The New Girl Only Speaks English!!

Hi all,

Today is the students' first day back at school after winter break and there is a new student. She's from the Philippines and doesn't understand Japanese. I asked the teacher who helps the foreign kids if she understands Japanese. The reply was that she has barely even scratched the surface of being able to read it and really only understands English. There's a bit of a panic around the school about this despite having 6 English teachers plus one assistant teacher who's English is more or less perfect plus the foreign students' assistant teacher and me (though my presence is largely ignored in these matters).

Luckily, the head teacher for her grade has had the foresight to put her into his homeroom where lo and behold he has the best English student in the whole school. I was a little worried when I heard this morning about the girl but then I saw that he had buddied her up with little miss awesome at English and felt a lot better. I can't imagine how tough it is going to be for her though. She's 15 years old. Her parents have decided to up and move to Japan for what they perceive to be a good opportunity for training and what not. She has no friends here, yet. Being a teenager is hard enough without being moved to a place where you don't speak the language much less understand the culture and freezing your butt off having moved from a warm country to well, frankly, one great big pile of snow!

This girl is not like the Brazilian students that I have. They have grown up here. They went to primary school here. They speak the language and can, mostly, read. They act out because they're 'different' but they can survive quite happily in the school system here and make themselves understood in their teachers' native language. They can understand, for example, that they are getting told off because they swore at Raewyn in her native language in English class. This girl can't really do those things.

I think she'll be ok, with a little bit of effort on her part. When I was her age I could read hiragana and katakana plus about 20 kanji that were used in class on a regular basis. I had no application for my Japanese other than taking it as a subject at school. This girl has no choice but to learn it if she is to survive the next 9 weeks as a junior high school student in Japan. It won't happen overnight but it will happen for her.

Every time I see or hear of one of these kids who is brought to Japan not knowing the language and getting sent to school I gain a new found respect for the adaptability and perseverence of kids. That is something to never be underestimated. Never ever underestimate the adaptability of a teenager or their perseverence! It's amazing how much the human spirit can put up with and survive through. But that it a topic for another day.

Now, it's time for me to go back to the eavesdropping on the office buzz... what are they talking about? Of course it's: The New Girl Only Speaks ENGLISH! :O