Yumiko Tsuzuki
Universal Brain Inc.
January 13 is a special anniversary for me. On this day of 2005, I read an article on Dr. Garcia�s research and learned about signing with babies for the first time. I immediately wrote to Northlight Communications, the publisher of Dr. Garcia�s books and DVD�s, if Japanese version of �SIGN with your BABY� would ever be produced. At this point they were not yet interested in Asian market. Therefore, I attended CAEYC Annual Conference held in early March of 2005 in Sacramento, CA, to visit Sign2Me booth and negotiate face to face. Fortunately, I met with Bob Tarcea, the president of Northlight Communications. I still remember his surprised face when he found that I came all the way from Japan just to see him. A year later, the Japanese version DVD was released. Hooray!
In May of 2005, I started teaching mothers how to show signs to their babies. Then, I encountered some cultural factors that require modifications to SIGN with your BABY program. For example, there is no doubt that looking eyes to eyes is important when communicating with other person. This is the same in Japan in general, but in some situation, this behavior is regarded as impolite. Because of this custom, I found that some mothers are not good at looking into babies� eyes. I needed to solve this before teaching the importance of �3 gazes�. Therefore, I created a game to let such mothers enjoy looking eyes to eyes with their babies. There are a lot more cultural factors to be considered and I have carefully developed the way to guide mothers to the best results. Thus, I have created a teaching method tailored to Japanese culture.
I would like to give special thanks to Lora Heller of Baby Fingers LLC (NY), and to Jennifer K. Chang and Eva Ung of Keiki�s Corner (CA).
"I have been married for 20 years and I live in Kanagawa, teaching many classes in Tokyo and Kanagawa. I enjoy teaching the Sign2Me program and have been invited to teach in many other cities in Japan.
I discovered the Sign2Me program when I read an article in magazine and now have been teaching for almost 4 years. My ultimate goal for families in Japan is to understand how to spend quality time with their babies, sharing this wonderful program about how to use signs with their little ones for communication. The best thing about being a Sign2Me Presenter is that Mothers regard me as a professional teacher, helping them to better communicate with their children."
– Yumiko Tsuzuki
Linda Stoler’s Lullabies for Language and Learning
