Keeping your home language (including English) while your child is in a Japanese school

Japanese schools call the language your child speaks at home the 母語 (bogo, mother tongue) and the culture that goes with it 母文化 (bobunka). When a child grows up in Japan, that language becomes a 継承語 (keishōgo, heritage language): something inherited rather than lived in all day. MEXT's handbook for schools receiving foreign children says what schools should do about it, and it is less than most families expect.

What MEXT tells schools

The handbook treats learning Japanese as compulsory for school and the home language as important alongside it, then warns how hard both is:

日本の学校で学ぶために日本語を身に付けることが必須となり、あわせて保護者や本人の母語を身に付けることも重要となります。その両方の言語に同等に堪能になることが理想ですが、それは非常に困難です。

It tells schools to respect the home language while delivering learning in Japanese:

学校は、児童生徒の母語、母文化を尊重しながらも、児童生徒と保護者の期待に応えるように、この時期の学習を保障する様々な努力をしていくことが大切です。

And the only concrete instruction on teaching it puts it outside lessons:

学校でも、課外において、児童生徒の母語、母文化にかかわるものとして「継承語」という位置付けでそれを尊重し、習得を援助することが望まれます。

Finally, the handbook asks schools to help children feel proud of their origins: 自分の母語、母文化、母国に対して誇りを持って生きられるような配慮が必要となります。

What a public school will and will not do

Will: teach Japanese as a special curriculum, decided by the principal (see Japanese-language lessons at a public school); greet your child in their language on day one (the handbook suggests 母語と日本語、両方の挨拶で迎える); and, where staff can, assess your child in the home language. MEXT's DLA assessment has a mother-tongue version in Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Spanish, English, Nepali and Russian. Some boards list mother-tongue volunteers; Yokohama's does.

Will not: teach your language, run a bilingual class, or adjust the English lessons to a child who already speaks English. Families report their English-speaking child is bored in English class or used as the teacher's helper. Note the handbook's statistic: about 80 percent of foreign children needing Japanese support speak Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino or Spanish at home. An English-first family is unusual, and the school's "home language" experience is often not with English.

The trap: both languages look fine

The handbook's own warning to teachers describes the trap exactly:

多くの保護者は、様々な生活場面で、子供が母語と日本語を使い分けて話している様子を見て、両方の言語力が十分育っている、と認識しがちである。

It goes on that such a child often has not reached, in either language, the level needed to build school knowledge, and that parents find out at 進学 time and are shocked. It also notes that children who arrive young tend to forget the home language, and that talking to their own parents then becomes hard.

A separate point from the DLA material: a concept learned in one language transfers to the other (its example is "global warming" in Portuguese helping the Japanese word). Dropping the home language to "make room" for Japanese does not help the Japanese.

Why it matters later

The routes that reward a kept-up language are concrete.

• Returnee and international entry at private junior highs (帰国生入試, 国際生入試): see Toho Girls' returnee entry, Keimei's international entry and the main junior-high routes.
• Mid-year transfer rounds: one Tokyo girls' school's transfer exam this December sets no English paper at all, converts an Eiken grade into the English score, and requires Eiken 準2級 (junior high) or 2級 (high school) to apply. See transferring into private mid-year.
• Eiken as the marker schools read: Eiken dates and fees.

The paper trail matters as much as the skill: transfer and returnee rounds ask for report cards from the previous school, with a translation if not in Japanese or English. Keep every report, in every language.

What families do

None of this is on an official page; it is what families report works.

• Keep the home language at home. This is also the handbook's advice to parents: 家庭では、子供と母語で多くの会話をすることを勧める。
• Read aloud and keep a reading log in the home language; reading is the skill that stalls first once school is in Japanese.
• A Saturday school or an online school in the home language, usually private and priced by the provider.
• Ask the ward's 国際交流協会 or an NPO whether a 母語教室 exists.
• Plan the exam routes by grade 4 so the language has a target.

What to say at school

At the 面談 (mendan, parent-teacher meeting):

家では英語で話しています。日本語の学習と両立させたいので、学校でできる配慮があれば教えてください。

To ask for assessment in the home language:

母語でのＤＬＡは実施できますか。

Tell the school your child reads and writes in the home language; the handbook's intake sheet has a line for 家庭内使用言語.

What it costs

The school's Japanese support has no fee on the pages read. Weekend and online programmes are private; ask for the 料金表 (fee table).

What goes wrong

• The "both languages are fine" illusion until grade 6.
• The school English class is treated as the plan.
• The home language is dropped to help Japanese, and neither grows.
• A returnee or international route is attempted with no reports, no Eiken grade and no reading record.

What to do now

1. Decide which language is the home language and keep it there, daily.
2. Start a reading log and a folder of every report card.
3. Ask the 担任 whether the DLA can be run in your language.
4. Look at the routes above and pick a grade to aim at.
5. Price one weekend or online option before you need it.