VIETNAMESE AS A HERITAGE LANGUAGE IN A JAPANESE PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

1. VIETNAMESE AS A HERITAGE LANGUAGE IN A JAPANESE PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Teaching and research for heritage learners of Asian and Pacific languages The 4th Summer Heritage Research Institute(June 23, 2010) Tomomi Nishikawa(Hasegawa) Faculty of Education and Human Sciences Yokohama National University

2. 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

3. 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).

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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).

7. 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.

8. 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?

9. Data Collection Procedures Japanese Vietnamese Japanese Vietnamese

10. Story-telling task

11. OBC Rating Scales • Oral Proficiency Assessment for Bilingual Children (OBC) developed by the Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education

12. Mean Scores Two children born in Vietnam are not included

13. Individual Results Max: 70 points Min: 14 points Born in Vietnam r = .97

14. 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).

15. Research Questions • RQ3: What factors affect the heritage language development of the Vietnamese children in Japan?

16. Data Collection Procedures

17. 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?”

18. Individual Results (1st graders)

19. Individual Results (6th graders)

20. 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).

21. Future Agenda: Pedagogy Roles of parents Roles 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

22. Future Agenda: Research • Heritage Languages in Japan Chinese Korean Portuguese (Brazil) Spanish (Peru, etc.) Filipino Vietnamese …..and more

23. 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.

24. 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.