Last summer, I wrote in a post about the multi-lingual education in our family: “If we cannot travel to other countries for another year, and Alicia missed the kindergarten cutoff date by being just a few days younger, I think we better use this year to learn something new. Learning other languages seems to be an easy, though unsatisfying compensation for not being able to travel.”
Today I attended my daughter’s graduation from the Japanese preschool! I think I was more excited as the parent witnessing her child’s first graduation than my daughter herself who was experiencing the first graduation in her life. I was excited because I had been looking forward to this day for a long time so that I could say to my daughter and myself: We made it! I felt such a relief because there were days that were so tough, days that she hated going there and I doubted my decision to send her to a Japanese preschool. But the most I felt was the pride for her. As the only child who joined the preschool with almost zero knowledge of Japanese, whose parents are not Japanese and can not speak Japanese, I couldn’t imagine how it felt to be in that Japanese-only preschool during the beginning months. Yes I believed and am still believing that children learn a new language pretty fast, but this don’ts mean that it is not difficult at all, especially for a 5-year-old child compared to an infant or a toddler. She had no chance to practice what she learned at the preschool, because we don’t speak Japanese in the house, and there’s no social environment either. We tried our best to arrange play dates with her Japanese class mates, but we, or at least I, could only communicate in English. I felt bad about it, so I finally started to learn Japanese by myself a few months ago. I made some progress and had some “ah-ha” moments, but it was a really slow process. At least I could read some Japanese and practice the graduation songs with her. As it says that it takes a whole village to raise children, and that definitely includes the part of language learning. It will never work if the child is the only person in the family learning the language, and it will probably not last long if the child speaks the language only within the family. It needs to be a community, if not a society. But that all depends on your goal. Do you want your children to master that language, or are you fine with exposing him/her to the language and culture without mastering but probably kindling a lifelong interest that s/he can explore on her own at adulthood? After a year’s journey of learning Japanese, my daughter will start kindergarten in the local English public school. Her Japanese is far from fluent and we probably will not continue any Japanese learning, but this year of adventure has surely taught my daughter and myself many things that will unfold further as time rolls by. I might continue my self-study of Japanese. The little brother has also picked up some Japanese as he listens to and watches his big sister with a strong interest. And we will definitely visit Japan again as soon as it opens to tourists.
0 Comments
|