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

[WillardD]

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

No, not for the IMF.

[Anonymous]

If you are coming to the World Bank or IFC, join the family network( ask through your HR contact), there are many resources that will help you with where to stay and schools for your children, before you move here. all the best

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fox Mill ES and Great Falls ES in Fairfax County have Japanese Immersion. Both have kids moving in from Japan who speak no English and join the class. They have other students and teachers who are fluent in Japanese who can help them. The other night I had one girl translating for another at a school dance. I know it is a bit of a commute but it an option.

Both schools feed into MS and HS that offer Japanese and have kids who speak some Japanese, and a good number who are fluent because they use it at home with a parent or are from Japan like you are.

Again, a bit of a commute but there established Japanese communities and language dpeakers.

Bingo. Fox Mill or GFES are really the only places you'll find a substantial number of Japanese-speaking students who can help ease the transition. FMES is as well run as a Fairfax County school is going to be. If you need to, you can supplement the academics while your kids build up their English skills. I am 95% certain you do not have to actually live within the boundary for either school -- they should take transfer immersion students from elsewhere, because immersion programs is nearly always going to have room in upper grades. But not living in boundary means you need to work out a transportation arrangement to get your kids to and from the school.

[Anonymous]

If you have a good life in Japan why would you ever leave?

[Anonymous]

Loads of Japanese expats in Rockville and Bethesda with kids who attend the Japanese school in Bethesda off the beltway every Saturday.

[WillardD]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fox Mill ES and Great Falls ES in Fairfax County have Japanese Immersion. Both have kids moving in from Japan who speak no English and join the class. They have other students and teachers who are fluent in Japanese who can help them. The other night I had one girl translating for another at a school dance. I know it is a bit of a commute but it an option.

Both schools feed into MS and HS that offer Japanese and have kids who speak some Japanese, and a good number who are fluent because they use it at home with a parent or are from Japan like you are.

Again, a bit of a commute but there established Japanese communities and language dpeakers.

Bingo. Fox Mill or GFES are really the only places you'll find a substantial number of Japanese-speaking students who can help ease the transition. FMES is as well run as a Fairfax County school is going to be. If you need to, you can supplement the academics while your kids build up their English skills. I am 95% certain you do not have to actually live within the boundary for either school -- they should take transfer immersion students from elsewhere, because immersion programs is nearly always going to have room in upper grades. But not living in boundary means you need to work out a transportation arrangement to get your kids to and from the school.

Thank you. I understand that if you are outside of the boundary, you have to take the lottery and you are also not entitled to school bus service. So if I do stay somewhere between Herndon and DC, does that mean I would have to take my kids west to school, then head back the other direction, or are there alternatives? Easiest would be to stay near these schools, but I don't know how horrible the commute to work will be.

[Anonymous]

WillardD wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fox Mill ES and Great Falls ES in Fairfax County have Japanese Immersion. Both have kids moving in from Japan who speak no English and join the class. They have other students and teachers who are fluent in Japanese who can help them. The other night I had one girl translating for another at a school dance. I know it is a bit of a commute but it an option.

Both schools feed into MS and HS that offer Japanese and have kids who speak some Japanese, and a good number who are fluent because they use it at home with a parent or are from Japan like you are.

Again, a bit of a commute but there established Japanese communities and language dpeakers.

Bingo. Fox Mill or GFES are really the only places you'll find a substantial number of Japanese-speaking students who can help ease the transition. FMES is as well run as a Fairfax County school is going to be. If you need to, you can supplement the academics while your kids build up their English skills. I am 95% certain you do not have to actually live within the boundary for either school -- they should take transfer immersion students from elsewhere, because immersion programs is nearly always going to have room in upper grades. But not living in boundary means you need to work out a transportation arrangement to get your kids to and from the school.

Thank you. I understand that if you are outside of the boundary, you have to take the lottery and you are also not entitled to school bus service. So if I do stay somewhere between Herndon and DC, does that mean I would have to take my kids west to school, then head back the other direction, or are there alternatives? Easiest would be to stay near these schools, but I don't know how horrible the commute to work will be.

Yes, you have to provide transportation if you are out of boundary. It is hard to say how long the commute is without knowing where you will be working but tHe Silver line is now open and runs from the area. There is a station about 1 1/2 miles from Fox Mill but I don’t know how long it takes to get into DC. Probably 45-60 minutes? The Silver Line shares the line with the Orange line.

The lottery is for First grade. After first grade kids have to speak Japanese in order to enter the program. The class drops from 30 students or so in first grade to the high teens in sixth grade. We are at Fox Mill and have had new kids join the class every year who come from Japan. I don’t think that it is hard for a Japanese speaker to join the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a good life in Japan why would you ever leave?

Prob more $ and more potential for promo

[Anonymous]

Use this link op if you're Japanese- http://www.kaigailink.com/dc/

[Anonymous]

I would NOT move a child in middle school here from Japan. Just no.

[Anonymous]

WillardD wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fox Mill ES and Great Falls ES in Fairfax County have Japanese Immersion. Both have kids moving in from Japan who speak no English and join the class. They have other students and teachers who are fluent in Japanese who can help them. The other night I had one girl translating for another at a school dance. I know it is a bit of a commute but it an option.

Both schools feed into MS and HS that offer Japanese and have kids who speak some Japanese, and a good number who are fluent because they use it at home with a parent or are from Japan like you are.

Again, a bit of a commute but there established Japanese communities and language dpeakers.

Bingo. Fox Mill or GFES are really the only places you'll find a substantial number of Japanese-speaking students who can help ease the transition. FMES is as well run as a Fairfax County school is going to be. If you need to, you can supplement the academics while your kids build up their English skills. I am 95% certain you do not have to actually live within the boundary for either school -- they should take transfer immersion students from elsewhere, because immersion programs is nearly always going to have room in upper grades. But not living in boundary means you need to work out a transportation arrangement to get your kids to and from the school.

Thank you. I understand that if you are outside of the boundary, you have to take the lottery and you are also not entitled to school bus service. So if I do stay somewhere between Herndon and DC, does that mean I would have to take my kids west to school, then head back the other direction, or are there alternatives? Easiest would be to stay near these schools, but I don't know how horrible the commute to work will be.

I would not expect to worry much about the lottery for an older student, because they lose students out of the JI program every year. 1st grade is really the only year where lottery matters. There should be open spaces. Also should be possible to pull in a younger student via the older student... but even if the age gap between your kids is so large that only one at a time would be going to elementary school, to my knowledge, they never get as many native speakers as they want, which means the kid would be admitted, regardless. But the school bus thing is a problem, for sure. How flexible would your wife (or husband)'s job be? If your spouse can get them there in the morning, you can enroll the kid in an aftercare program that allows for a later pick-up -- various outfits have shuttle buses that pick up kids at the school and then take them to the program's base. (There is also aftercare at the school itself, but these are nearly always waitlisted, and sometime the waitlist is in years.)

[Anonymous]

If you live near Fox Mill and are commuting into DC, the commute is going to be an unpleasant one. This is somewhat mediated by there being Silver Line train stations pretty close to FMES, ~15 minutes away during rush hour, I believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you live near Fox Mill and are commuting into DC, the commute is going to be an unpleasant one. This is somewhat mediated by there being Silver Line train stations pretty close to FMES, ~15 minutes away during rush hour, I believe.

The Herndon station is 5 minutes from the school, maybe 10 if you hit every light wrong. There is a lot of parking at the Metro stop as well. The Wiehle station is about 15 minutes away but there are now two stops between Fox Mill and Wiehle. If your job is near one of the Orange line stations it is a pretty easy trip in because Silver shares the line with Orange.

There are a large number of child care options that pick up at Fox Mill ES so finding child care is not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Will you be able to send your children to international school upon your return to Japan? I couldn’t quite tell from your post whether you already live abroad, just not in an English-speaking country, but if you are not already abroad, please consider the effect that coming back to local Japanese middle and high school may have on your children. I ended up staying in the US, but I grew up around a lot of chu-zai families, not in a Japanese immersion school (not in the DC area). Even if they were only away for a few years, most of the kids were bullied, some quite badly, after they got back to Japan. The exception seems to be the ones who went to international school.

Subject-readiness at their grade level may also present a problem once they’re back in Japan. If you do not do Japanese school, may I suggest looking into mail-order courses such as Benesse? They are designed to keep kids living abroad on pace with the curriculum back home.

Regarding the DC area specifically, the Japanese language immersion programs at Great Falls and Fox Mill are part of the Fairfax County Public School system, and therefore free and accessible if you live in Fairfax County. Elementary in Fairfax County is K-6, which I know was one of your concerns upthread. But in terms of an actual Japanese community, there seems to be more of that in Bethesda and Rockville in Maryland. I don’t see too many Japanese in McLean or Great Falls, even though they’re frequently mentioned on message boards like KaigaiLink. In Northern Virginia I have seen some moms of younger babies out at playgrounds and cafes during the day in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington. Clarendon is walkable and very accessible to DC by Metro. However, it is in Arlington County, not Fairfax County, and does not have a Japanese language program in its public school system.

I hope this is even a little bit helpful. I will say that this area is fairly polite, and has a fairly large population of East Asian people, so yes there will be culture shock, but it won’t be nearly as bad as other parts of the US. Good luck with your decision!

[Anonymous]

^ One more thing. I personally think the location of the two FCPS immersion schools (Great Falls and Fox Mill) are too far away for a daily commute into DC, but I know a few people who do it, and others on this thread seem to think it’s not too bad. If you think you can stomach the commute, I would also suggest looking into Reston as a place to live. You will have free pool and tennis court access to every pool and tennis court in Reston; the pool in the summer might be a really great way for your kids to find new friends or see friends outside of school, and that could help with the culture shock.