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Welcome to BayBees!! �@ BayBees is a play group of Japanese speaking parents and children. It started in September, 2002, with just one member and expanded to a large group of approximately 40 mothers and kids getting together every week. Our activities focus around learning Japanese language and Japanese culture, events, and customs through the playtime. Parents participating in BayBees work hard to provide opportunities for children to interact in Japanese speaking environment. �@ The reason why I planned and started this play group was because I wanted to find Japanese speaking friends and create Japanese speaking environment for our children. �@ I was born and raised in Japan and came to the US because I wanted to learn to speak English. However, our children are growing up in the English environment. Our children will grow up to be unable to communicate in Japanese without their parents making efforts to provide them with opportunities for learning Japanese, especially once they start going to preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school and so on.... . I believe it is our responsibility to give them occasions to listen to and speak in Japanese language and to interact and play with other Japanese speaking children through the organized Japanese environment and activities. �@ We meet only two hours a week but only speak in Japanese during the two hours of play time. Once one person starts using English, children will choose to communicate in the language more comfortable for them. However, I believe that as parents make conscious efforts to use Japanese and spend time with children in the Japanese speaking environment, our children will gain more vocabularies and become familiar with and comfortable in communicating in Japanese. �@ Our goal is to provide Japanese learning environment to our children through their play time to learn Japanese in a natural setting and not through stressful class-like setting. �@ BayBees Founder/Spokesperson Misae Moro |
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