Simon in Nagoya, Japan

Hello,

How are you all? It has been fun reading everyone's introductions and to see some of the shared goals and worries that we all have.

Let me introduce myself, I am Simon from near Birmingham England, I turned 40 last year! Oh no. I teach full time at a High School in Nagoya central Japan and I have worked at the same school for 8 years, 5 years as a full time teacher. I enjoy it a lot.

My wife is Japanese, Tomoko, and she is a full time mum. We have 2 children, my son is 4.5 and is in his second year at kinders. My daughter is 2.5 and will start Kinders next year in April.

Every day I try to get home before bath time so we can talk, play, sing and read in English. Sometimes I am too late. But often I make it in time. So much of their day is in Japanese that even though I return home tired I try to make the time we have before bed time "English" time. If I am honest though their Japanese is better than their English. But they can understand me and they do talk to me in English. My son does surprise me sometimes with the words he uses, recently he used the words connecting, supporting and popular, all correctly, clearly understanding the meanings. My son can read hiragana and some katakana, he knows his English alphabet as well, but can't read English yet. I am trying to do more work on phonics, when he sits still. My daughter enjoys reading short books and doing flashcards with me.

When we are out with Japanese friends my son only speaks Japanese and I am trying to encourage him to use more English, Adam sent me some good ideas recently, thank you. So I will try them out. My daughter will talk in English when we are out and about and I hope that will carry on.

At home my wife uses mainly Japanese with the kids. I use just English. They usually talk to each other in Japanese, I am trying to encourage them to talk in English together. My wife and I talk in English together.

My dream is to help them speak, read and write to a high level in English. I hope my dream comes true.

Thank you Adam for all your great ideas and articles on your site.

Good luck to all of us on this long, fun and often hard journey.