!). Purely by luck, a day later, I stumbled upon an article by Charlotte Murakami: " Japan’s Overseas School System" in Intercultural Families and Schooling in Japan: Experiences, Issues, and Challenges (Melodie Lorie Cook and Louise George Kittaka, eds., 2021).
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