Daily Blog

It’s spring, which means it’s IEP season again. Time to get together with a team made up of my boys’ teachers, special education teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, the school psychologist and a school administrator or two and reevaluate the school year. We will talk about how much progress my sons have made in reaching the goals we set for them last year and decide on new ones for next year. This year, only half an hour has been blockedRead More ...

Why raise a bilingual child? Parents on language, culture and roots from Multi American on KPCC — A must-watch if you’re raising bilingual children or thinking about it. I’m sure you’ll see yourself reflected in the reasons these parents give for raising bilingual kids. False Friends and Other Unwanted Companions from Psychology Today — Have you ever said “librería” when you really wanted to say “biblioteca?” Prof. Grosjean explores why interferences like that happen to bilinguals. My favorite part of the article is thisRead 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 ...

We’re getting everything ready for our third SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout and we’d love for you to join us tomorrow. This time around we’re discussing bilingualism and children with special needs. For those of you who’ve never joined a Google+ Hangout, you should know that it’s just like hanging out with a bunch of friends, except that you’re not all in the same room. In case you missed them, in our first Hangout we discussed dual language immersion programs and in our second one weRead More ...

Today we join in the celebration of International Women’s Day with joy and a great outlook for a future where women across the globe will enjoy the same access to equality and girls can grow up to live to their full potential. However, the reality is that women are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in an article yesterday that, “No country can get ahead if it leaves half ofRead More ...

One day when I was teaching ESL, I was working with a group of students from Mexico and Central America. Pencils scratched the paper, the energy was electric, the excitement palpable: we were filling out their applications for a program at a community college that would allow them to take a class over the summer. And the, we got to the demographic section: “Miss, am I white, black, Asian, or American Indian?” asked a young girl from El Salvador. TheRead More ...

Some weeks ago I posted an update on my personal Facebook profile sharing how much I love volunteering at my daughter’s kindergarten Spanish immersion classroom. Not even five minutes later I get a text from a very good friend whom I spend a lot of time with teasing me about using the word “love” in the same sentence as “volunteering.” She kept on going that there was no way I could love that and I had to be exaggerating. IRead More ...

There are two public dual language immersion elementary schools in my county, and there’s one school that offers everyday foreign language lessons, though it’s not an immersive setting. We applied for two of the three total options for next school year, when my son starts kindergarten, and just received word that he was not selected for either. We could choose to stay on the waiting list and wait for several months to have an official answer about that, but thatRead More ...