Recently, more and more parents want their children to learn English. Some people say that as an early education, children from 0 years old can attend English conversation classes. Some people may ask you to listen to English music as a prenatal care before the baby is born.
However, bilingual education can fail if you are not careful. In particular, Japan is a country where there is no need to speak English, so no matter how much you want your children to learn English, their education may fail if you are not careful.
If so, what are the cases where bilingual education fails? Here, I would like to introduce a case where bilingual education fails as a teacher.
Bilingual education is pretty competitive for parents
Which schools they choose their kids to go
While various English classes are differentiating each other, even among parents with young children, the question is “Which English conversation class do you go to?”. There are a lot of points to compete, such as how good teachers are, how high teaching materials are used, and how much children are having fun.
When thinking about where to go to an English conversation class, it is important to know what teachers you have, what materials you use, and whether your children can enjoy them. However, these are important contents when choosing, “Because we are better teachers”, “Because we use better teaching materials”, “Because we use higher teaching materials” Is not a competitive material.
When parents say something like this, their children will have value instead of studying English. It ’s hard to say outside because I ’m using the higher teaching materials.
How much they succeed it?
As a parent, you will be happy if your child passes the Eiken exam. This is not limited to infants, but for example, “Our child is Eiken Grade 5” and “Our Child is Grade 4” should never be a competition.
As long as you are studying English, it is important that you get results. However, the purpose of studying English should not be good. For example, if you say to your child, “Neighborhood ◯◯-chan has passed Eiken Level 4! Do your best!”
Once I was a high school student and fell to Eiken level 1, the classmate who also fell to Eiken level 1 asked me “How many points did you fall by?” What is it from what point it fell? What has fallen has fallen, so it doesn’t matter how many points you take. Anyway, if you know for yourself and connect to the next step, there is no point that others will ask you.
Studying English itself may be the goal
Why English is important
I feel that there are many parents who are studying English for young children whose purpose is to make them study English. From now on, we need to learn English, Japan has to catch up with the world, and there are many people who can speak English overseas.
As I mentioned earlier, Japan is a country where you can live without speaking English. That’s why it is said that few people can speak English despite the fact that high-level English education has been conducted for many years. However, it seems that there is a lack of awareness of what they want to do by speaking English and what kind of person they want to become by speaking English.
They don’t teach kids the advantages of speaking English
For example, if you watch all of Disney and movies in Japanese and don’t use English on a daily basis, your child will think “why should I study English?” Rather than that, it is important to let people touch English on a daily basis, such as by showing Disney in English and listening to English music.
Getting used to Japanese already
Also, once kids watch Disney in Japanese, they will not try to watch in English as it’s easier to watch in Japanese. When I was little, it was still VHS, not DVD. My parents bought me a bilingual version of Aladdin saying “I can see it in English”, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in English. Naturally, the voices of English and Japanese will change, so if you get used to Japanese, there is a sense of discomfort and you cannot switch to English. I was able to see subtitled VHS without any discomfort …
In other words, the opposite is true, and once you get used to English, you cannot switch to Japanese. So when you show something to your child, it may be important to dare not to show it in Japanese.
They don’t think of communication skills
If you don’t have communication skills, English doesn’t work either
English is a language and a tool for communication. In other words, communication skills are indispensable for mastering English. In the first place, if you have problems such as being unable to speak with the eyes of a person in Japanese, or being too quiet, you will not be able to speak English no matter how much you study English. You may be able to say to yourself, but communication may be difficult.
If you want to make your child bilingual, you must develop your communication skills. It is important to have opportunities to talk with your parents and friends on a regular basis and interact with others.
They hate mistakes
When dealing with humans, people can make various mistakes. Even if you make a mistake, speak wrongly, or speak your native language, you make many mistakes. So if you speak English, you can think of it as a matter of course.
However, Japanese people have a strong tendency to hate mistakes. Whether it’s in Japanese or English, don’t laugh at the children’s language mistakes. Once a child is laughed and feels uncomfortable, never make that mistake again. In other words, you may never try to speak again in English. When I was young, my father often laughed at my mistakes so I stopped trying to speak English in front of my father. No one wants to laugh. Don’t be fooled by the fact that you don’t remember because you’re a child anyway. The child is sensitive.
However, as long as you try not to make any mistakes in English, it is impossible to improve your language. So if you want your kids to improve their English skills, don’t laugh at the mistakes.
Let them experience everything!!
If you want to have bilingual education, it is important to have various experiences on a daily basis.
I myself have such memories. One of the university entrance exams I took when I was in high school was a listening exam. The first problem was “What is the next fruit that is white and the same size as an apple?” The choices were peaches, cherries, bananas and grapes. I was confident that I heard the problem, and it is obvious that the answer is a peach. That’s because until then, I had eaten only canned orange peaches, and I didn’t realize that peaches were white. But in the first place, there are only peaches with the same size as apples, so did you choose peaches? At that time, I was impatient, “I understand English but don’t know the answer!”
So, if you want to give your child a bilingual education, try to give them a variety of experiences. For example, even on the television, you can study programs that you can learn. Learning to speak is very important when you study English.
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