著者

永瀬 一哉

出版者

日本教育政策学会

雑誌

日本教育政策学会年報 (ISSN:24241474)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.8, pp.184-199, 2001-06-23 (Released:2017-12-24)

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I have taught the children of permanent residents of Indo-China (including Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) living in Japan, especially the 'Nanmin Nisei,' or the second generation of refugees and displaced persons who appear Japanese at a glance and whose primary language is Japanese. In the process of teaching them, the following characteristics are instantly perceived: they are often slow learners and they suffer from lack of understanding of the contents of each subject taken at school, although they can make themselves understood in Japanese in their daily life. These characteristics seem to involve a factor different from their slow-learning Japanese counterparts. My study begins by assessing how Indo-Chinese children proceed in their educational route in Japanese senior high school by investigating the schools where they currently or formerly attended. The length of stay of about 380 Indo-Chinese children living in Japan and their senior high school records were examined. Focused on the examination, analyses were made using statistics. The results follow. The deviation (i.e. hensachi 1 in Japanese) of the entrance examination of the schools these students attended was under 40. This suggests a weakness in the efficacy of compulsory education for Indo-Chinese students. Students were classified in three groups as follows, and appear in descending order by performance on the entrance exam: (1) children who came to Japan at junior high school age; (2) children who came to Japan before they entered elementary school (including those born in Japan); (3) children who came to Japan during elementary school. In short, the children who had the shortest stay in Japan by the time they took the senior high school entrance examination scored higher than the other groups, despite having less time with the language. In other words, those who came latest to Japan were superior to those who came to Japan before they entered elementary school, seeming to be better Japanized in terms of study at school. The children who came to Japan during elementary school followed these two groups, performing lowest of all. These results are necessarily concerned with the acquisition of one's native language when considered in conjunction with previous studies of other researchers on language learning. People generally acquire the foundation of the structure of a language grammar by the time of entrance into elementary school. This language is not fully mastered and made one's own until around 11 or 12 years of age, however. The children who had already come to Japan before they entered elementary school and with the ones who were born in Japan as children of immigrants probably have problems with control of their native language. This is because the former children immigrated from Indo-China to Japan (or the range of Japanese culture) at the age of the accomplishment of the foundation of a language grammar, and the latter joined the Japanese community after living in an environment of the use of their native language since infancy. However, this is before they enter elementary school. The children who come to Japan during elementary school, that is, the ones who seemed to accomplish the foundation of the structure of a native language grammar and enter a developmental and applied stage, seemingly more easily adjust themselves to the situation than the children who were suddenly forced to change their language to another for study, these exposed to Japanese at school without much experience with the language. The children who came to Japan at junior high age scored higher in the understanding of their study at school. Since native language ability is sufficient at this age, and their acquisition of Japanese and the understanding of the subjects they learn at school are performed on the basis of the understanding of their acquired native language, it seems that they show better result(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)