This study is about Japanese children who have experienced mobility across languages and cultures. Specifically, the research explores English literacy retention and attrition in four pairs of siblings who once lived with their family in a foreign country where they were educated and/or functioned in English and then returned to their home country, Japan. Upon their return, some of them continued to become more proficient in interacting with written texts in English, while others tended to lean toward improving their literacy in Japanese over that in English. The aim of this study is to explore how these children may lose, retain, or further develop their English literacy skills after a lengthy sojourn abroad.
One of the implications of the study is that the home is an important domain for maintaining English literacy in returnees, especially when more recreational and socio-interactional literacy uses are emphasized. In the participating children, English literacy practice for fun or for social interaction seems a valuable way of maintaining and developing English, both in terms of their English literacy skills such as effective construction of stories.
Peer networks also play an important role in retaining L2 literacy from the viewpoint of motivation and the opportunity to use English in communicative situations. In addition, supportive parental attitudes and provision by parents of scaffolding, encouragement, and fostering of the children's English literacy practice are crucial.
More importantly, however, the present study implies that all of the participating children viewed their hybrid language competence in a positive manner. I have established a rapport with the participating children and their families and observed the changes in the children's literacy skills over time both in Japanese and English. All the children seemed to wonder how they could best cope with using two languages during the period of readjustment. In the follow-up interviews, significant changes in their biliteracy practices over time were observed. Returnee experiences continued to matter in their lives through into high school, but at the same time, as the children grew older, they successfully avoided major linguistic and cultural difficulties and began realizing their hybrid language competence in a positive manner.
