[Interview] Charles Knudsen on New Book Pathways: 12 Success Stories of Bilingualism in Japan

Charles Knudsen: Well, we have a lot of students at Kikokushijo Academy that have managed to grow up bilingual, and they now have successful university lives and careers. Many parents I meet ask me how they can also raise their children to be bilingual. The truth is, there’s not only one way to do it. There are many ways, and each has benefits and drawbacks. Some pathways aren’t open to everyone. Not everyone can be a returnee if their parents are working in Japan. So I wanted to share different ways that children have become bilingual in Japan as well as some resources on how to follow in their footsteps.

I interviewed 12 young adults with different backgrounds who managed to become bilingual at different stages of their lives. They shared how they became bilingual and how it has impacted their lives.

The reason I decided to write this book as a series of interviews is because I wanted the stories to come from the students—the people who are actually experiencing life in Japan themselves. Whether they grew up through the standard Japanese school system, went abroad, attended international school, or any combination of these, they’re all Japanese. They all belong to the society and their voices should be heard.

I wanted to inspire readers with the students’ stories, but I also wanted to give some practical information and support, so there are also resources. I tried to cover every single type of international or English education opportunity that you can reasonably find in Japan from the least expensive—self-study at home—to the most expensive—a boarding school abroad.

Charles Knudsen: Their families cared. In general, almost all the families were invested in their children’s English education at different stages of their lives in some way. In some cases, the parents made it a major priority; in others, they gently nudged their children in that direction.

Interestingly, many of the interviewees actually said that it wasn’t their parents ultimately that ignited the desire in them. It was a friend at an international school, or, for example, joining the Boy Scouts of America where there happened to be a lot of other children from an American school.

Charles Knudsen: Yeah. It’s the little things. Some parents took their children abroad on vacation, but instead of spending the whole time together, they signed their children up for day camp with other children from around the world. Even if they didn’t come out of it fluent in English, they learned basic communication skills and saw how English could be a meaningful skill.

One person became motivated in high school when his parents took him to a graduation event at a childhood friend’s international school. He saw how effortlessly his friend spoke English with everyone there. Despite studying English for so long at school, he couldn’t understand a word, so he made it a goal to improve and study abroad during university.

Often, it’s about placing them with other children who speak English. It’s harder to do in Japan, but there are opportunities, which I talk about in the book.

Charles Knudsen: There was one girl, Ayuka. She decided one day when she was young that she wanted to speak English perfectly, so she made the decision to think only in English. [laughs]

Charles Knudsen: She would listen to an English video over and over again, repeating it herself until she sounded just like the video.

When she first joined Kikokushijo Academy in junior high school, she was very nervous. She wasn’t a returnee, and she had never really engaged in English with other young people—it was all self-study. Well, she ended up being the top of the class. If you spoke to her now, you would think she was a returnee or a native English speaker. What she was able to accomplish almost entirely on her own is remarkable.

Charles Knudsen: Well, families who are interested in international education might wonder about what age is right to start international school.

Some families go through the route of an international preschool and then Japanese elementary school. That works well unless they don’t study English at home because then they lose almost all of their ability within three months.

There are others who put their children in international school in second, third, or sometimes even fourth grade. Some international schools won’t accept ESL students that late, but parents do this because they want their children to learn kanji first, to achieve a certain level of proficiency in Japanese, and then they attempt to enter an international school after that.

Charles Knudsen: Something that might surprise parents is that their child’s Japanese literacy may not develop at the same speed as children attending Japanese schools. It does take a bit of extra effort. International schools can do a good job of teaching Japanese, but there are only so many hours in a day and in a week. So families who choose the international school route might have to invest a little bit more on weekends and after-school time in Japanese.

That’s a personal decision every family has to make. In the book, I don’t tell families what’s right or wrong. I just try to show them a range of experiences and outcomes. Of course, I do try to show the positive outcomes, since that’s the purpose of the book.

Charles Knudsen: Up until a few years ago, my main focus was on returnees and international school students. But I’ve seen more and more students who are committed to becoming bilingual, and more and more families who understand that there’s probably no better gift they could give their children. Not everybody can live abroad for four or five years though, so we need to find other ways to provide this gift of bilingualism. There are a lot of good options out there now, and I wanted to put them all in one place.

There’s also a real sense of urgency. The overall English level in Japan is actually on the decline compared to where it was 20 years ago.

That’s part of what I’m trying to address with Vision 2035, an initiative we started about a year ago to push for change in how English is taught and treated in Japan. The biggest thing missing, I think, is a sense of urgency. Officially, English is a core subject in junior high and high school, like math or Japanese. But it’s treated more like an elective, like art or music. If a student learns something, great. If they don’t, it’s not a big deal.

Charles Knudsen: But there are real benefits to learning English. New graduates with strong English skills are paid 30 to 40 percent more than their peers, and the gap only widens later in their careers. Recruiting firms in Japan are paid two or three times more per placement for bilingual candidates than recruiters in other countries because bilinguals are so rare here.

So this book is partly an attempt to show families that becoming bilingual is achievable through many different pathways, and that it’s worth taking seriously.

Charles Knudsen: I asked every student, “Are you glad that you’re bilingual?” Somewhere along the way, somebody made a decision for them. We’re going to move abroad. We’re going to put you in international school. This school requires a year of study abroad. I asked them, “Are you glad they made that decision for you?”

There’s nobody who said, “I wish I couldn’t speak English.” Nobody regretted having the ability to communicate with both people in Japan and also much of the rest of the world.

Charles Knudsen: Thank you.