Discussion with international student

Yesterday I had a discussion with an international student that I thought that I would blog about. After class was over he asked me some questions about what we were discussing in class and about some problems that came up in a book that he is using on his own to learn English with. He is from China, a part of the country that borders Korea, so he is bilingual in Mandarin and Korean, because those are the languages that are used where he grew up. On top of that he studied enough Japanese to get into this university, and is now bent on learning English. He claimed that he came to this university in order to study English because the student to teacher ratio is good, especially for English.

I mentioned that he would be a valuable asset to any company now with his Chinese, Korean and Japanese ability. He said that he was happy to know those languages, but without English it didn't mean much. I was a little incredulous, and he said, "Japanese is a minor language. There aren't that many people who use it, and they all live here. Look at English. I can use that where ever I go." He is right, of course.

We discussed the competitive nature of new Chinese companies and how important it is to have English ability to get into a position in a good company, and that even with the English program that we have in this program, it won't do for the student who really wants to master the language. That they will have to do on their own, and with the teaching staff here as long as he attends this university.

It was very enjoyable to talk with such a motivated student. I hope some of that wears off on some of the others in his class.

English Club Web Page

The Yokkaichi University English Club finally has a web site. I have been trying to encourage the students to come up with their own. Then one student said that she would. She didn't do it, so eventually Shoko had to. She is the other club advisor.

Raising multilingual children

I recently published a paper on multilingualism. It was fun to write the paper. I thought I would include a couple of the better sources that I found while writing the paper.

There are all kinds of worries out there for teachers and parents. The children don't seem to be worried though. They are bilingual and loving it.

Baker, Colin (2000) A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters LTD.

Tokuhama-Espinosa, Tracy (2001) Raising Multilingual Children: Foreign Langauge Acquisition and Children, Westport: Bergin & Garvey.

Great guides for parents raising multilingual/multicultural children.

The Thurday show at the city English class

As I have blogged before, every once in a while I go to help a teacher friend of mine who teaches a class for the city. The students are all retired folks who come to learn English for a variety of reasons. Some of them are interested in traveling. Several of them have relatives overseas. One woman has a daughter, her husband and children in California. Another woman will soon has her son and his family in New York.

One woman was curious about her grandchildren becoming bilingual. She was worried that if they lived in the US that they would never be able to speak Japanese. One person asked what I ate everyday when I was in the US and now that I live here.

None of that is very unusual, but what was surprising was some mail that I got from the regular teacher of the class who said that one student skipped because, "They hadn't learned enough English to talk to a foreigner." My answer to the teacher follows.

I am a little confused by the member who did not attend the class, who
said that their English was not good enough to talk with foreigners.
First, I am bothered by the importance that my nationality has for this
person. Regardless of people's nationality, making links with other
humans is a great way to spend a couple of hours on a rainy Thursday
afternoon. As for their ability to speak English, if a learner does not
make the most of every opportunity they have to use the limited ability
that they have, they will not improve. Finally, my Japanese is fine, and
if the person really wants to communitcate, I'm sure we could have made
some kinds of arrangements for translation.

Generally a good time, though. We had some great homemade cake and a good discussion.