Opening a Japanese Saturday school in a small town in the United States: Community collaboration to teach Japanese as a heritage language

Bilingual Research Journal, Fall 2000 by Shibata, Setsue

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of how immigrant parents from Japan can pass on their native language, Japanese, to their children in a location where ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) is low. The case study is an overview of an opening of a Saturday school to teach Japanese as a heritage language. The school is located in a small town in the northeastern region of the United States. Its background, curriculum, and community support, as well as parents' efforts, are described. It is obvious that Saturday schools are one of the most effective ways to teach children a heritage language, since parents' efforts, patience, and resources are limited. Cooperation among parents and community support are essential. The school became not only a place to teach the language, but also a center for the ethnic group to share their values and identity, which were passed on to the next generation in the small community. Factors that contributed to the success of the Saturday school are also discussed.

Introduction

Generally speaking, bilingual education was looked upon negatively until the 1960s, but recent research has indicated many positive and advantageous aspects of bilingualism. The development of heritage language has been found to be positively related to the development of the language of the dominant group (English in most of the studies) and overall academic success (Cummins & Nakajima, 1987; Fernandez & Nielsen, 1986; Nakajima, 1988; Nielsen & Lerner, 1986; Oketani, 1997; Ono, 1989), to concept formation (Peal & Lambert, 1962) and even to visual-spatial abilities (Hakuta & Diaz, 1985). Fluency in a heritage language was also positively related to psychological well-being, including self-esteem, more ambitious plans for the future and self confidence (Huang, 1995; Garcia, 1985) and to positive socio-psychological attitudes towards the speakers' ethnicity and multiculturalism (Oketani, 1997). From the society's point of view, bilingual and multilingual abilities will become increasingly important for a diverse population in the United States, as evidenced by the statements of Cummins and Danesi (1990), "linguistic resources are economic resources" (p. 77), and Krashen, "Heritage language speakers could be an important natural resource; nurturing and developing heritage languages may be a good thing for the economy and the balance of trade" (1998, p. 7).

Aside from these scholastic and practical issues, it is natural for most parents who speak a minority language in the United States as their mother tongue, to want to pass their language on to their children, irrespective of the debates of scholars. According to Noro (1997), who conducted surveys in Canada, there are six main reasons for the first generation of Japanese to teach their native language to their children: (a) to communicate with their children, (b) to preserve parental authority, (c) to have pride in their Japanese ethnicity, (d) to understand both cultures, (e) to have an advantage for a future career, and (f) to communicate with relatives and people in Japan. Ultimately, the children will choose which language will be spoken at home in their own families when they grow up, but at the very least they should be informed as to why their parents want them to pass on their language, and they should be provided the environment in which to study the language when they are children.

However, it is not easy to provide an ideal environment to raise additive bilingual children in the United States. While both the United States and Canada are multi-cultural countries, they are different in their attitudes toward and policies in governing heritage language education. In the United States, bilingual education is aimed at smoothly shifting the minority language to English in order for second-language speakers to become members of society as soon as possible. English as a second language (ESL) classes are offered for this reason, and the children are expected to shift to English as quickly as possible so that they can be transferred into the regular classes to be with their native English-speaking classmates. Therefore, one of the major concerns of parents and ESL teachers is how soon children can transfer out of ESL classes and be accepted into regular classes. This even becomes a competition among parents of the children in ESL programs. Very often parents of children in ESL are advised by inexperienced teachers to encourage their children to use English at home to help their children's English proficiency. This encourages the children's language shift to English and the loss of their heritage language. The emphasis has been placed on the improvement of their English skills, often at the expense of their native language skills (Draper & Hicks, 2000, p. 15). In Canada, on the other hand, language policy and perspectives toward heritage language education are quite different from those in the United States. Heritage language is encouraged and maintained, and the government establishes heritage language policy, although the policy differs slightly from state to state. The purpose of heritage language education in Ontario, Canada, for example, aims to promote the values of one's inherited language and culture, to promote communication with parents and children as well as the family and the community, and to prepare bilingual people to deal with a multi-cultural society. Therefore, in Canada, children can learn their heritage language in a formal educational setting, even in elementary schools (Nakajima, 1998). Language and culture inherited from parents is a part of children's personal values and unique characteristics, and people who understand their heritage languages, in addition to English (and/or French), are considered to be an asset to the country in Canada. In the United States, however, maintaining a heritage language is totally the family's responsibility under the present educational system. Whether the children become bilingual or not is primarily dependant on the parents' decision and enthusiasm.