Factors in bilingual education for foreign children

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24720234
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Japanese language education
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: Oh Heesu 名古屋大学, 国際言語文化研究科, 研究員 (70594406)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: バイリンガル / 外国人児童 / 家庭内言語 / 言語選択 / コードスイッチング / 親子間の会話 / メタ認知

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated the attitudes of foreign children and their parents toward home language retention, as well as how they use their languages in daily life.
To explore bilingual children’s language use, 3 Korean simultaneous bilingual children’s conversations with their family were longitudinally observed. It was found that they shifted language very frequently depending on the circumstances and purposes of communication. Code switching, then, is a common communication strategy for them. In addition, the children shifted from Japanese to Korean under the influence of their mother’s discourse without overt pressure from the mother to do so. It shows the importance of using the home language of the parents in bilingual education.The interviews with Korean and Japanese parents revealed that they recognize bilingual education and the home language as important, yet remain very uncertain as to how to raise their children bilingually.

Free Research Field

バイリンガル教育