Bilingual Education

This post is sponsored by Disney Story. To find out more about this brand-new story-creation app – and how it puts the power of storytelling in your hands - click here. I had promised to share with all of you our journey as we navigated the first year of dual immersion school and I have to admit that I’ve slacked a bit, but now that Camila successfully completed kindergarten, I’m ready to tell you it’s been everything we expected and more. At times it was aRead More ...

Just found this great video on the Great Schools YouTube channel that in very simple terms lays out the basics of dual language immersion programs and bilingual schools. Just love the drawings! ...

Editor’s note: In the next months, we’ll be bringing you interviews with those who have first-hand experience with dual language immersion schools or programs: the parents who have their kids enrolled in them. The idea is to give you a closer look at what these programs are really like, how and why they work, as well as some of the challenges they face. Thanks to our contributor Elsie for coming up with this great idea! After sharing my experiences investigatingRead More ...

In my father’s grand tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving in April — or whenever else he felt like it — he and I didn’t celebrate my birthday in May. We did celebrate it with cake or maybe a family gathering. But I always got my big gift, the one I looked forward to all year, in July. Back in the eighties there was only one place to find books in English in Costa Rica — where I grew up. It wasRead More ...

The verdict is in! Our daughter was accepted into the private dual language school I wrote about last month. The question now remains whether or not she will attend. We decided to start the lengthy application process because we wanted to have options. In fact, she remains on several rotating waiting lists at several daycare centers around town because one never knows. Before making our decision, there is a still a reflective process my husband and I need to goRead More ...

We dedicated all of last week to explore the topic of immersion travel and its amazing benefits in terms of your children’s bilingualism and biculturalism. But if traveling with your family for an extended period of time to a Spanish-speaking country is not an option for you right now, you can always send your kids to a language summer camp without having to travel too far. Language summer camps are run the same way a regular summer camp is: aRead More ...

Recently my husband and I decided to go through the process of trying to get our daughter enrolled in a prestigious and private dual language school in our city. I honestly did not imagine having to go through what seems like a rigorous process this early on in her academic trajectory. She is almost three, which means she qualifies for the primary school grade classrooms. We learned that there were a limited of spots (~30) with over 125 applicants! WeRead More ...

When we became parents, we hoped to raise our children to be bilingual. However, since I am the only Spanish speaker in the house, and most of our social circle speaks English, the reality is that my kids speak English and occasional Spanglish. For a time, I had pinned my hopes on sending the girls to a bilingual immersion program, an option we are lucky to have in our district. This winter when we applied to the lotteries (it’s all lottery inRead More ...