Abstract/Summary

 

 When it comes to English learning, you will face a matter of effectiveness of the way you learn English, so ,we gotta delve into effective ways of English learning in terms of quantity or quality. More importantly, we're gonna define what "bilingual" or "bilingualism" are, and research what you have to do to become a "bilingual" comparing "language aquisition at an early age" with " language acquisition after critical period " in light of the culture you live or lived in. Because the culture has a lot to do with bilingualism.( We'll put our thoughts together using the data ' Yuki ' collected from her friends who are returnees ) And also, we'd like to consider bilingualism and biliteracy for kids, because as you all know, English Education for kids is a bit controversial across the country.

 

 We'd like to clarify the difference of language aquisition comparing the way nonnative English learners study English as a second language with how returnees aquired English . This may inlcude the question of what kind of materials or programs we are going to use to learn English effectively and how much we'll be able to concentrate on English learning (quality and quantity), which means, in terms of effectiveness, which has the edge, quantity or quality? Which do you think is important, the amount of time you spend learning or what kinda way of learning you approach? That's the thing.

 

 These questions might not be related to the goals of this presentation itself ,but why do we pursue after the goal of ' bilingual ' ? Do we have to become bilinguals ? Is bilingual education really necessary for us ?

 

 If possible, we'd like to describe what we call " perfect bilingual " would be.

 

Introduction

 

Definition of " bilingual " and " bilingualism "

 

 According to Betty Birner, associate professor of English department at Northern Illinois University, a bilingual person is someone who speaks two languages. On the other hand, Steve McCarty, the author of " Bilingualism Theory and Japan " , says that in Japan, lots of people see a bilingual as someone who can speak two languages fluently and someone who has superb language abilities that ordinary people will never be able to acquire. If you only describe a bilingual as someone who is the cream of the crop working as an interpreter, average English learners will never be able to become the bilingual. He says in the true sense of bilingual, it would be fair to say that if you're at a point where you have some degree of second language acquisition, you're already a bilingual. If you think that way, you could say millions of Japanese are something of a bilingual already.

 

 Let's give it a thought in individual and social levels. In a way, the study of bilingual is in the field of academic research, and some technical studies have already been done, so there are lots of terminologies related to this field. For example, in TESOL Quarterly ( one of the best journals that English Teaching Association publishes ), about 8% of the paper are allocated to the bilingual education.

 

 From a practical perspective, " bilingualism " is a comprehensive approach that is focused on multiple  languages and cultures correlated with each other rather than one study that is separated from other various theories of linguistics.  Bilingualism is an achievement which will be made when you teach foreigh languages. Bilingualism will bring a new prospect of language acqusition by this particularly comprehensive approach. As global-scale researches show, the achievement that anyone can make can be the starting point of bilingualism. Moreover, bilingualism takes on linguistic and cultural pluralism. Bilingualism opens new frontiers in terms of theory and research.

 

From the perspective of " culture "

 

 If you think of bilingual, you might expect it to be someone who just can speak two languages at their disposal. But you can't say that for sure. Culture plays a big role in bilingualism. If you're familiar with two cultures and if you have experiences of living in different cultures, you're likey to be affected in some ways .  According to some surveys, there is a fact that if you learn a foreign language and if you get to know a lot about two cultures, you will look to Japanese culture more, and  you will have a much greater knowledge of Japan than those Japanese who are just steeped in Japanese culture. 

 

culture-related isssues

 

 Biculturalism brings about some problems, because each culture has its own value. For example, ①　issues of accepting the second culture ②　issues that whether the second culture society would accept those who call themselves bicultural ③ Is each culture open or closed in these senses ?

   (✩Biculturalism describes the term that explains a condition in which someone has two different cultures' aspects inside their mind.)

 

 What kind of advantages and disadvantages do bilinguals have in terms of " language and culture " ? If you come to the conclusion, you could see advantages from the perspective of " recognition and emotion ", which means the more you're familiar with two languages and cultures, the stronger recognition you have compared to those who are only acquainted with just one language and culture. Because when you deal with one issue , you might try to address the issue with two language systems and two cultural perspectives. And also, the bigger the two languages or two cultures' gaps are , the more advantages you can get. These are the advantages  in terms of recognition.

The concept of advantages in terms of ethics is also related to emotional advantages and it is very important.

 The following shows the acquisition of the second culture's value, which means if you open your mind to those who live in different cultures, you can get increased objectivity and empathy for those people. Any country is trying to teach its people moral and ethical psychology ,but the ideal is defferent depending on which country you live in .If you think that way , it's no wonder that knowing there are opposite moral or ethical ideals from those of your own country can broaden your mind. 

 

 Of course, bilingualism and biculturalism are two separate words having different meanings, but they are correlated with each other, because language and culture have the partly same aspects. Language is just included in the field of culture, but it conveys cultures.In this case, the culture means an ordinary everyday way of living that is created as people had lived in lots of histories, and the culture is seen in their behaviors , customs ,

way of thinking, mode of tranmission and identification ( depending on the race, nationality, religion and history )

 

 There are concepts of advanced theory , two-dimensional, language perception and metalinguistic awareness, but when you explain " bicultural advantages in terms of recognition " , the concept of "metacultural awareness" will be needed. For example, it is not until you get to know other cultures that you recognize your own culture. And as you are familiar with other cultures, you will come to understand that cultural difference is the cause of difference in behaviors and common sense. As you get to look at cultures from other perspectives, you might be able to look at the cultures more objectively and with less biased views.

 

 Bilingualism Education for kids

 

 Why do parents want to raise bilingual kids? There is a current craze among Japanese parents to raise bilingual kids across the country. They think it is hip and cool , it helps the kids get into prestigious schools and it will give them a headstart with emphasis on English education at an earlier age in elementary schools and better job prospects might be wainting for them. Bicultural families in Japan have good reasons to raise bilingual kids, because when the kids come to understand the native tongue of their parents, communication and bonds between parents and kids get strengthened. Achieving a cultural balance is important for bicultural families, because the children have to fit in with their peers, they have to make friends and get along with each other and they have to avoid being bullied at school. Bicultural families often want to take advantage of  their cross-cultural environment. A proficient language skill can be potentially useful for college entry and for future career prospects.

 

 Of course one of the most agonizing issues for parents in Japan is whether the kids will ever be able to acquire a second language.In many multicualtural communities ( Switzerland and Singapore ... ) , it is often taken for granted that you should learn to speak the language of your neighbors or at least to try to understand it . It may be a bit hard to find a reason to speak Japanese when you live in expat communities or to speak English when you live in rural areas where there is no native speaker of English. So there is need to find networks and resources that will work for you.

 

 There is also need to find  a practical or pragmatic approach to language learning. If kids need to learn something, they will automatically.So, what you have to do is to create the necessity for learning and to facilitate the learning process. As one of the issues , when they were growing up, there are periods of time they want more to learn a preferred language, or there may be times when vocabulary is mixed up between the languages during the learning process. What we think is the most important things is to focus on the kids' enjoyment and exposure to the preferred languages.

 

Having said that, the mastery of any language requires hard work , motivation and concentration. Also, the parents have to search for materials, books, resources, tutors or club activities that are enjoyable and suitable for the kids.

 

 

 

Procedure/Method

 

Yuki is supposed to ask her friends who are returnees about how they acquired English or how they feel about English acquisition. What classes did they take and what kind of materials did they use at the language school ? How much do the friends think what they did was effective for English acqusition ? How much were they immersed in the environment where they lived using and learning English ? What it was like to live and learn English during the critical period ?

 

We will use these questionnaires to consider how much advantages returnees have to become bilinguals and to find out what we ordinary nonnative Engish learners have to do to become bilinguals. ( language aquisition at an early age / language acquisition after critical period )

 

To find out how bilinguals actually become “bilinguals”, I asked several questions to some of my friends (ABCDE),who spent their early childhood in English speaking countries.  The questions were;

 

①When did you go to English speaking country, and how long did you stay there?

②What kind of studies did you do in order to acquire English?

③When and in what occasion did you feel that you had learned English?

④What kind of influence did you have by living two different clutures?

 

 For the question #①, almost all of them went to the United States when they were in a “critical period”, which a child can easily acquire any language that he or she is regularly esposed to.  Before then, they didn’t take any English lessons in their elementary school in Japan, that is to say they couldn’t read, write, understand any English.  In addition, they were halfway through learning their native language, so their Japanese were also imperfect.  All of them stayed there for about more than five years, then came back to Japan.

 

 For the question #②, almost all of them said they didn’t do anything to acquire English.  Some of them took “ESL” (English Second Language) class first, but all of their lessons were in English.  In there, they played some easy games (for example "Guess Who?" which teacher read the clue and students answer) and cards in order to memorise English phrases and idioms.  Also, teachers gave them books to read by their levels and they enjoyed learning Enlgish.  So, it seems that they actually studied English without recognizing that they were studing English.  All of them went to regular school, took classes in English with other English native speakers, talked with friends in English, and did their homeworks in English.  From these comments, it can be said that they had to use and acquire English in order to live in the United States. 

 

 For the question #③, most of them are not sure about when they actually acquired English.  Some people said they become enable to understand what other people were saying in one or two years. And they were enable to write and speak what they wanted to express theirselves about in three years.  The most interesting answer was that they felt they really acquired English when they came back to Japan.  They took tests,and found out that they could do better than other Japanese students who grew up and never been to outside of Japan.  I think this is because bilinguals acquired English so naturally that they had no time to realise their English abilities. 

 

 For the question #④, there were mainly two answers; personality change and language proplem.  First of all, almost all people said that their way of thinking changed and they become enable to make their opinion more clearly.  This is because the United States is “Multiracial society”, which means there are many different cultures and people than in Japan.  So, they could obtaine various stimulation more easily then people in Japan.  For language problem, they said that they confused when they had to say “yes” or “no”, and when they wanted to say some phrases (for example “excuse me” or “bless you”) which are not in Japanese.

 

Results/Data

 

Tamao ( a returnee ) will analyze the data comparing what Yuki did for the report with what Tamao has to say about it. 

 

 

Comparing Yuki's resource with my personal experience been in Australia for quite some time, I've come across with the thought of one thing we all have in common. (For those what are called bilinguals including Yuki, her friends and myself.) In terms of learning English in English speaking countries, simply we learned it without actually realizing. The environment surrounded us is the key.

Though we learned English also in schools, to be more fluent in speaking, writing, and reading in English needed native speakers to help us with; friends, teachers and so on.

Personally, I think exactly when I started speaking English was when I was needed to speak; buying stuff by myself or going out alone, or even asking questions to teachers at school. If I wasn't needed to speak, then I wouldn't be able to say more than "Hi, how are you?" at this stage.

As mentioned in Yuki's survey result, I went to language school for a year before entering high school because I was really hopeless with English. So, even just to get a touch of how to speak/write/read English, I needed to go there. Because Australia is known as one of the best countries to study English, I met so many young learners from different countries in language school, mainly Asian people like China, Thai, Indonesia, Hong Kong and  Japan too. This was the time when I realized how much fun to communicate with people from different countries through English.

 

Advantages and disadvantages of English acquisition at an earlier age

 

Yoji's opinions ⇒ one of the things that I think is most important is to let the kids just have fun. Because If you force the kids to learn English against their wills, they will get stressed out because of some lessons or exercises.As many researches show, there are some conlusions that young kids don't have to start learning English at such an early age. Let me be a little bit more specific about it. I would say, you could improve your English abilities starting from relatively later period, I mean, it would be more effective to start learning English at the age of 10 rather than 5.

For example, if parents or teachers are not so good English speakers, and if communication in English is imperfect, it can backfire.I think such wrong educations can cripple the kids' emotional and intellectual development. We have to consider those possibilities carefully.

 

Yuki's opinions ⇒I think advantage is that not only they can acquire Engligh more easily then adults, but also they can easily experience two different cultures without any difficulties.  To say "she is bilingual", she have to familiar with her own culture and another culture.  However, if you grew in one culture for long time, it will be hard to adapt to another culture.  Children have environment adaptation power from the adults, so I think kids can be bilingual more easily than adults.

For disadvantage, there are possibility of mixing two different cultures and languages.  Actually, I heard some bilinguals having language problem when they came back to Japan.  So if you grew up in foreign country and had to come back to your own country, you may confuse between two different cultures.      

 

Tamao's opinions ⇒I agree with Yuki's opinion. Children easily get used to whatever the thing they are facing in terms of the environment, especially. That's probably the reason why they speak so much better than their parents do. They also make friends without any hesitations, and that helps them learn faster.

On the other hand though, I am concerned that those children might have prpblems if they decided to live in a country that's totally different to the one they used to live in, because it doesn't mean that all kids are able to speak two different languages at the same time. There is a high possibility that they only speak one language but not the other.

 

 

Advantages and disadvantages of English acquisition after the critical period 

 

 Yoji's opinions ⇒ In general, even people in Japan who have high level of English ablilities won't say they are bilinguals, but as Steve McCarty says they are already bilinguals. The thing is, unlike returnees who acqired English as kids, we have to keep learning to brush up or to maintain our English skills. That's the harsh reality facing us. Although many ordinary English learners say that they want to be bilinguals, of course extraordinary efforts and high motivation are musts. We have to have conviction and sense of purpose. That's one of the most common disadvantages that ordinary English learners go through.

 

Yuki's opinions ⇒I think advantage is that you can learn standard English.  For example, it is said that Japanese are very good at grammer, but bilinguals are not good at it because they acquired English in sense.  I heard some bilinguals said when they took English tests in Japan, they couldn't do good at it. For disadvantage, I think they have little chance to experience different culture and it makes more difficult to be bilingual.   

 

Tamao's opinions ⇒I think the good point about acquiring English after the critical period is that they know English. I mean, they learn it from the very simple things like how a sentence in English is structured to the difficult bit. So, in a way, they are much better in writing than the ones who acquired Enlish at an early age. They seemed to have much vocabularies than them.

Though they might be better in writing, they don't seem to speak well in English or to think in English.  This is because they grew up in a country where their first language isn't English. In other words, they hardly use English in their everyday life. From my own point of view, they seem to think a lot before thay actually talk to English speakers, not to make any gramatic mistakes.

 

Conclusion

 

①　What you have to do to become a bilingual 

 

                                                       ◇ From returnees' point of view ◇

 

• To live different country and culture. (By doing this, you will get a chance to meet and speak with people from other culture. Also, this helps you to know other culture as well.)  
• To take other culture and don't forget your own culture at the same time.
•   Keep it in your mind that you have an ability to speak 2 different languages and not to forget both. Always have a high motivation. 

 (You can add anything you come up with to this space at your service ! )

 

                                ◇ From the point of view of English learners in Japan ◇

 

• clear sense of purpose , high motivation, extraordinary efforts, setting step-by-step goals, confidence to get things done

 

→ Because unlike returnees who have the advantage of environment where they were exposed to English during the critical period, English learners in Japan have to find ways that are equivalent to the advantage that returnees have. As you all know, broadband Internet is here to stay, so there is no way you could miss that kind of a yummy goody.  Other alternatives would be to attend some English conversation school where you can learn interactive communication with native speakers,and would be to go to unversity and take lots of native speakers' classes as much as you can.

 

 

 

 

 

②　What is what we call " perfect bilingual " ?

 

 

 From our point of view, so-called "bilingual" is someone who can speak two languages fluently and who can translate their mother tongue into the foreign language and vice versa, on the other hand, what we call  perfect bilingual is someone who can speak a foreign language exactly at the same level as native speakers of it without any mistakes in terms of grammar and nuance in meaning, you know, no practical gap between both speakers in terms of the language ability. That’s what we think is the definition of the "perfect bilingual".

 

③　quality and quantity

 

On the part of returnees: ① They have the advantage of environment where they can immerse themselves in English when they are kids, so the  amount and opportunities that they can speak and listen to English is overwhelming .(quantity)

② Having said that, They only took  minimum necessary amount of English learning to do well in the class and the country, but what they learned is the real thing, so it's dense. (quality)

③ Lots of Japanese people might think that returnees just lived in English speaking countries when they were growing up, but that's a huge mistake. They had clear sense of purpose to fit in with their friends and get along with them and get things done in school. As I said many times , if you don't have conviction, clear sense of purpose and high motivation, you can't be able to become a bilingual, no matter how many years you learn English without such essential motives. As the saying goes, easier said than done.

 

On the part of ordinary English learners in Japan:

 

① We ordinary Japanese English learners usually don't have the environment where we can have interactive communication in English , unless we attend school, whether it's elementary school or university. ( quantity )

② We ordinary Japanese English learners only live in one country, so given the quality we can dedicate ourselves to, learning materials we can use are very limited. We might end up choosing study books for exams or just one of those textbooks that teachers in school use for class. As we talked about the article written by Taguchi , the way teachers do in the class for improvement of communicative ability of students is not effective. ( quality )

Therefore, I'd like to suggest a way to improve the quality matter. The Internet. As I mentioned it many times, the Internet gives you lots of advantages to learn the real thing that you can't learn with textbooks such as often used useful expressions or collocation that native speakers use in their daily lives as common things. It is fair to say that it's an era of Internet !

 

 

 

 

References

 

http://www.waoe.org/steve/jtheory.html

http://www.kidsource.com/ASHA/bilingual.html , http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Bilingual-Children.htm

http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/myth.html

http://lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-biling.cfm

 

 

 Appendix