ORAL PRESENTTION / POST-GRADUATE
【ABSTRACT】
English Literacy Retention in Three Pairs of Japanese Returnee Siblings TANIGUCHI, Joy (The University of Tokyo)
This oral presentation presents a case study of three pairs of Japanese bilingual siblings to investigate whether any social factor exists affecting their literacy retention in English. Each pair of siblings has similar language profile and family background, but differ in age. They were extracted from their native linguistic environment, required to learn a new language (English), and returned to Japan at a relatively early age. The younger siblings, who belong to an age group reported to be more vulnerable to language loss, were exposed to English during the ages of 1;8-6;8, born-7;0 and 4;9-7;9 respectively. On the other hand, the ages of the older siblings, an age group reported to be less vulnerable to attrition, were 4;4-9;4, 1;3-9;6 and 7;3-10;3. The data elicited from one-to-one reading session were collected over the period of 6 months.
The result revealed that their oral reading skill showed no regression, but comprehension skill, especially requiring the high level of cognitive maturation seem to be affected heavily by language loss or the cognitive immaturity due to age.
These findings are discussed in relation with social factors; 1) parental attitude offering scaffolding, encouragement and assistance in the children’s English literacy practice is crucial, 2) home is an important domain for maintaining L2 literacy, especially when more recreational and social interactional uses are emphasized, and 3) social networks play an important role to maintain and develop their L2 with the viewpoint of the motivation and the opportunity to use English in communicative situation.
