Presented at the Canadian Association of Japanese Language Education Annual Conference, 1999 by Asako Hayashi
What is bilingual education?: A survey of opinions on bilingual education and bilingualism in Japan
The term bai-lin-galu [bilingual] has been frequently used to describe bilingual individuals in Japan. Although a number of educators and scholars have discussed bilingualism and the possibility of founding bilingual education programs in Japan, the general attitudes of Japanese people toward bilingualism have not been widely studied. Therefore, this study was an initial attempt to investigate public opinions on bilingual education in Japan.
The participants in this study were 680 (408 males and 272 females) Japanese with a variety of backgrounds. The range of the participant's ages was 11 to 69 years old. Most of the participants (91%) have never lived outside of Japan. The participants answered a questionnaire which consists of 7 multiple-choice questions and 1 open-ended question, asking about the participants knowledge of bilingual education, their images of bilingual education and bilingual individuals, and their attitudes toward bilingualism. The results of this study indicated that 60.3 % of these respondents had never heard of bilingual education; and that 26.4% of them have heard of the term but they have no idea what it was all about.. Although the majority of the respondents (67.6%) had neither favorable nor unfavorable attitudes toward bilingual education because of lack of their knowledge about bilingual education, 22.1% still had favorable attitudes, and 64.2% of the school children respondents (n=53 out of 680) between the ages 11 and 18 answered that they would participate in a bilingual education program if they had the opportunity. Approximately half of the participants (55.6%) stated they would like to be bilingual and 58.1% acknowledged that bilingual abilities would be necessary in order to participate in the global society. In addition, responding to the open-ended question which asks for a comment describing their images of the term bai-lin-galu [bilingual], a majority of the participants used positive terms, such as sophisticated,internationalized,open-minded, and successful. In conclusion, these figures and comments suggest that Japanese people have favorable attitudes toward bilingualism in general.
The term bai-lin-galu [bilingual] has been frequently used to describe bilingual individuals in Japan. Although a number of educators and scholars have discussed bilingualism and the possibility of founding bilingual education programs in Japan, the general attitudes of Japanese people toward bilingualism have not been widely studied. Therefore, this study was an initial attempt to investigate public opinions on bilingual education in Japan.
The participants in this study were 680 (408 males and 272 females) Japanese with a variety of backgrounds. The range of the participant's ages was 11 to 69 years old. Most of the participants (91%) have never lived outside of Japan. The participants answered a questionnaire which consists of 7 multiple-choice questions and 1 open-ended question, asking about the participants knowledge of bilingual education, their images of bilingual education and bilingual individuals, and their attitudes toward bilingualism. The results of this study indicated that 60.3 % of these respondents had never heard of bilingual education; and that 26.4% of them have heard of the term but they have no idea what it was all about.. Although the majority of the respondents (67.6%) had neither favorable nor unfavorable attitudes toward bilingual education because of lack of their knowledge about bilingual education, 22.1% still had favorable attitudes, and 64.2% of the school children respondents (n=53 out of 680) between the ages 11 and 18 answered that they would participate in a bilingual education program if they had the opportunity. Approximately half of the participants (55.6%) stated they would like to be bilingual and 58.1% acknowledged that bilingual abilities would be necessary in order to participate in the global society. In addition, responding to the open-ended question which asks for a comment describing their images of the term bai-lin-galu [bilingual], a majority of the participants used positive terms, such as sophisticated, internationalized, open-minded, and successful. In conclusion, these figures and comments suggest that Japanese people have favorable attitudes toward bilingualism in general.