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I
recently saw a news spot on local TV featuring an elementary school classroom
where the children were playing games and talking to each other in English.
Adults who were interviewed, however, said that the students were not actually
being “taught” English. They were “working on communication skills.”
Interesting. That’s like saying that those people on the food programs who are
gobbling away and gasping “Oishii!” as if they haven’t had a meal in days
are not “eating.” They are “experimenting with food.” Whatever. It
looked like English learning to me! I continue to be amazed at the number of
people who believe that learning English (or any other language) at a young age
will be detrimental to a child’s learning of Japanese.
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I
have never seen research or examples to support this hypothesis, but there is
plenty of research that points to the fact that early acquisition of a second
language is possible, fairly painless, and makes children more aware of
languages in general, including their own. A child’s capacity for learning
language is innate and no one has established that a single language is the
limit. None of the Japanese-English bilingual children I know (including my own)
show poor development in Japanese or exhibit severe language problems not
experienced by children who speak only Japanese.
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English Academy