1. Tell us more about
yourself, please. What is your background? When did you catch the multilingual
bug?
I’m originally from the United States—from Quincy,
Illinois—and I’ve lived in Hiroshima, Japan since 1996. My undergraduate and
graduate degrees are in English and Theatre Arts and I worked for many years as
a playwright, director, and drama teacher, particularly with children. When I
came to Japan, and began working as the ESL and drama teacher at Hiroshima
International School, many of my students were bilingual. This is when my
passion for supporting bilingual children first started, and has since
continued with my own children and as a tutor of bilingual kids in Hiroshima.
At the same time, I’m now a freelance writer,
serving as the chief editor of the English content for the Hiroshima Peace
Media Center, blogging at Bilingual Monkeys, and writing novels.
2. When and why did you start
blogging? Has it been an enjoyable experience? What are your favorite posts?
Where do you draw inspiration from?
I launched Bilingual Monkeys in the fall of 2012.
A couple of months earlier I had finished my first novel, which took several
years to complete, and I felt like I needed a change of pace before beginning a
new one. As I had gained good experience in my work with bilingual kids over
the years, and thought that sharing this experience might be of benefit to
others in the world, starting a blog seemed like the right step. I enjoy
blogging a lot, and the feedback I’ve received from readers has been very
positive, very gratifying, but I must admit that producing high-quality content
on a regular basis is a continuous challenge. I feel like a mouse on a
mousewheel!
My blog posts are generally inspired by my own
experiences as a teacher and parent. Although my circumstances are naturally
different from other parents, the practical challenges of raising a bilingual
child are similar for all, and this, I think, is why my articles can resonate
with parents everywhere. At the same time, I try to write with a sense of humor
and readers seem to enjoy this aspect of my blog, too. In fact, my most
humorous posts have been among my most popular, like “I Want to Be
Bilingual”: Letter from a Newborn Baby http://bilingualmonkeys.com/i-want-to-be-bilingual/ and How to Fail Miserably at Raising a Bilingual Child http://bilingualmonkeys.com/how-to-fail-miserably-at-raising-a-bilingual-child/. These posts are hard to write, but I feel a thrill, as a writer, when
I can successfully convey serious points through humor.
3. What reactions have you
received when you tell people that your children are bilingual? Mostly positive
or negative?
In Japan, where almost everyone is monolingual in
Japanese, bilingualism is rare and highly admired. In addition, because English
is studied widely here, but few people learn to speak it well, this make a
child who’s bilingual in Japanese and English even more unique. Although my
kids attend a Japanese public school, and so supporting the English side of
their bilingual ability isn’t easy under such circumstances, the fact that
English skill is highly valued in Japan is certainly an advantage when it comes
to my children grasping the value of their minority language.
4. What is your experience of
raising children in another country? Did you experience culture shock? Did your
wife and children? How do you deal with cultural differences?
As I’m now a long-term resident of Japan, and my
children were born here, we’ve never really encountered any sort of “culture
shock” as a family. The only culture shock we experience, in fact, is during
our infrequent visits to the United States!
In terms of cultural differences between my wife
and me (and between the whole country and me!), as the years have passed, I’ve
gotten a lot more patient with the sort of situations that would once provoke
irritation or frustration. It helps enormously, too, that my wife and I have a
very similar outlook when it comes to parenting and raising bilingual children.
5. You seem to be a busy
parent. How do you juggle your job, being a father, and your children’s
bilingualism?
The fact that I’m the main source of my children’s
exposure to the minority language, and yet not the main caregiver, makes their
bilingual upbringing a significant challenge. It certainly helps that I’ve been
working from home since they were small, but finding sufficient time for both
my children and my work is a daily juggling act. The truth is, I’m constantly
dropping balls and picking them back up again when I’m able. But one ball I
always keep aloft is their daily dose of exposure to English.
6. What is your biggest
challenge in raising bilingual children, and children in general? How do you
deal with it?
Because my kids attend a Japanese school, and
their time at school, and time spent doing homework for school, will continue
to increase as they get older, my toughest challenge will probably always be
the limited amount of time I have to nurture higher-level literacy skills,
particularly their writing ability. But I try to remain mindful of this
challenge and I make persistent efforts, each day, to advance their literacy
development.
7. What is your advice for
parents raising bilingual and multilingual children? Is there one secret for
successfully raising multilingual children?
My Best Tips for Raising
Bilingual Kids http://bilingualmonkeys.com/my-best-tips-for-raising-bilingual-kids/ offers a lengthy list of ideas that I consider important—and it’s the
full combination of these strategies, really, that leads to success. However,
if I had to point to one key practice, it would be this: read aloud to your
children in the minority language from day one and continue this practice, day
in and day out for at least 15 minutes a day, as long as you possibly can—even
after the children have begun reading on their own. I’ve written a lot about
the great power of reading on my blog, such as The Secret to Raising a
Bilingual Child http://bilingualmonkeys.com/the-secret-to-raising-a-bilingual-child/, and I urge all parents to put books and reading at the very heart of
their efforts.
Adam Beck, a writer and long-term resident of
Japan, is the blogger behind Bilingual Monkeys http://bilingualmonkeys.com/, a site of “ideas and inspiration for raising bilingual kids (without
going bananas).” You can also find him on Twitter!
