The highs and lows of Anglo. Japaneseness So successful had I been in integrating Timothy into the Japanese community that his English seemed to be quite deficient when he started school. His nursery teacher once asked me if he could speak English because at times he did not seem to respond when spoken to in English. In his nursery school report the first languages at home were written: Japanese, English (Japanese preceded English) (Nursery Report, 1993 in Lewis, 2005). All his friends seemed to be Japanese and he enjoyed playing with them. In his nursery report it was also written, ‘Timothy uses both Japanese and English in the nursery and is able to act as translator for staff and peers’ (Nursery Report, 1993 in Lewis, 2005). Timothy was pleased that he could bridge the linguistic gap 92 There was also an Eastern European girl attending Hoshūkō who had lived in Japan for some time so her parents were keen for her to attend Hoshūkō (see figure 2, fourth girl from the right sitting on the bench). She was a fluent Japanese speaker and she also attended my son’s mainstream primary school.
