Hi. I’m an expectant mother, I'm actually Japanese, and you can basically think of me as a kikokushijo. I’m pretty fluent in English, like C2 at least. Most people I’ve met assume I’ve lived in England for a long time due to my accent and fluency, but I’m obviously not a native speaker.
I’ve been wondering what I can possibly do to teach my baby English… my family members including my husband are like “oh the baby is lucky, they got a free English teacher!” But when I think about it, I’m not sure how it’s going to work logistically. I’m not thinking of something drastic like me speaking exclusively in English to the baby, or sending the baby to an international kindergarten. What I think would be manageable is something like 30 min to 1 hour exposure to English every day by reading English books, playing English songs and shows etc, and I’m wondering if anything like that is actually going to have a meaningful impact. I have a habit of listening to English radio and podcasts all day long when I’m at home, so the baby will get exposed to that too. We might be able to send the baby to a hoikuen that has a bit of English lessons in their curriculum.
Assuming the majority of this sub is native English speakers, it might seem odd to be asking this here especially as a Japanese local, but I believe there are also a plenty of non-native English speakers here (and I’m tired of “Oh teaching English too young will hinder the kid’s Japanese ability yada yada” thing Japanese people love to tell), so here we go.
Do you have any experience teaching English at home as a non-native speaker? If so how did it go? If there are any resources you’d recommend, I’d love to hear about them too!
Edit: Thank you guys for all the great answers. It was actually really interesting reading your stories. It got me thinking whether I actually want my child to be fully bilingual or not as it seems to be a deciding factor in choosing how extensively I want to do this. Whatever I choose to do, I’m excited to see how it will turn out. Thanks again!
by Lazy_Classroom7270