Bicultural Vida

Having kids is a lot of work, as a mom of a 2-year-old, I’ll be the first to admit that it makes me a little crazy at times. There are so many situations to handle, so many decisions to make, so many daily tasks and hardly ever a break. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and then, being a bicultural mom, go ahead and pile language and cultural lessons right on top of that list. Sheesh! How do we do itRead More ...

Editor’s note: In celebration of Mother’s Day next week, we are honoring all mothers who do everything they can to give their children the awesome gift of bilingualism and biculturalism. We’ve invited several amazing mamás who are doing just that to tell us all about it in our Week of SpanglishBaby Moms. Each one of them brings a completely different look at bilingualism. All the moms are bloggers too and if you didn’t know about them before, I’m sure you’llRead More ...

Call me crazy but I decided to complicate my attempt to expose my baby to multiple languages by adding another element: baby sign. Maybe it’s not too surprising given my level of interest in teaching Sabrina three languages. I wanted to keep teaching her sign language as simple as possible because it seems that our lives are already a bit chaotic. I contemplated between using American Sign Language (ASL) versus Baby Sign because ASL is actually recognized as a languageRead More ...

It’s spring, which means it’s IEP season. My third one. Simply put, that means it’s time to get together with our special education team and discuss my children’s present level of performance in school, come up with annual goals for next year, and decide what special education services they will need. At the end of the process we will have an Individualized Education Program for each of them, a document that we will revisit periodically to check their progress. ThisRead More ...

Last week we posted the following question on our Facebook fan page: “What has been your biggest obstacle in raising a bilingual child?” Within minutes, we had tons of answers explaining all kinds of different obstacles. But soon it was clear which were the most prevalent (in no particular order): #1 You’re the only one who speaks Spanish at home (or the OPOL method is hard to do) I’ve always kind of silently envied those who use the OPOL methodRead More ...

As I mentioned in an older post, Marisol’s name is the source of some pronunciation issues for our friends and even family, sometimes. A few nights ago, Marisol did something about this that just made me so proud that I thought I should share. I was in the kitchen setting the table for dinner with a great friend of ours, when I heard Mari in the other room saying, “No, it’s Mah-ree-SOL. Mah-ree-SOL. It’s Mah-ree-SOL, Nathan.”  I ran in toRead More ...

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1CSkx0rvFk Children love computers and the Internet, and as our world becomes ever more technologically advanced, it is imperative that we give them the tools to explore and learn using technology.  Fortunately, technology can also be a valuable tool in our efforts to raise bilingual children.  There are numerous on-line stories in Spanish, videogames and websites.  The Internet also gives our children the chance to explore other countries and cultures preparing them for our ever-increasing global society. I absolutely loveRead More ...

My varied experiences with the Spanish language have taught me that there is one thing bilinguals will always have a surplus of: questions. Fluency is a relative concept; everyone has a different definition of what it means to be fluent in a language, and my most pressing question seems to be Am I really fluent? At my son’s age (3), the questions are more basic, like Why do we say “his” and “her” en inglés, but only “su” en español?Read More ...