Developing English-Japanese Biliteracy (Mary Goebel Noguchi)
Families raising children with two languages as different as Japanese and English may wonder about what level of competency in each language they should be shooting for. Should they aim for complete mastery of all four skills in both languages—or set more modest goals, such as high levels of competency in all four skills in one of the languages and just oral proficiency in the other?
Drawing on a wide range of research on bilingualism, including her own studies on raising bilingual children in Japan, the presenter will provide a rationale for developing literacy in both of a bilingual’s languages and then go on to offer some suggestions on how parents can help their children develop literacy skills in both English and Japanese.
Interaction in Bilingual Communities (Tim Greer)
Bilingual children, by definition, can and do speak two languages, so it should come as no surprise that they sometimes use both of their languages in the same conversation. However this can also be a matter of concern for their parents, many of whom were raised monolingually. Drawing on a corpus of video-recorded naturally-occurring bilingual conversations, this session will focus on some of the socio-interactional functions of codeswitching and demonstrate how bilingual people can use it to express certain aspects of their identities. The discussion will invite parents to consider when and whether bilingual interaction is appropriate, and what (if any) effect it has on the acquisition of two or more languages. An optional barbecue will follow at 2000 yen for adults, 1000 yen for children 12 and under, free for kids 4 years and under. Limited childcare will be provided. Email Shirley Ando at kobejalt@gmail.com no later than Sunday, May 31th. to reserve the bbq and/or childcare.
