language barrier

Sometimes small children here will talk to me in Japanese. I think that they don't realize that English and Japanese are two different languages. They will look me earnestly in the face (which takes me by surprise as eye contact is sort of less popular here than in America, except with small children), and chatter away. Even after all this time, I am not always sure how to react. Lately, I've been opting for the act-as-though-I-understand response. The language barrier is even more difficult with small children because there are so many levels to the Japanese language, one of them being the language of children. Even though my comprehension of Japanese increases over time and older children are often a big help in learning new words, it can still be difficult with very small children.

So, last week, I was teaching a group of four-year-olds and they were sitting up to the table coloring a picture of jet (we were learning "j"). One of the girls started speaking Japanese to me. My guess was that she was finished, so I told her to keep going as I was enjoying the few minutes' break the coloring was giving me. A little boy looked up and told me something about the girl. I assumed he was saying the same thing, that she was finished. After I told him it was okay, he went back to his coloring. A few seconds later, he looked up and tried again. "Momoka ga..." he said really clearly, pointing at the floor under her chair. I looked over and saw a wet bottom, a wet chair, and a large puddle forming on the floor. Momoka was soon excused from class. I pulled a chair over the puddle. But in the spirit of being helpful, the little boy pushed all the chairs in to the table. Two kids stepped in the puddle in the meantime. Oops.