AIZAWA, Keiichi / Japanisches Kulturinstitut Köln (Hg.)
Gemeinsame Herausforderungen
2023 · ISBN 978-3-86205-645-3 · 359 Seiten, kt. · EUR 28,
Japan ist eines der wenigen nicht-europäischen Länder, die mit Deutschland gemeinsame Werte und Herausforderungen, aber auch eine vergleichbare Modernisierungsgeschichte teilen. Umso aufschlussreicher erscheint die gemeinsame Suche nach Antworten auf dringende Fragen beider Gesellschaften. In diesem Sinne veranstalteten aus Anlass des Jubiläums „160 Jahre Freundschaft Japan – Deutschland“ das Japanische Kulturinstitut Köln, die Universität Bonn und die Universität zu Köln zweimal gemeinsam eine Ringvorlesung. In der ersten Reihe 2021 wurden konkrete Kooperationsprojekte vorgestellt, die demonstrierten, in wie vielen, vor allem naturwissenschaftlichen Bereichen auf vielfältige Weise gemeinsame Forschung betrieben wird. In der zweiten Reihe 2022 meldeten sich japanische Forscherinnen und Forscher direkt aus Japan auf Deutsch zu Wort und analysierten kritisch die Kultur und Gesellschaft Japans, speziell für das deutsche Publikum. Dieser Band bietet einen umfassenden Einblick in den aktuellen Stand des deutsch-japanischen Wissenschaftsaustauschs.
＊Junko MAJIMA(ed.),
Kazuko NAKAJIMA, Chiho SAKURAI, Chengzhi SUN, WURIGA, Tao YU
Emergent Bilinguals and Educational Challenges at Public Schools in JapanA longitudinal study of first and second-generation Chinese children’s bilingual proficiency
Osaka University Press. (ISBN:978-4-87259-742-4 C3037)
While the number of foreigners living in Japan continues to grow, as if riding the wave of globalization, the number of children whose mother tongue is not Japanese is increasing at Japanese schools. Unlike those who came to Japan after completing their language development, in other words, after mastering their first language and cognitive development in their home countries, “second-generation children” who were born in Japan or came to Japan at an early age are said to be very likely to lose their mother tongue due to the struggle between their mother tongue and the local language.
Language education for “children who need Japanese language instruction” is an urgent issue in Japan’s language education policy, and “children for whom Japanese is not their mother tongue” have been referred to as “children with foreign roots” or “foreign children,” often with the negative connotation of being “problematic,” for a long time. In this book, we refer to them as “CLD children”(Culturally Linguistically Diverse Children) following Cummins (2011), and CLD children are described positively as “children who can speak Chinese (or whichever language is their mother tongue),” for example, in reference to the language that is being nurtured at home. However, rather than being referred to positively as “children who can speak Chinese,” CLD children are too often cast as “children who cannot speak Japanese” or “problems” which might disrupt the“harmony” or homogeneity of Japanese society.
＊Majima, J. (Ed.), Sakurai, C., Nakajima, K., Wuriga, Sun, C., Tomozawa, A., Yu, T., Shimizu, M., and Kondo, M. (2019) Is Teaching Japanese without Losing One’s Mother Tongue Possible? -Bilingual Proficiency among Second Generation Immigrant Children, Osaka University Press. (ISBN: 9784872596175)
This book argues the importance of supporting and developing mother tongue, or home language, of the immigrant children in Japan. Whether or not they can develop or maintain their mother tongue has serious impacts not only on their acquisition of the local language, Japanese in this case, but also on developing self-esteem and sound identity, and on the relationship with their parents. Series of longitudinal empirical research of both qualitative and quantitative natures were conducted at a couple of public elementary schools in Osaka Prefecture for as long as a decade. One school locates in the neighborhood of the returnees’ community from China and thus about twenty percent of the pupils of the school speak Chinese at home, and in another school there are just a few pupils from Viet Nam, with their mother tongue almost neglected. Based on the longitudinal research evidence and teaching practices, the authors present positive results of such Culturally Linguistically Diverse pupils (CLD pupils; Cummins 2011) both academically and psychologically. We argue that it is certainly possible to teach CLD pupils Japanese without losing their mother tongue and help them become bilingual and assets of the Japanese society. This is the first research of its kind in Japan to assess bilingual proficiency among immigrant children, in Japanese language and in their mother tongue, Chinese or Vietnamese.
＊Majima, J. and Sakurai, C. (Forthcoming) A Longitudinal Study of Emergent Bilinguals among Chinese Pupils at a Japanese Public School:A focus on language policies and inclusion. In Mary, L., Krüger, A-B., and Young, A. (Eds.) Migration, Multilingualism and Education: Critical Perspectives on Inclusion, Multilingual Matters. 93-1
Abstract
This chapter presents data from a longitudinal study undertaken in a public elementary school, where more than 20 % of the pupils are Chinese in Osaka, Japan. We first explain the background history and the situation of “immigrants” in the Japanese society, then the brief history of “Newcomers” in Japan for the last several decades to show the context of such public schools as our research site. We then discuss the policies implemented on education for the foreign pupils, or the Culturally Linguistically Diverse (CLD) pupils (Cummins, 2011) for the last three decades by the Ministry of Education (MEXT) to cope with the increasing number of pupils who need supports of Japanese as a Second Language. Because culturally linguistically heterogeneous classrooms are only recently recognized phenomena in Japan, equitable and inclusive education with minority pupils is not yet fully discussed or researched. The educational language policies and practices have been commonly the “submersion” model from the assimilationist view of Japanese language teaching, overlooking or ignoring the importance of the mother tongue or home language of the pupils.
Through our research, we have observed the school climate changed from rather perplexed, confused, bewildered and at times upsetting one to more inclusive atmosphere. The school principal and teachers provided varieties of new attempts and practices over the years to improve teachers’ attitudes, school activities, and ways of involving parents. With this background in mind, we reported our empirical study on bilingual development of Chinese CLD pupils at the school. Five-year assessment data in two languages of Chinese pupils showed their development of becoming emergent bilingual Chinese speakers. Despite the fact that Chinese is not formally taught, the inclusive policies, multicultural practices and encouraging attitudes seem to have the pupils filled with high self-esteem and helped to become emergent bilingual with positive attitude towards their identity.