VIETNAMESE AS A HERITAGE LANGUAGE

IN A JAPANESE PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Tomomi Nishikawa (Hasegawa)Faculty of Education and Human Sciences

Yokohama National University

Teaching and research for heritage learners of Asian and Pacific languages

The 4th Summer Heritage Research Institute (June 23, 2010)

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Background

First groups of Vietnamese refugees arrived in Japan in1975.

The number of Vietnamese nationals in Japan is about 41,000 in 2008.

Refugee Assistance Headquarters (RHQ), http://www.rhq.gr.jp/index.htm

Ministry of Justice, http://www.moj.go.jp/content/000008047.pdf

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Background

Vietnamese heritage children are one of the biggest ethnic minority groups in Japanese schools next to Brazil and other South American countries, China, the Philippines and Korea.

There are about 200 Vietnamese heritage children in elementary schools (total: 200,000).

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Vietnamese Community in Yokohama One of the two settlement centers for the Indo-

Chinese refugees was located in the city adjacent to Yokohama .

The schools in the area hold many Vietnamese heritage children.

The current study was conducted in one of the elementary schools in the area.

The school offers no heritage language education.

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Motivation for the Current Study

There was virtually no information about heritage language proficiency of Vietnamese children in Japan, other than a questionnaire study by AJALT (1993).

How much Vietnamese do these children know?

Bilingual interviews in Vietnamese and Japanese

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Participants

Most of the children are born in Japan. Many of their parents have (very) limited

Japanese proficiency. Seven monolingual Japanese children also

participated (Grade 1: n = 5, Grade 6: n = 2).

Grade (age) L1 L2 n

Grade 1 (age 7)

Vietnamese Japanese 8

Grade 6 (age 12)

Vietnamese Japanese 9

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Interviewers

A Vietnamese graduate student and a Japanese graduate student at Yokohama National University

Both are experienced school teachers and mothers of an 8-year-old monolingual child.

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Research Questions

RQ1: Which of the two languages, Vietnamese or Japanese, is the dominant language of the second generation Vietnamese children in Japan? (see Valdés 2001)

RQ2: How well do the Vietnamese children maintain their heritage language after 6 years in Japanese elementary school? (see Wong Fillmore, 1991)

RQ3: What factors affect the heritage language development of the Vietnamese children in Japan?

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Data Collection Procedures

Japanese Vietnamese

Vietnamese

Japanese

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Story-telling task10

OBC Rating Scales

Oral Proficiency Assessment for Bilingual Children (OBC) developed by the Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education

Max Score

Basic Language Skills

Differentiation of two languages

YES/NO

Pronunciation 5

Vocabulary 5

Sentence production 5

Grammatical accuracy 5

Sentence types & quality 5

Interactional Skills

Listening comprehension 5

An attitude toward the conversation

5

Fluency of the interaction 5

Task accomplishment 5

Styles & Politeness 5

Conversational Strategy YES/NO

Cognitive Aspects

Consistency in speaking 5

Rich content 5

Quality of vocabulary 5

Paragraph construction and quality

5

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Mean ScoresL1/HL:

VietnameseL2: Japanese

Grade 1 Grade 6

Grade 1

Grade 6

Basic Language Skills

Pronunciation 2.6 3.1 4.9 4.8

Vocabulary 2.4 2.6 4.6 4.9

Sentence production 2.4 2.7 4.5 4.9

Grammatical accuracy 2.4 2.7 4.5 4.8

Sentence types & quality 1.8 2.1 4.4 4.3

Interactional Skills

Listening comprehension 2.5 3.6 4.8 5.0

An attitude toward the conversation

2.6 3.7 4.8 4.9

Fluency of the interaction 2.8 3.3 4.6 5.0

Task accomplishment 2.5 3.0 4.5 5.0

Styles & Politeness 1.6 3.0 2.3 4.9

Cognitive Aspects

Consistency in speaking 2.3 2.3 4.3 4.9

Rich content 2.3 2.3 4.0 4.4

Quality of vocabulary 2.3 2.3 4.1 4.8

Paragraph construction and quality

2.1 2.0 4.4 4.3

Two children born in Vietnam are not included

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Individual Results

1st grade 6th gradeVietnames

eJapanese Vietnames

eJapanese

A 49 70 R 63 62B 40 68 S 61 66C 38 66 T 60 68D 37 66 U 45 70E 29 60 V 42 70F 28 56 W 40 68G 24 52 X 34 65H 14 46 Y 28 66

Z 19 67

Monolingual Mean

63.0 Monolingual Mean

70.0

Max: 70 points

Min: 14 points

Born in Vietna

m

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r = .97

Results

Japanese is the dominant language for all of the Vietnamese children in the current study (RQ1).

Some 6th graders maintain a certain level of Vietnamese proficiency; however, there seems to be large individual variations (RQ 2).

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Research Questions

RQ3: What factors affect the heritage language development of the Vietnamese children in Japan?

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Data Collection Procedures16

Interview Questions

[1] “Did you attend a Japanese nursery school?”

[2] “What language(s) do you use with your parents?”

[3] “What language(s) do you use with your siblings?”

[4] “Did you read Vietnamese picture books when you were young?”

[5] “Do you read Vietnamese books now?”

[6] “Have you studied Vietnamese?”

[7] “Do you use Vietnamese outside home?”

[8] “Have you been to Vietnam?”

[9] “Do you like Vietnam?”

[10] “Do you want to be a Vietnamese-Japanese bilingual?”

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Individual Results (1st graders)

A B C D E F G H

[1] Japanese Nursery School 1 ? 1 3 1 1 4 5

[2] Vietnamese with parents both

both

[3] Vietnamese with siblings X X X X X ? X X

[4] (Picture) books in early childhood

X X X ?

[5] Reading Vietnamese books

X X X X X ?

[6] Studying Vietnamese X X

[7] Vietnamese outside home X X X X

[8] Visit(s) to Vietnam 1 1 3 1 2 1 ? X

[9] Positive attitude toward Vietnam

[10] Vietnamese-Japanese bilingual

X X

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Individual Results (6th graders)

R U V W X Y Z

[1] Japanese Nursery School 2 4 4 3 5 2 2

[2] Vietnamese with parents both

both

both

both

[3] Vietnamese with siblings N/A X both N/A N/A X

[4] (Picture) books in early childhood

X X X

[5] Book reading X X X X X X

[6] Studying Vietnamese X X X X

[7] Vietnamese outside home

X X

[8] Visits to Vietnam many

4 many

3 1 1

[9] Positive attitude toward Vietnam

[10] Vietnamese-Japanese bilingual

don’t

care

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Results

More proficient Vietnamese speakers…..

are using Vietnamese with their parents (1st&6th)

have picture book reading experiences before entering elementary school (1st&6th).

have visited Vietnam (many times) (1st&6th). have studied (?) Vietnamese (1st). are using Vietnamese outside home (6th).

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Future Agenda: Pedagogy

Roles of parentsRoles of schools and teachers

Teachers can encourage parents to keep using their own language at home.

Teachers can create school environments in which children can grow up without suppressing their ethnic identity in a Japanese school.

Impact of heritage language proficiency on Japanese proficiency

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Future Agenda: Research

Heritage Languages in JapanChineseKoreanPortuguese (Brazil)Spanish (Peru, etc.)FilipinoVietnamese …..and more

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Special thanks go to:

Hoang Le Que Trang

2007-2009 Teacher Training Program, Graduate School of Education, Yokohama National University

-2007, 2009- Nguyen Chi Dieu Junior High School, Hue City, Vietnam

Naoko Hosono

2008-2010 Graduate School of Education, Yokohama National University

The work presented here is part of the national grant research project: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,

Science and Technology, Japan.

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References

Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (AJALT). (1993). Nihon ni teijuu shita Indoshina nanmin no bogo no hoji to soushitsu ni kansuru chousa kenkyuu [Maintenance and loss of a mother tongue among the Indo-Chinese refugees in Japan]. Tokyo: AJALT

Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education (CAJLE). (2000). Kodomono kaiwaryoku no mikata to hyooka: bairingaru kaiwa test (OBC) no kaihatsu [Oral proficiency assessment for bilingual children]. Welland, Canada: Soleil.

Valdés, G. (2001). “Heritage language students: Profiles and possibilities”. In J. K. Peyton, D. A. Ranard & S. McGinnis (Eds.), Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource (pp. 37-78). Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems.

Wong Fillmore, L. (1991). “When learning a second language means losing the first”. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 6, 323-346.

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