LPP outline: (2450)

Introduction -TS (200)

Brief history of Japan multilingualism (attitude towards multilingualism) (500)

Bilingualism in Japan:

 Binlingual in general
 Two types of bilingualism: additive and subtractive (1000); unequal bilingualism

School system in Japan (for bilinguals): (700)

Future implications, challenges: 200

Conclusion: 100

Introduction Despite its persistent stereotype as a monolingual, monocultural nation, Japan has always contained some elements of linguistic and cultural diversity

Meanwhile, Japan has also been one of the most popular destinations for Asian students and trainees for quite some time.

The foreign population in Japan is expected to continue to grow, because the Japanese economy has become structurally dependent on foreign workers. Japan is a rapidly ageing nation with one
of the lowest fertility rates (1.25) in the world (K¯oseir¯od¯osh¯o, 2006).

we have to refer to the widely shared value of monolingualism in Japan. This belief is still dominant in the twenty‐first century,
The shared view of the Japanese language as inseparably tied to the people and nation remained even after defeat in World War II in 1945. That Japanese
serves most daily and scholarly purposes is a view shared among the general public as well as the establishment

Bilingual education for minorities such as the Deaf and newcomer children is a rather new endeavor in Japan. The Japanese government has been slow in
making decisions in its language policies both for minorities and majorities, especially from the perspective of bilingual education. However, bilingual
education perspectives could be a solution to transcend the solid ideology of monolingualism in Japan

Japan has long been perceived and presented as a monolingual and ethnically homogeneous country by many mainstream Japanese. Yet despite its
self-image, Japan has never actually been a genuinely monolingual country (Maher & Honna, 1994; Maher & Yashiro, 1995). In spite of the presence of
these minorities, the view that Japan is a monoethnic and monolingual society has prevailed and has been reinforced through several crucial foreign and
 language policy measures taken by the governments of the times.

Research in the area of the education of non-Japanese-speaking students has grown correspondingly. It is one of the most active research areas in the field of education in Japan today. This body of
literature is little known to the English-speaking world because the majority of study reports are written in Japanese. 5

Bilingual bilingual education is the use of two languages for learning and teaching in an instructional setting and, by extension, multilingual education would be the use
(general) of three languages or more. In a narrower definition, literacy is developed and/or specific content areas are taught through the medium of two or more
languages in an organized and planned education program. In most cases, one of these is the “home,” “native,” or “mother‐tongue” language, and one is the
“dominant” societal language or a “powerful” international language
these basic concepts such as language, home language, dominant language, native speaker, bilingual, multilingual, and bilingual and multilingual education are
highly complex and contested constructs; thus considerations about which languages or varieties of languages to use as media of instruction are not always
straightforward

There are multiple paths that children can take to become bilingual. Some of these paths are natural and inevitable. A child may be born in a multilingual home
setting or speak a home language different from the society. Other paths, however, are consciously and deliberately chosen. For example, a child who speaks
the society’s majority language may be sent to a school that teaches in a second language.

History . For example, the Ainu people, indigenous to Hokkaido and the northern part of Honsh¯u (the mainland), spoke their own language, which is believed to be only
remotely related, if at all, to the Japanese language (Anderson and Iwasaki-Goodman, 2001). Similarly, the Ryukyuans/Okinawans residing in Okinawa

linguistic and cultural diversity has long existed in Japan. However, it was not until the late 1980s that diversity – or more specifically,
the presence of foreigners in their midst – emerged as a major social issue. The Ainu and Rykyuan languages had been suppressed to the point
of near-extinction; younger generations of Korean and Chinese residents had been linguistically – and to a lesser extent, culturally – assimilated

Two ethnolinguistic minority groups that have lived in Japan for

generations and that are directly relevant to this study are Korean and
Chinese residents. Chinese residents have also lived in Japan for generations

Blood system,
But Japan follows the principle of jus sanguinis (the law of blood), rather than jus soli (the law of the soil), in bestowing citizenship: As long as both parents are non-Japanese, a child remains a
non-Japanese citizen even if he or she was born in Japan
 The Japanese government did not – and still officially does not – permit the entry of unskilled foreign workers. Nonetheless,the labor shortage became so severe that in order to alleviate the
problem, the government revised the Immigration Control Law in 1990
to make it legal for Nikkeijin (descendents of Japanese emigrants abroad) and their spouses to work in unskilled job sectors (Sellek, 1997; Vaipae,
2001). The government reasoned that Nikkei people were much more acceptable than other foreigners ‘because they had “Japanese blood”. even if they could not speak Japanese and knew very
little about Japan’

Meanwhile, Japan has also been one of the most popular destinations for Asian students and trainees for quite some time.

The foreign population in Japan is expected to continue to grow, because the Japanese economy has become structurally dependent on foreign workers. Japan is a rapidly ageing nation with one of
Not very open the lowest fertility rates (1.25) in the world (K¯oseir¯od¯osh¯o, 2006).
towards Furthermore, Japan faces another demographic change owing to a steady increase in the number of registered foreigners (2.08 million at the end of 2011
multilingualism comprising 1.63% of the total population, an increase of 170% over 1991) and a rapid increase in the number of marriages between Japanese and foreigners
(seven times more in 2010 than in 1965).
Clyne (2005) points out the disparity between a “monolingual mindset” at the policy level and the multilingual reality of Australian society. If this is the case in
Australia—a country of immigrants—it is not hard to imagine how difficult it is to overcome monolingual ideology in Japan, a country which still officially
closes the door to “immigrants.”

Vitale (2011) reports that many Spanish speakers in exogamous marriages use Japanese because their Japanese partners and in-laws are not proficient in
Spanish, and their use of Spanish is not well received by them. Use of Spanish also purportedly gives their neighbors displeasure
Indeed, some Spanish speakers in exogamous relationships feel that Japanese people
react negatively to their use of Spanish in public (Vitale, 2011).
Okazaki-Luff (2008) describes how a Chinese father was indifferent to speaking Chinese to his child because of his perception of its negative evaluation in
Japan.

Since the 1970s Japan has accepted an increasing number of people from many countries for various reasons. They are called “newcomers” compared to “old ‐
timers” such as the Koreans and Chinese discussed earlier.
Other newcomers include refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia who came to Japan after 1975, and non‐Japanese spouses, especially Japanese farmers’
wives who come from Asian countries such as China, Korea, and the Philippines.

, but after the bubble economy collapsed in the 1990s, Japan began to suffer from economic stagnation. Following a request from Japanese enterprise wishing
to hire cheap laborers, the Japanese government decided to change its immigration law and give non‐ restrictive working visas specifically to descendants of
Japanese emigrants from Brazil, Peru, and other countries in South America, whose ancestors emigrated from Japan more than 100 years ago, around 1908

1990s, reported flagrant neglect of language minority students in public

schools. A vast majority of language minority students, scattered as
 they were throughout the country, received no JSL instruction

JSL classes were available, they focused on basic conversational skills in Japanese rather than on academic literacy. Most JSL teachers were
regular classroom teachers who happened to be assigned to that role, and few of them received professional training in second language acquisition, assessment, and language pedagogy after their
designation as JSL teachers. Teachers and administrators denied that language minority students had special needs. And parents did not have a full grasp of the difficulties their children were
experiencing

But Sakuma (2005) points out that even after two decades since the arrival of language minority students on
the Japanese education scene, no systematic methodology of teaching JSL has been established. Pullout JSL classes focus on elementary-level Japanese, instruction centering on basic Japanese
conversation skills, the learning of two basic scripts (hiragana and katakana), and grades 1–2 level Chinese characters (Nakanishi and Sat¯o, 1995). While they are learning Japanese, language
minority students’ academic learning is put on hold (Sat¯o, 1995): They are either placed in the regular classroom where they do not understand the instruction, or pulled out for JSL instruction, in
which they engage in cognitively undemanding, contentless language drills while their Japanese classmates march on with their academic learning

Types of The additive bilingualism debate: an analytical heuristic to understand unequal management of bilingualism
bilingualism The debate on additive and subtractive bilingualism is useful to consider possible differences in approaches to bilingualism, which may apply to the case of the
two MEXT policies

‘additive’ bilingualism by definition is a form of bilingualism attained through second language learning in a situation where students can securely continue to
develop conceptually and academically in their first language. It is often associated with the learning context where the students’ first language is socially
dominant or prestigious. It is argued that this context can afford an environment where the learners can form a strong base upon which the second language is
‘added’ as part of their ‘intellectual tool-kit’ (Cummins 2000, 37). It is often associated with a privilege (de Mejía 2002), or the ‘enrichment of majority children’
(Romaine 1995, 245)

d, ‘subtractive’ bilingualism refers to a bilingual situation in which the first language of bilingual students is not sufficiently acknowledged and supported in the
society, and the minoritized first language is gradually ‘subtracted’ or replaced by a more prestigious second language (Cummins [1979] 2001, 70). Subtractive
bilingualism is often associated with educational contexts such as ‘submersion,’ in which students are faced with a ‘sink or swim’ situation of being mixed
together with students whose L1 is that of the school, or ‘quick-exit transitional bilingualism,’ where some form of L1 support is provided to solve minority
students’ underachievement but is kept to a minimum and they usually quickly opt for maximum L2 exposure (Cummins [1984] 2001, 153– 154). In these
situations of submersion or transitional bilingualism, there is relatively limited support for the students’ L1 learning. Furthermore, the students’ bilingualism
tends to be treated in ‘deficit terms’ (May 2011), that is, ‘their lack of proficiency in the school language [that is their L2] is often treated as a sign of limited
intellectual and academic ability’ (Cummins [1984] 2001, 150; see also Cohen and Swain 1976). As Romaine (1995) a
 , the ‘dualism of the Japanese language’ (Hirano-Hubbard 2010, xiv) which has constructed Japanese as ‘nihongo’ (hereafter nihongo-Japanese) and ‘kokugo’
(hereafter kokugo-Japanese), is important to understand the modern history of language issues in Japanese education
Unequal Types of bilinguals in Japan Bilinguals in Japan, either actual or potential, may be categorised into four main groups: (1) (2) (3) (4) Mainstream Japanese
access studying a foreign/second language Japanese children repatriated after living abroad for an period (often called kikoku shijo or `returnees') O €spring of
(subtractive) parents who have di€erent native languages Ethnic minorities (born and) residing in Japan extended

argue in this book that schools create unequal access to bilingualism by envisioning different imagined communities for bilingual
students of different socioeconomic classes and socializing them into these stratified imagined communities. Institutionally imagined communities – visions of
the kinds of people students will grow up to socialize with, where they will live in the world, and the places they will occupy in society – have a large impact on
schools’ policies and practices and ultimately shape students’ bilingualism and identities

Uppermiddle- class Japanese students and the children of Western professional expatriates are encouraged to develop an additive form of bilingualism in
Japanese and English, because it will serve them well as linguistic capital as they become full and competitive members of the global community
School system: As MEXT did not provide systematic training programs for elementary school teachers who were not ready to teach English, they were left unprepared and
Mainstream uncertain. Teachers often were only provided with an “English Note (Notebook),” a kind of textbook published by MEXT, and an assistant language teacher
student in (ALT), usually a native English speaker who was not necessarily a TESOL professional. These halfway measures only placed a further burden on elementary
International school teachers who were occupied with their daily, tight routines
school and Following the introduction of English into elementary school, a considerable number of parents, not expecting much from public schools, started sending their
foreign children to preschools or after‐school schools where English is taught, and if they can
students in afford it, they choose to send children to private schools where a “real” English education is provided. Such tendencies might lead to a widening of the
mainstream socioeconomic gap between the wealthy and the poor
school
Ethnic school
JSL In the 1990s the majority of Chinese students were fourth‐ and fifth‐generation, many from mixed‐marriage families with Japanese nationality (Kobe China
School, 2011).2 As the political and economic presence of the PRC and Taiwan has increased, many Chinese schools have implemented curriculum reforms
Ethnic school aiming at improving communicative competence in Chinese (a de facto lingua franca in Asia) and to foster a “transnational Chinese identity” that transcends
physical location and nationality (Kanno, 2008, p. 61).
International
school Like Chinese schools, ethnic Korean schools are divided into two groups according to their political affiliations; some are affiliated with North Korea (the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK]) and the others are affiliated with South Korea (the Republic of Korea [ROK]). The former (Chongryun schools)
Immersion have succeeded in offering Korean language instruction (Korean immersion) along with a well‐organized curriculum designed to help students develop their
school Korean ethnic identity
 Newcomer children faced serious problems when they came to Japanese public schools that were not prepared to receive non‐native speakers of Japanese.
Changing- The Japanese constitution and the Basic Law of Education do not provide for the education of immigrants. Thus the attitude of MEXT is that, if foreigners ask
more support for such an education, such a request may be approved and public education may be provided. Japanese local governments and communities have treated
for bilingual immigrant children, however, basically from a humanitarian point of view. When culturally linguistically diverse (CLD) children arrive at public schools, they get
and to support from the school and the municipal board of education. They may have an interpreter sit beside their desks in the classroom, and be pulled out of the
maintain their regularly scheduled class for JSL, ideally until they are ready to receive instruction in Japanese. In reality the budget for JSL is limited to 48 hours in many
L1, and deaf schools.
schildren
Among Japan’s 47 prefectures, Osaka and Hyogo are implementing mother‐ tongue instruction to non‐Japanese pupils at public schools. Both prefectures have
Lack of right to long histories of working for the human rights of both Korean Old‐Timers and the outcast class of people called Buraku‐min who have suffered from severe
compulsory discrimination and ostracism.4 With experience of educating for social justice, educators in both prefectures understood that the maintenance and
education-- development of the mother tongue of foreign children is not only a part of their human rights but necessary for their education.
lead to other Measures the schools have taken include hiring mother‐tongue interpreters, the allocation of supplemental teachers for special JSL lessons, as well as
types of school implementing activities that foster students’ mother tongues and cultures
Many municipal boards of education give added consideration to students whose L1 is not Japanese, such as allowing time extensions and the use of a
Japanese dictionary, having kana readings printed alongside kanji, and speaking slowly in Japanese during interviews

Students who were born in Japan or who came to Japan at a very young age are not eligible for special entry requirements (students who transfer into the
fourth grade or later do qualify), and have to take the same examination as Japanese students. Such students speak fluent Japanese and their language other
than Japanese, but their academic language proficiency in either language often does not reach the required level

the Osaka Prefecture Board of Education began innovative efforts in 2001 by allocating a student quota of 5% for Chinese returnees and foreign students in
five senior high schools. Students take three subjects, English, mathematics, and essay writing in the language of the student’s choice, freeing applicants from
the burden of Japanese language.
Mother tongue maintenance classes in Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, and English, in addition to Chinese, are taught for three years by native
speakers.
In 2008, a private school for deaf children called “Meisei Gakuen” was established in Tokyo. This is the first school in Japan to use Japanese Sign Language as
the medium of instruction and communication and to support the acquisition of two languages, JSL and written Japanese. Meisei Gakuen is the only private
bilingual/ bicultural school for deaf children in Japan

The growing diversity in Japanese society cannot help but affect Japanese schools since many of the incoming foreign residents enroll their children
in local schools

In response to the rapid increase of non-Japanese-speaking students in public schools, in 1992 the Ministry of Education began allocating
extra teachers to schools that had large numbers of language minority students to hold pullout JSL classes ( ¯ Ota, 2002). This system continues to date: A budget is set aside to cover the salary of
up to two extra teachers at each designated school, and the JSL teachers are chosen among the school’s existing staff.

1990s, reported flagrant neglect of language minority students in public

schools. A vast majority of language minority students, scattered as
they were throughout the country, received no JSL instruction

JSL classes were available, they focused on basic conversational skills in Japanese rather than on academic literacy. Most JSL teachers were
regular classroom teachers who happened to be assigned to that role, and few of them received professional training in second language acquisition, assessment, and language pedagogy after their
designation as JSL teachers. Teachers and administrators denied that language minority students had special needs. And parents did not have a full grasp of the difficulties their children were
experiencing

But Sakuma (2005) points out that even after two decades since the arrival of language minority students on
the Japanese education scene, no systematic methodology of teaching JSL has been established. Pullout JSL classes focus on elementary-level Japanese, instruction centering on basic Japanese
conversation skills, the learning of two basic scripts (hiragana and katakana), and grades 1–2 level Chinese characters (Nakanishi and Sat¯o, 1995). While they are learning Japanese, language
minority students’ academic learning is put on hold (Sat¯o, 1995): They are either placed in the regular classroom where they do not understand the instruction, or pulled out for JSL instruction, in
which they engage in cognitively undemanding, contentless language drills while their Japanese classmates march on with their academic learning.
But Sakuma (2005) points out that even after two decades since the arrival of language minority students on
the Japanese education scene, no systematic methodology of teaching JSL has been established. Pullout JSL classes focus on elementary-level Japanese, instruction centering on basic Japanese
conversation skills, the learning of two basic scripts (hiragana and katakana), and grades 1–2 level Chinese characters (Nakanishi and Sat¯o, 1995). While they are learning Japanese, language
minority students’ academic learning is put on hold (Sat¯o, 1995): They are either placed in the regular classroom where they do not understand the instruction, or pulled out for JSL instruction, in
which they engage in cognitively undemanding, contentless language drills while their Japanese classmates march on with their academic learning

Another aspect of language minority education that has attracted much attention in recent years is the non-schooling of many language minority students.

A critical factor contributing to the large number of non-schooled foreign children in Japan is the lack of foreign-national children’s rights to public education. Japanese-national children have a
constitutional right to nine years of compulsory education
publicschools’ lack of legal obligation to educate non-Japanese students.
For some language minority students, an alternative to public school education is ethnic school education

Ethnic school
In response, Korean and Chinese residents established their own schools where they could shield their offspring from discrimination and
provide them with an education. Korean schools consist of two types: North Korean and South Korean. The North Korean education system
is comprised of one university, 12 high schools, 56 middle schools, 83 elementary schools and 67 kindergartens, while there are four South
Korean schools (Takekuma, 1998). Chinese schools are also divided into two types: People’s Republic of China schools and Taiwan schools
(Takekuma, 1998). Traditionally, the central goal of these schools has been an ethnic education, providing newer generations with a sense of
pride in their ethnic origin and knowledge of the language and culture of their homeland. Because these schools aim at ethnic education and
do not follow the curricula specified by the Japanese Ministry of Education, most of them (except two South Korean schools) are not accredited
by the Ministry as full-fledged schools and are categorized as ‘miscellaneous schools (kakushu gakkk¯o)’ (Sugimoto, 2003).

the arrival of ‘newcomer’ foreign children has expanded the range of ethnic schools in Japan. The demand for ethnic schools is biggest among Brazilian and Peruvian populations because most
South American families in Japan see their stay as temporary and want their children to maintain their L1 proficiency
International school education
The children of Western diplomats and business executives who are transferred to Japan predominantly attend international schools. Given
the temporary nature of their sojourn, and also because these expatriate professionals come to Japan primarily for business reasons and
not for any inherent interest in Japanese society or culture, many of them choose to enroll their children in international schools where
they can continue their education in their L1 or in English and follow a curriculum that is similar to the one at home. Japan has the largest
number of international schools in the world (Wakabayashi, 2002), more than 20. While many are accredited by American and European
associations, they are not recognized by the Japanese Ministry of Education as full-fledged schools

In other words, they are classified as ‘miscellaneous schools’ just like most ethnic schools. Despite their
lack of accreditation, many upper-middle-class and upper-class Japanese parents also choose to send their children to international schools
‘because they view English acquisition, and consequently bilingualism, as an advantage for their children, and their conscious effort to promote it, a future investment’ (Wakabayashi, 2002, p. 634).

There are not many studies of international schools in Japan. Willis (1993) notes that most international schools in Japan follow curricula
similar to those used in US schools, because international schools in Japan, despite the diverse backgrounds of the students they cater to,
are fundamentally a conservative institution that likes to follow the tried and true curricula.

Although the school he studied had a diverse student body and called itself an ‘international school,’ the administrators were essentially
concerned with running their school according to the North American model and were uninterested in, and unsupportive of, the multilingual
and multicultural expressions of their diverse students. It is interesting that language majority children who come from a privileged background in the context of mainstream Japanese society are
positioned on the margins in international schools in their own country much the same way as language minority children are positioned in Japanese public schools.

Immersion school
While there are certainly Japanese mainstream students in international schools, Japanese parents who send their children to international
schools so that they will learn English remain a minority. (1) to send them to private schools
that place an emphasis on English instruction, and (2) to have them attend private after-school English classes. Recently, however, another
option is emerging: English immersion education
did not seem to experience the initial lag in their primary language development that is reported in students in total immersion programs
in North America (Swain, 1997). On the other hand, they also made steady progress in all skill areas in English, with listening comprehension
being the strongest. Far exceeding their non-immersion counterparts, the Grade 5 immersion students approximated American students in
early to middle third grade in their English skills.

One concern that may keep mainstream Japanese parents from sending their children to an immersion program like Katoh’s may be
that exposure to foreign instructors and foreign culture through the immersion program would make their children too ‘Westernized’ to fit
comfortably into Japanese society. Downes (2001) has addressed this concern and exa Subtractive bilingualism
Public schools that serve low-income bilingual children do not expect them to grow up to be competitive players in the global market the
way Nichiei and Hal teachers expect their students to be. Limited imagined communities lead to more modest educational goals. The focus for this
class of bilingual students tends to be the acquisition of basic skills that become the foundation of their socioeconomic independence, as
Ms. Takano noted: ‘We have to help [the children] gain enough power to be able to survive in Japan. We want to guarantee academic abilities that
become the foundation of that power. _ _ _ So our role as an elementary school is to make them learn the basics.’ In this context, bilingualism
is implicitly regarded as a problem (Ruíz, 1984) that hampers students’ acquisition of Japanese and therefore their academic learning.

Once bilingualism is considered a problem, the natural solution is to eradicate it by promoting assimilation into the majority language (Baker,
mined the cultural identity of the Katoh immersion
 students. His survey results showed that the immersion students in fact displayed a stronger sense of Japanese cultural identity than the students
in the comparison group who attended regular public schools. The results of his study thus suggest that attending an immersion program
like Katoh’s, far from confusing the students’ cultural identity, may in fact nurture a stronger sense of being Japanese.

2006; Ruíz, 1984).

In short, economically disadvantaged language minority students are given only either-or options: Either they can grow up to be monolingual
Japanese speakers and become members of Japanese society, or they can maintain their L1 and eventually return to their own country –
but not both

Unfortunately, teachers’ good intentions and abilities to teach good lessons are not always sufficient to make an impact on reversing
pervasive social inequalities, as Oakes (2005) writes:

Yet, the current educational structure in Japan makes it extremely challenging for ethnic schools like Zhonghua to survive and maintain
high standards of education. Because of their lack of accreditation, ethnic schools receive no funding from the central government and
very little from local governments. Furthermore, unlike international schools, ethnic schools are not in a position to charge a high tuition

. In contemporary Japan, differential access to bilingualism is part of the social and cultural reproduction that schools help

Future Bilingual education for minorities such as the Deaf and newcomer children is a rather new endeavor in Japan. The Japanese government has been slow in
implication making decisions in its language policies both for minorities and majorities, especially from the perspective of bilingual education. However, bilingual
education perspectives could be a solution to transcend the solid ideology of monolingualism in Japan

educators are capable of challenging the unequal power structures in society by preparing their students for
more equitable and empowering imagined communities. They have the option of consciously resisting unequal future trajectories and instead envisioning alternative scenarios for their students.

Bilingual:
When Joshua Fishman was asked to write his own biography, he entitled it, "My Life from My Work; My Work from My Life" (forthcoming a). Four
elements of Fishman's life are important to understand his ideology on bilingual education, a philosophy dominated by the four principles that he
outlined in Bilingual Education: An International Sociological Perspective (1976a):
 a. b. Bilingual education as a vehicle to support the "littlelanguages" people". ("Bilingual education is good for the minority group", p. 11.) of "little
c. Bilingual education to help stabilize the functional complementarity of the languages and cultures in society. ("Bilingual education is good for
language learning and language teaching", p. 32.) d. Bilingual education as an expression of a societal arrangement for the support of true
cultural pluralism and the development of plural intellectual and educational experiences. ("Bilingual education is (also) good for the majority
group", p. 3.) Bilingual education as the means to promote biliteracy as a plural expression. ("Bilingual education is good for education", p. 23.)

Fishman has warned us (1979) that looking at bilingual education as a panacea for curing the underachievement of linguistic minorities is a serious
mistake and a politi-

cal setup for the perpetuation of their academic failure. Language rights of ethnolinguistic minorities are not detachable from their basic human rights,
their right to their culture and their civil rights. Minorities should be able to retain their cultural values

Wright, W. (2015). The Handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (First ed., Blackwell handbooks in linguistics).