Policy
Obligations
TheReality
Despite the presence of large numbers of non-Japanese or non-Japanese speaking students in the Japanese school system, the education system is designed to teach all students equally, despite their abilities, in what is known as the '' assimilationist'' model.Students
Numbers
Noguchi (in Noguchi and Fotos) wrote that the number of language minority students in Japanese schools "surpassed 17,000 in 1998" (p. 15). Of these students, the majority speak Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish, Tagalog, Korean, Vietnamese or English (in descending order). According to a MEXT survey that Vaipae studied, 39 other languages are represented in Japanese public schools (p. 187). Most of these students are concentrated in industrial centers and urban areas; however, all prefectures had language minority students.Needs
The language needs of these children vary from student to student, and are dependent on a number of factors, including: length of stay in Japan; contact with Japanese prior to, during and after school; their parents' own ideas about the Japanese language and Japanese schooling; and services available to them in theirGoals
Fujita (2002) argues there is no goal to maintain the L2 in "returnee" children because Japan as yet has no clear "consensus as to the purpose of learning English in Japan ..Returnees were once thought to be able to trigger a change in monolithic Japanese educational system by introducing diversity however it seems that this has not happened." (Fujita, p. 19) Since there is no goal for maintaining either the L2 of returnee children nor the L1 of minority language students, with the exceptions of a few schools, immersion (or bilingualism) is not a Japanese educational reality. However, for the majority of minority language students in Japan, ''submersion'' is more appropriate (seeConsequences
Noguchi and Fotos (2001) studied bilingualism and bilingual education in Japan in which many authors commented that schools reflect theSee also
*References
*Cook, V.J. (1999) "Bilingualism". In K. Johnson & H. Johnson (Eds.), ''Encyclopedia Dictionary of Applied Linguistics''. Malden, MA:External links