Moving from Japan, kids speak minimal English. How will they cope?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Korean American who grew up between two countries. It’s hard but it was considered normal when I was a kid. How old are your children? The book Almost American Girl by Robyn Ha details the experience pretty accurately for an older child

+1 my siblings were 9 and 7 when we immigrated here from Korea. They coped. And ESOL services now a days is much better than 50 years ago when we came here.

We had a neighbor who moved from Japan. They had some ES/MS aged kids, and they figured it out. The ES aged kid especially picked up English rather quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Japan and moved to the US when I was 12. I did already speak some English but was in Japanese schools. The culture shock was pretty extreme, American kids are very different. PP was correct, they were virtually feral and struck me (then) as incredibly mean. I also have two friends who did the same thing (moving to the US from Japan). One of them adjusted pretty well, the other ended up moving back to live with her grandmother to finish school there because she found it hard here. But she was also quite a bit older than your kids, and her father was an exec with Toyota, so they had already moved around a bit. She did tell me that of the countries they moved to (Netherlands and Austria or maybe Germany, don't recall) she found the US most challenging in terms of school culture.

Anyway, not trying to scare you off, just trying to give you perspective from others who lived it. The big difference is that I did it in the 80s, my friends in the 90s. So not that current.

GL.

The funny thing is that American kids were so much better behaved and schools were so much calmer back then!

[Anonymous]

You could homeschool for the first year and then apply to private schools for the next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d be more worried about the culture shock than the language itself. American schools will seem feral compared to Japanese schools. Your kids will be shocked by some of the behavior. There is a lot of support for English as a second language so I would try not to worry too much about that, just whether they could learn in such a chaotic and disrespectful environment.

Thank you for your comment. I agree that it will be different from what they are used to. Japanese kids tend to be more behaved so to speak. And you are right, that is also another issue we will have to tackle. I often se English as a second language support information in public school websites, but somehow not in private schools. Is this the case? Seems private schools don't have any support for non-native speakers, or their language support is for learning another language in addition to English.

[Anonymous]

Are you a native English speaker and your kids and spouse are native Japanese speakers? Does your spouse speak English?

These questions are important because if you move your kids in elementary and middle school to the United States they run the risk of losing complete native fluency in Japanese and would never be able to study in a Japanese university. And the middle school one is at the border of never speaking English without an accent if you don't move to the United States.

In any school in the US your kids will quickly learn English because there are no Japanese only kids to interact with. Just find the best public school in the best neighborhood you can find. They will be speaking fluent English within a year or two.

[Anonymous]

Move to downtown Bethesda. Plenty of apartment buildings there and coming from Japan, that will be familiar to you as will the ability to get around without owning a car or having to learn how to drive (on the other side of the road too!). Make sure the apartment is zoned for Bethesda elementary. Lots and and lots of Japanese expats live in that area so their kids go to Bethesda ES. It will help both them and you with assimilation. It's a public school so it's free, and the school is very well equipped to handle such students.

https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/bethesdaes/

[Anonymous]

Here's the stats on Bethesda ES:
https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/02401.pdf

22% Asian, and the largest group of English learners is Asians. In most schools in MCPS, it's Latinos.

[Anonymous]

They’ll learn English. They’ll forget Japanese.

[Anonymous]

You want a school with a large Asian population. There is a lot of racism against Asians in the other schools.
They will learn English very fast, don’t worry about that part.

[Anonymous]

I have world bank friends who just did this. They enrolled their 4 and 6 year old in some intense English classes for 4 months before they moved. Dad is bilingual, mom is not fluent in English. It is going well for them, but they also don’t use the social structure of school community on the weekends, they mostly just hang out with other world bank families, some of whom speak Japanese. They think a few years of English immersion will be great for their kids though.

[WillardD]

Anonymous wrote:Are you a native English speaker and your kids and spouse are native Japanese speakers? Does your spouse speak English?

These questions are important because if you move your kids in elementary and middle school to the United States they run the risk of losing complete native fluency in Japanese and would never be able to study in a Japanese university. And the middle school one is at the border of never speaking English without an accent if you don't move to the United States.

In any school in the US your kids will quickly learn English because there are no Japanese only kids to interact with. Just find the best public school in the best neighborhood you can find. They will be speaking fluent English within a year or two.

Thank you for your comment it is very helpful. And you raise a very important question indeed. I am not a native English speaker but am fluent, as is my spouse. We are indeed in that difficult period of also having to prepare for an eventual (probable?) return to Japan so yes, the ability to do well in a Japanese university or high school is also an important issue. There seems to be a weekend Japanese school near Bethesda designed specifically for those with intentions of returning to Japan but I am not too thrilled (more so my kids) to spend the weekends studying.

[WillardD]

Anonymous wrote:Move to downtown Bethesda. Plenty of apartment buildings there and coming from Japan, that will be familiar to you as will the ability to get around without owning a car or having to learn how to drive (on the other side of the road too!). Make sure the apartment is zoned for Bethesda elementary. Lots and and lots of Japanese expats live in that area so their kids go to Bethesda ES. It will help both them and you with assimilation. It's a public school so it's free, and the school is very well equipped to handle such students.

https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/bethesdaes/

This is wonderful information. I will certainly check these out. Although I must admit that Bethesda (based on my early research) seems to be a very expensive place to live in. But not having to own a car is certainly one big plus factor for Japanese residents indeed!

By the way it seems the elementary school only goes until Grade 5? So that means my kids might have to go to Middle School already. Would what you said still hold true for the middle schools in the area? I checked them out and surprised how large the boundaries are for middle school. I'm used to the walkable distances in Japan.

[WillardD]

Anonymous wrote:I have world bank friends who just did this. They enrolled their 4 and 6 year old in some intense English classes for 4 months before they moved. Dad is bilingual, mom is not fluent in English. It is going well for them, but they also don’t use the social structure of school community on the weekends, they mostly just hang out with other world bank families, some of whom speak Japanese. They think a few years of English immersion will be great for their kids though.

So great to hear this. Almost similar situations, though my spouse is fluent enough. Did they go to public schools in DC near World Bank? Yeah, we will probably not stay long term in the US but also thinking that a couple of years in the US and learning the language would be a great experience for them. Intensive English lessons prior to moving seems to be a great idea!

[Anonymous]

Will your spouse be working?

Life will be much easier if you have a car. Especially if you want to do some traveling on the weekends and holiday weeks.
I don’t know much about living in MD or DC, but if you live in VA, live near a metro station or bus stop that can easily take you to a metro station. That will make the commute for you much easier. Then live in the area that feeds into the school you want.

Keep in mind-houses here are much bigger than the houses in Japan, so you’ll probably be able to save by just living in a smaller home.

Another thing to keep in mind—one way to make neighborhood friends is by joining the local pool for the summer. But some pools have a waiting list (many years long), but others don’t. So try to live somewhere that has a pool without a waiting list.

[Anonymous]

Are you coming to the IMF? If so, they have an educational consultant who could help advise you on options.