Teaching our kids Japanese (1) :patience, patience and patience! / 子供に日本語を教える（１）：１に忍耐、２に忍耐、３にも忍耐。

Teaching our kids Japanese requires patience, patience and patience!

Until quite recently, my 5-year-old boy hardly responded to me in Japanese, except when we spent good 2 months in Nagoya back in 2012.
Now he seems to enjoy speaking to me in Japanese, although his grammar might not be incorrect.

What changed him?

Well, at least, I do my best to make things fun for my kids. They enjoy learning when they know that learning is fun. Showing a fun Japanese video on Youtube, playing soccer, building Lego blocks etc...anything can be used for Japanese education.

My kids enjoy reading time in Japanese.

Reading is the key, especially with pictures and photos. They repeatedly ask me to read books. Reading does not require your knowledge. You read. You explain. And ask kids questions about the book and its pictures. When you can't answer their questions, here's my response;
"Surudoi shitsumon danaa...shirabete miyou!" (That's a great question! Let's find out!)

Sometimes, we have to bring Japanese books even though they request English books. They might say "No! I don't want Japanese book!" But by making it fun, they usually take this challenge.

Having said that, it takes patience x3.

子供に日本語を教えるのは、’とにかく1にも２にも３にも忍耐！です。

2012年に名古屋で2ヶ月ほど過ごしたことを除いて、5歳の息子はごく最近まで、日本語で滅多に返事をしませんでした。今では、文法の間違いはともかく、日本語で話しかけるのを楽しんでいるようです。

何が息子を変えたのでしょうか？

絵本や写真などが入った本を読むことが鍵のようです。それでうちの子供たちは何度も本を読んでくれるようお願いするようになりました。本を読むために、知識を増やす必要はありません。ただ本を読み、説明し、本や絵・写真について子供に質問をする。それだけです。もし質問に答えられない時は、私の場合はこんな感じで返答します。
「鋭い質問だなぁ・・・調べてみよう！」

時として、子供に英語の本を読むようねだられても、日本語を押し通さないといけません。「ヤダ！日本語の本ヤダ！」と言われるでしょうが、楽しく返答したり楽しく読むことで、普通子供たちは受け入れてくれます。

とはいえ、とにかく忍耐、忍耐、忍耐、です。

Assalaam alaikum? Nabad? How to greet my Somali Muslim neighbors /正しい挨拶の仕方（ソマリア語編）

"Assalaam alaikum!" This is a common Muslim greetings, which means "Peace be upon you all." When you learn culture of Islamic countries and people, this phrase is probably one of the first phrases you will learn. I did learn this too, although I am not a Muslim.
But I stopped using this, except some cases when people know what I mean and who I am. Why?

Let's put yourself on their shoes; imagine the following situations. How would you answer?
1) You just met a guy, Joe. You are Christian, and Joe is an atheist.
You; "Hi! Nice to see you!"
Joe; "Shalom!"
2) You are from East Asia. And you just met Mark who is an American.
You; "Hello! How are you?" (Trying to shake hands)
Mark; "Gasshou." (Instead of shaking hands, he folded his palms together and bowed down.)

If you are Christian, what do you think about Joe's greeting? If you are an East Asian, what do you think about Mark's greeting?(I have experienced the case 2). It's true! )
What do you think?

In my town, there are many Somali immigrants. They are Muslims. I found out that their response tends to be positive when I said, "Nabad!"(Nabad means peace), than saying "Assalaam alaikum." And the word "Nabad" has brought me many friends. The only place I used "Assalaam alaikum" was Jordan, where everybody used this as a greeting, regardless of religion.
And for our kids, "Nabad" is an easy word to remember and pronounce.

It is very important to understand a context in which a word is being used, isn't it?

　「アッサラームアライクーム」とは、「あなた方に平和がありますように」という意味の、イスラム教徒同士の挨拶です。イスラム教国やイスラム教徒の文化を学ぶ際に、この言葉はおそらく一番初めに習う言葉のひとつでしょうね。イスラム教徒ではないのですが、私もそうやって習いました。
　しかし私は、この言葉を、相手がこちらのことを理解している状況以外では使わなくなりました。何故でしょうか？

　逆の立場に立って考えてみましょう。以下の状況で、あなたはどう答えますか？
１）あなたはクリスチャンで、今丁度田中さんという方とお知り合いになりました。田中さんは無神論者です。
　　　あなた：「初めまして。どうぞよろしくお願いします」
　　田中さん：「シャローム！こちらこそよろしくお願いします！」
２）あなたはアメリカ人のマークさんとお知り合いになりました。
　　　あなた：「どうも。初めまして」（右手を出して握手しようとする）
　　　マーク：「合掌」（握手する代わりに、両掌を合わせてお辞儀する）
１）のケースを考えてみましょう。あなたがもしクリスチャンであったら、田中さんの挨拶をどう思いますか？（シャローム！って挨拶するクリスチャンいますよね？）２）についてはどうでしょう？私は海外で、これ何回かやられました。本当です。

　みなさん、どう思われますか？

　私が住んでいる町には、ソマリアからの移民が多く住んでいます。皆さんイスラム教徒ですが、「アッサラームアライクーム」と挨拶するよりも、ソマリア語の「ナバッド」（ソマリア語で「平和」という意味）で挨拶したほうが、反応がポジティブであることが分かりました。「ナバッド」の一言で沢山友人が出来ました。中東のヨルダンを旅行した際にのみ「アッサラームアライクーム」を使いまくりました。ヨルダンでは、宗教に関係なく、皆さん「アッサラームアライクーム」を使ってました。
　ちなみに私の子供たちにとっては、「ナバッド」は覚えやすく、また発音しやすい言葉です。
　
　言葉が使われる文脈って、とても大切ですね。

初めての日本語ブログ：改めて

先日、同タイトルで初めて日本語でブログを書きました。ある方への補足という意味で書いたのですが、10度以上読んだ上で、エビデンスに乏しいと判断し、削除しました。

もし自分の情報が少しでも間違っていたら、垂れ流すことはやめよう、と。

というわけで、ここでは長ったらしい記事は書かないことにしました。特に他の方の記事のあら捜しするようなことはやめます。

で、改めて本題（ホームスクーリング）に。

ここメイン州でも、オーロラが時々見られます。昨年、息子と、とても綺麗なオーロラを見ました。残念ながら、携帯のカメラでは撮影できず、どうしたら撮影できるものか、と試行錯誤しております。どなたがご教授下さい。

息子には、時々以下のHPを見せて、「この緑色の輪がオーロラで、この輪がメイン州にかかったら、見える可能性が大きいよ」と説明しております。

http://www.softservenews.com/Aurora.htm

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

ここ2－3日は、どうやらケベック市あたりまでオーロラの輪が広がっているようですが、こちらまで到達しそうでしません。

今度はいつ見られるかな？

Ice bucket challenge and home schooling

My wife, kids and I all did Ice bucket challenge for ALS. For us, it has a special meaning.

My mother-in-law died by ALS last November. And we were at her final moment. 

ALS is called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or well-known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease". What happens is basically that nerves started sending less impulse, or eventually stop sending it, so muscles on all your body will decrease. You will feel weaker for no reasons. You will eventually have hard time picking up things, walking, getting up from the bed, swallowing etc...even hard time breathing that leads you to necessitate mechanical ventilation.

If you would like to know how an ALS patient feels like, there is a very interesting blog;

http://www.bostern.com/blog/2014/08/15/what-an-als-family-really-thinks-about-the-ice-bucket-challenge/

Obviously, teaching about ALS to our 5-year-old and 2 1/2-year-old is a rocket science. But my son does have vague concept of what death looks like now. After he saw my mother-in-law's final breath, he told us, "Memere died because she lost her voice." (Memere is a French word of "granny"; in some parts of Maine, there are French-Canadian population that still retain French as their primary language. In the case of our family, their grandmother is not of French origin at all, but she picked up the word "memere" as her own nickname.)

So, when my wife suggested that we all should do ice bucket challenge nearly 10 days ago, my son asked, "Why?" But soon he understood that we were doing to honor memere in our memory who struggled with ALS, not simply to have fun with this challenge.

My wife started first. Then my son, and my daughter. I was going to avoid the challenge...but how could I? So I got a bucket of ice water. It was just cold! I wish the day was hot...it was not as hot as we expected for mid August. 

As a medical worker(I am an RN), I want to include basic medicine as a part of homeschooling education; this is one of things which is actually fundamental in our daily life but has hardly been provided at school until high school or college, or not at all.

At the point of 8/20/2014, the donation to ALS association have reached 22.9 million dollars. But this number seems to be reflecting only on the one for American ALS association. So more donations might have been given to ALS associations in other countries, I assume. 

 http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/08/19/ice-bucket-challenge-donations-reach-22-9-million-to-als-association/

  

So goes our summer...

Multilingual? Multiliteral? Both?

First topic; language.

We are basically a bilingual family; my wife is a native Mainer, or what the Mainers say "Mai-nah." And I am Japanese. It has been always a challenge to teach kids more than 2 languages. Depending on environment they were in, they might speak more than 2 languages fluently, or they might understand  but will speak only one language fluently.
How about our kids? My 5-year-old boy and 2 1/2-year-old girl understand English and Japanese perfectly, while both verbalize English more than Japanese. My wife also speaks to them in as much Japanese as she can. And my boy seems to recognize some of Japanese alphabets.
I tend to hope my kids to speak, listen, write and read both languages just like I can...but here are some key things for multilingual education.
1) The words "bilingual" and "multilingual" actually mean "to be able to speak and listen to more than 2 languages."
2) Being bilingual or multilingual does not necessarily mean "being biliteral" or "multiliteral."
3) There have been evidences that people can be multilingual but not multiliteral, and vice versa, and both.

In our case, at this point, our goal is multilingual. Literacy will come later...let's see.