Author: Ai Mizuta
Spending her childhood in Japan and Australia, experiencing language loss in both Japanese and English at different times of her life, and reacquiring both languages later in her student years in Japan, [Ai Mizuta][1] has always had a strong interest in the life trajectories of language minority children who learn to socialize between different languages and cultures. She taught Japanese as a Second Language for language minority children in Japan, and Japanese as a Heritage Language in Toronto where she pursued her Master’s degree at OISE with [Dr. Jim Cummins][2].
For her MA thesis, she examined the ideology of English in Japan through historical and content analyses of the advertisements of English conversation schools in Japan. She was amazed by how one’s language learning process was affected by the linguistic hierarchies of the wider society, in particular in the media and in language education policy.
Although she enjoyed Toronto, the sunny and bright winters of Tokyo enticed her back, where she worked for the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO, and coordinated a number of educational exchange programs for teachers in Japan, China and Korea. She returned to Canada to take up a position at the Consulate General of Japan in Vancouver as a researcher specializing in multiculturalism and immigration. She became deeply involved with her research about parents’ initiative to create a Mandarin bilingual program in Vancouver and with examining how parents are invested in their children’s Mandarin education, especially those who are ethnic Chinese but have lost their fluency in Chinese languages.
As a student under the supervision of [Dr. Patricia Duff][3], as a musician (she plays the violin in the [Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra][4]), and as the wife of [Dr. Henry Yu][5], Ai feels fortunate to be living and working in Vancouver, with all the opportunities the city has to offer.
(From http://www.lled.educ.ubc.ca/news/archive/sept25/sept25.htm)
[1]: http://www.wix.com/aimizuta/home
[2]: http://home.oise.utoronto.ca/~jcummins/cummins.htm
[3]: http://lled.educ.ubc.ca/lled-faculty/current-faculty/patricia-duff
[4]: http://www.vanphil.ca/
[5]: http://www.history.ubc.ca/henry-yu/
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