We did our very first Google+ Hangout yesterday and we’re super happy with the results. It felt great to just be able to hang out with a group of moms — including our expert — talking about a topic we’re so passionate about and that we’ve invested in so much.
For our fist session of SpanglishBaby LIVE, we tackled the always popular subject of dual language immersion programs. And there was so much to talk about! From the many DL options available to why you have to be willing to take a leap of faith if you want your child in one of these programs, we spent a good half an hour talking about this type of education.
First off, we’d like to thank our amazing guests for joining us in our first Hangout:
Simona Montanari, PhD, Associate Professor in the Dept. of Child & Family at California State University Los Angeles, specialist in first and second language acquisition in childhood. Simona has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of the Italian immersion program at Franklin Elementary, Glendale Unified School District.
Xochitl is one of our contributors and manager of SpanglishBaby Playground. Her son is in a DL program in Berkeley where she has volunteered for the last four years and is part of a group of parents and teachers who successfully achieved the consolidation of all the DL programs in Berkeley into one school which will start in 2014!
Rebecca Bernard is the Chief Cultivator of TheCulturedSeed.com, a digital resource for parents that value cultural enrichment and want to grow globally-minded children. She’s also a founding parent of a new Spanish-immersion charter school that will open next year.
Although I feel like I’ve written and researched this subject a lot, I can’t believe I learned so much from this conversation. The two topics that caught my attention the most were standarized tests for kids in DL programs and what happens when a child goes to a DL elementary school, but there’s no such thing at the middle and high school level. You can watch the entire conversation here:
I hope you can take the time to watch it because I promise you’ll learn something new. And be on the lookout for the announcement of our next session of SpanglishBaby LIVE. We plan to discuss another popular subject: how to deal with the bilingual rebellion stage.
Thanks for introducing this topic and for the great speakers. I was born in Central America, educated in Bilingual Ed for the first 2 years of my education in California (in the early ’90s) and then transitioned to all English for the rest of my education in LAUSD and through law school. I’m currently pregnant with my first child, and trying to figure out how to ensure my daughter will grow up bilingual and reap many of the benefits I have from being fluent in both English and Spanish. Hearing all the talk about parents starting their own charter schools as well as teaching native Spanish speakers about the importance of dual immersion programs gets me so excited and I look forward to learning more about ways to get involved. – Nidya