RAISING CHILDREN AS BILINGUALS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF EIGHT INTERNATIONAL FAMILIES IN JAPAN

Abstract

Eight families with Japanese mothers and English-speaking fathers were followed from the 1990s to 2007 as they strove to raise their children as bilinguals. The issues that were investigated were: (1) the language environments afforded; (2) factors influencing family decisions in creating those language environments; and, (3) conclusions about the efficacy of different language environments for raising bilingual children. Parental sacrifice was evident. Some mothers suppressed their native Japanese language and culture as they tried to afford their children solid backgrounds in what they considered a high-prestige language (English), while some fathers changed jobs in order to spend more time at home. Some families also moved in order to be near desirable schools. An optimal English environment at home was the key to success. Fathers spent quality time with their children every day, reading English books, doing homework together, talking about school activities, and reading bedtime stories. Families provided children with many English videos, DVDs, and other audiovisual sources. Summer travel to the father's country for summer camps and other enjoyable activities, especially spending time with English-speaking cousins, promoted positive images of English language and culture. Mothers faced issues of identity, power relations, and gender roles. The mothers' own experiences of learning English played a crucial role in the choices they made in raising their children as bilinguals. Typically, power relations between husbands and wives were determined by the wives' self-perception of being subordinate to their husbands. The results indicated that different theories of bilingual child-raising, no matter how stringently followed, did not seem to matter; what mattered was balancing the time the child spent with each parent. Usually before parents expected it, the child's own identity asserted itself in the pursuit of particular language environments, and progress toward fluency was sometimes erratic, as in the case of one boy whose development in both languages appeared to be delayed but who later was viewed as having native-speaker proficiency in both languages. Overall, more important than any particular method or theory, sustained sincere efforts and flexibility can produce bilingual children.