My 3-year-old speaks great English, but I wish he had an opportunity to use it outside of our home. I was wondering if anybody has advice or experience with finding English-speaking kids to play with.
Here are some things I thought of:
* Lurk on Facebook groups for foreigners in Japan/my area
* I hate Facebook, but this might be the best way. I haven’t delved into this much yet.
* Befriend English-speaking parents
* I have a few already, but unfortunately most live too far away for regular playdates. Also, not all of them emphasize English as much as we do, so their kids mostly speak Japanese.
* Enroll in an international school
* Guaranteed English-speaking environment, but damn it’s expensive!
* Online games
* My kid is still way too young for this, but could be an option in the future.
* Move to Tokyo
* I assume Tokyo has the largest English-speaking community, which would make the search easier. For reference, I currently live in Kyoto.
* Join a church
* I’m not religious at all, but I’ve heard this can be a pretty good way to meet English-speaking people. (only semi-joking)
I welcome any more ideas or stories of your own experiences!
Disclaimer: I searched the subreddit and found some similar threads, but nothing extremely helpful and I thought it would be nice to get a fresh perspective.
6 comments
At least for me I would just talk to other foreign parents I saw at local parks and events, created a line group and asked them to join and invite any other foreigners who are interested. After a few months we ended up with a pretty decent number of parents and arrange regular play dates and picnics.
The international school option is expensive but by far the most effective (to a degree that you may start to worry about Japanese ability). It is also the one that takes the least effort – there is a lot of value for people who are not natural teachers, or cannot spend the time.
Ask here? I’m in shimane with a daughter that’s 3 as well, and a 6 month old son. Anyone around the place let me know 🙂
There’s an FB Group “Kansai Kids Network” and they post activities and events for kids and parents from time to time. Some of them are held in Kyoto iirc. Parents also post playdates and meetups.
It may get easier when he can start yochien. We put our son in the public yochien since it’s the one we liked the most when visiting them. He does not have an english speaking classmate in his grade, but in the year younger there is one.
Also just going out and about to local parks when it is nice, we met a mixed family with a boy our son’s age.
See if there are any Western owned businesses around that are kid friendly to visit. They may be a source of information about foreigner families or events. We have a Westerner food truck who does events around our area, we go at least once a month to visit, chat and see what’s going on with the other foreigners in the area.
This may sound strange, but how about a kid’s eikaiwa?