Pitfalls of raising a bilingual child: Part 1

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my wife and I are raising our child to be bilingual. Our goal is to have him fluent in both Japanese and English. I suppose this makes sense since I am Canadian and my wife is Japanese.

Long story short, our current method is pretty straightforward. My wife speaks to my 2 year 5 month old son in Japanese and I speak to him in English. His L1 (first language) is Japanese since we do live in Japan and he is immersed in the language on a daily basis. His L2 (second language) is English. He does hear some English throughout the day by watching DVDs of American and Canadian children’s programs and my wife is teaching him during the day, but his time with a native English speaker on a day-to-day basis is relatively limited. I am of course referring to myself and because of my work/commute schedule only get to spend a few hours a day with him.

I plan to describe the nuts and bolts of what we do to help his language develop in future posts, but today I want to talk about something that is a little amusing and something that parents raising any child, not necessarily a bilingual one will probably face.

I learned two important lessons this week:

 1. Apparently I swear on occasion (use words that aren’t so nice) and am not even aware of it.

 2. My child’s language development is exploding and he has become a parrot. He repeats almost EVERYTHING (good or bad) I say!

Three days ago I was sitting on my living room floor playing with my son and some of his toys. It was early evening and the television was on as well.

My son walked past me to get a toy car. On his way back to the carpet area we were sitting on he decided to walk behind me. Our laundry drying rack was set up behind me with some clothes on it (no electric driers in Japanese apartments). As he tried to squeeze between the rack and me he caught his foot on the rack and tripped. He didn’t fall down, but he said, “Oh Shit!” At least that’s what I thought I heard my toddler spit out. I immediately looked at my wife who was sitting at the dining room table just a few meters away. She looked at me, shook her head and said, “Yup…he said it.”

Earlier this afternoon, my son was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife and I while we had coffee. He of course wasn’t drinking coffee, but playing with some blocks. One of them fell and without missing a beat he said, “Shit!”

To say this embarrasses me is an understatement. I didn’t even realize that I say the word “shit” at home, but obviously he learned it from somewhere and I doubt the Dora the Explorer DVDs he watches while I’m at work taught him that.

My son decorating our Christmas tree this month.

I have heard of similar situations before. My brother in Canada had a similar situation years ago when his oldest child was learning to speak. He also learned like I just did that it isn’t a good idea to use bad language around your little ones.

I have been a teacher for eleven years and since becoming a teacher, have really tried to be aware of the language I use. I very rarely use profanities, but I suppose I learned that on occasion I do. This week I realized that as my son’s language abilities are suddenly exploding (he can speak full sentences in both Japanese and English) I need to be more careful about the language decisions I make!

This is a short video I shot of my son and I a few days ago out for a walk.

In the very near future, I plan to write more posts about specific areas of my son’s language learning. I also plan to interview and talk to other parents raising bilingual children. I will do some live Google Hangouts with some people in similar parenting situations as me as well as interview some people who were raised bilingual.

Remember you can follow me on Twitter @jlandkev 

Great Books for Little Ones

A few days ago I wrote a follow-up post to my “Raising a Bilingual Child in Japan” post from June of this year. My recent post got a lot of attention and to be honest; was a lot of fun to write. I am a father of a two year and one month old boy who is growing up learning both Japanese and English.

This topic is of course near and dear to my heart because I am living it everyday. My son’s mother is Japanese and he is growing up in Japan. His first language is Japanese, but as a trained primary school teacher, I’m trying to build on my knowledge base of language education and help my son learn English as well as Japanese. You of course don’t have to be a trained educator to teach a child a language. I’m not even sure if it helps a lot, but I have tried many techniques I have used on older children here at home. I have of course had to modify them to fit a younger learner.

I think this will become a continuing series of blogs. A lot of people seem interested in the topic.

Today I wanted to talk about a series of English storybooks my son really enjoys. These are bright, colorful and stimulating books that truly engage my son. He simply loves them and wants me to read them to him over and over again.

When my son was a little less than a year old I stumbled across a book called “The Feelings Book” by Todd Parr. It was a colorful board book (made from thick cardboard so young children cannot rip the pages) that had simple and wonderful drawings about various emotions. I brought it home and my son was hooked. Although he couldn’t speak Japanese or English at that point, he enjoyed the bright colors and shapes.

As an elementary school teacher, I have a large collection of picture books in my house. I have read many of them to my son and for the most part, he hasn’t been interested in most. I suppose it has been a learning process for me as well. Just because my six year-old students love a book, doesn’t mean a two year-old child will.

A few months ago I came across another Todd Parr book called “The Daddy Book.” At that point, and it can often change, my son was in a serious “I only want Mommy and have no interest in daddy” phase. I was trying hard to have him show an interest in me. I suppose it was only natural. He would spend all of his days with his mother and only see me after work. It was natural, but I wasn’t happy about it. I thought a book about Daddies would be perfect.

I ordered a copy of “The Daddy Book” from Amazon and as soon as it arrived my son loved it. It was written in simple English, a lot of what my son could understand. The pictures were very simple, clear and colorful. The bright colors stimulated him and definitely held his attention.

My son enjoying "The Daddy Book" by Todd Parr

I loved the book because, like all of Todd Parr’s books, it talked about diversity in the world. It talked about different kinds of Daddies who look different ways and do different things.

Within days my son was requesting the “The Daddy Book” several times a day. It became a morning ritual. Before I would head off to school every morning I would sit down with him and read him the story.  He would even mutter “Daddy Book” in his sleep sometimes.

I have since ordered “The Mommy Book” and “The Family Book” and my son enjoys both of them as well.

I would suggest Todd Parr books to anyone who enjoys reading to their children. They are especially stimulating to preschool children and even babies. They teach important lessons in simple language and their pictures engage young children. His books aren’t just great for second language learners, but for all kids.

Todd Parr himself is a New York Times Best Selling children’s writer who lives in California.

You can follow what I have to say on Twitter: @jlandkev