English language ML family at a Japanese crossroads
Apr 3, 2018 21:24:12 GMT 9
Post by Julia on Apr 3, 2018 21:24:12 GMT 9
Hi everyone, I found this website and forum after reaching a crossroads today.
We're Americans presently living in Singapore. One of the reasons why we made the decision for my husband to take a temporary assignment here was because we learned about the presence of a yochien (special Japanese style preschool) in the area.
Adam, it's funny I'm only now finding out about your blog because my daughter was born in Iwakuni (go Carp!) and we just left last May. Unfortunately we left before she was yochien age although she had been attending hoikuen for about a year. Between that and kodomokan she was probably getting 15-20 hours of ml language exposure a week. Not enough considering my Japanese is piddling, but we wondered if it was starting to have some effect because the American pediatrician thought her English language was lagging behind enough to recommend further testing (we had her tested and the assessors said there was nothing wrong with her developmentally and attributed her subjective delay to being in a bilingual environment).
Anyway, we've had to jump through some real hurdles to get the yochien here in Singapore to accept us. This is largely due to my lack of Japanese and ability to perpetuate it at home, and how after just 11 months back in the States she has lost most of her Japanese. Until today I thought that getting her in the school was more of a bonus and as long as she had some ml media exposure she'd be able to pick up some basics. After the reluctance of the yochien to take us on and doing more research here I see that we need to commit to a minimum of 25 hours a week plus 15 minutes daily reading to have any kind of lasting impact.
So my husband and I had to have a big discussion about how far we want to go with this because it will require some serious time and money on our part since neither of us are ml fluent. Right now our plan is to go through with putting her in yochien (this will be for only about 4 months, however) until we return to the States. I discovered another immersion school about 1.5 hours away from where we live that will allow her to continue to hit the 25 hr/wk ml minimum, until we leave again in another year or so. Before today I would not have considered making that drive, but now I feel like I must because I cannot provide the hours at home.
We have reason to believe that there is a high chance we may end up next where there is a Japanese elementary school. Right now we are looking at a goal of trying to build up her proficiency to pass a kindergarten/5 year old entrance exam. If we also switch out all of her media to Japanese in addition to the 15 minutes a night reading and 25 hr/wk yochien, do you think this is a reasonable goal or are we reaching too far considering we're monolingual parents?
We're Americans presently living in Singapore. One of the reasons why we made the decision for my husband to take a temporary assignment here was because we learned about the presence of a yochien (special Japanese style preschool) in the area.
Adam, it's funny I'm only now finding out about your blog because my daughter was born in Iwakuni (go Carp!) and we just left last May. Unfortunately we left before she was yochien age although she had been attending hoikuen for about a year. Between that and kodomokan she was probably getting 15-20 hours of ml language exposure a week. Not enough considering my Japanese is piddling, but we wondered if it was starting to have some effect because the American pediatrician thought her English language was lagging behind enough to recommend further testing (we had her tested and the assessors said there was nothing wrong with her developmentally and attributed her subjective delay to being in a bilingual environment).
Anyway, we've had to jump through some real hurdles to get the yochien here in Singapore to accept us. This is largely due to my lack of Japanese and ability to perpetuate it at home, and how after just 11 months back in the States she has lost most of her Japanese. Until today I thought that getting her in the school was more of a bonus and as long as she had some ml media exposure she'd be able to pick up some basics. After the reluctance of the yochien to take us on and doing more research here I see that we need to commit to a minimum of 25 hours a week plus 15 minutes daily reading to have any kind of lasting impact.
So my husband and I had to have a big discussion about how far we want to go with this because it will require some serious time and money on our part since neither of us are ml fluent. Right now our plan is to go through with putting her in yochien (this will be for only about 4 months, however) until we return to the States. I discovered another immersion school about 1.5 hours away from where we live that will allow her to continue to hit the 25 hr/wk ml minimum, until we leave again in another year or so. Before today I would not have considered making that drive, but now I feel like I must because I cannot provide the hours at home.
We have reason to believe that there is a high chance we may end up next where there is a Japanese elementary school. Right now we are looking at a goal of trying to build up her proficiency to pass a kindergarten/5 year old entrance exam. If we also switch out all of her media to Japanese in addition to the 15 minutes a night reading and 25 hr/wk yochien, do you think this is a reasonable goal or are we reaching too far considering we're monolingual parents?
