My grandson attends a public school in Fairfax
County, Virginia, USA, and is enrolled in a Japanese language partial-immersion
program. There it is possible for children to enter an immersion program from
the first grade in Spanish, French, German, or Japanese. The school system
believes in the great benefits of language immersion not only for language
learning, but for its positive effects giving students greater flexibility in
thinking, greater sensitivity to language, and improved listening skills. My
grandson generally spends half the day with one teacher learning Language Arts
and Social Studies in English, and the other half with a fluent
Japanese-speaking teacher, learning Math and Science in Japanese. He does not
really “study” Japanese; grammar is not explicitly taught, for example. On
the other hand, how to communicate what he is thinking, feeling and observing in
Japanese is a part of every day’s curriculum. He has been in the program since
early September – about 3 months’ time.
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When I visited my daughter’s family last
week I was surprised to find my grandson had learned an amazing amount in that
very short time. In a telephone call to his grandfather here in Japan he sang a
number of traditional Japanese children’s songs and his grandfather was
surprised both by his proficiency and that he learned this all at a public
school! The only unusual thing was that the words to “Genkotsu yama no
takuki-san” had been changed to protect American sensibilities. That is, the
tanuki drinks “mi-ru-ku” and not an “oppai!” My grandson pronounced the
word milk in perfect “Japanese.”
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