An Uncomfortable Silence

Today I tutored Miki, officially ending my winter vacation.

I explained the material she was supposed to study over break to her in Japanese - in science, she is studying cells and DNA and in social studies, she is learning about world religions - and everything was going well. Then, when we got to the "English portion" of our tutoring session and it came time for her to read dialogues from the textbook, I realized when I heard her voice that she had not spoken a word the entire time until that point. During the hour I had spent teaching the class material to her, she had been completely silent. I had asked her questions, but she answered yes/no questions with a nod or a shake of the head, and other questions were answered by pointing to words. For example, "What are the three main world religions?" was answered by pointing to the words "Christianity," "Judaism," and "Islam" on the print-out.

The strange thing about all this is that Miki is not shy! When she is speaking to her mother or sister, she is bubbly and outgoing, and she has friends at school as well. And yet she feels she cannot talk to me in Japanese or English. I'm beginning to wonder if my initial optimism, my belief that Miki would relax and speak more, was mistaken.