Daily Blog

Parents and bilingual teachers have a problem. At the beginning of a relationship, kids establish the language they want to use to communicate with an adult. Once established, it is not easy to convince the children to speak another language with them. Given this situation, what can parents and teachers who want to use two languages with the children do? One solution is to introduce the children to a puppet that only speaks the target language.  Many adults remember aRead More ...

Do you love trabalenguas? I do, but it never really occurred to me that tongue twisters are a great tool to reinforce my kids’ Spanish. I mean, I’ve recited a couple of my favorite here and there, but I hadn’t taken the time to formally introduce Vanessa to them til this weekend. About four weeks ago, my family and I went to San Diego for my stepson’s graduation from the Marines. Although we were only there for a long weekend,Read More ...

La Doppia Vita from Language Magazine — A thorough article by our very own expert, Simona Montanari, about the proven benefits of dual language immersion education through the lens of the own Italian-English program she helped get started in Los Angeles. Born To Be Bilingual by François Grosjean from Life as a Bilingual — A letter written by the esteemed Prof. Grosjean on the birth of his first grandchild. Congratulation to him and his family and what a lucky little baby thisRead More ...

Two weeks ago I flew out to my birth city of Houston, TX to be part of the Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) 2012 National Conference. I was excited to be there for a book signing for Bilingual is Better and to accept an award for SpanglishBaby as Best Parenting Blog and for Latina Bloggers Connect (my other endeavor) as Best Latino(a)Social Network Leader. That sounds like enough action for one conference, but I couldn’t refuse an invitation from JohnsonRead More ...

When the pollworker put my ballot into the blue plastic bin, I did a little jump and blurted, “woohoo!,” in a way that was both a little embarrassing and totally appropriate. I was tempted to hug him, but I at least had the self control not to do that. As I walked out of the community center, my skin still covered in goosebumps, the first thing I did was call my mom: “Mami, I just voted and it was soRead More ...

My husband (a native French speaker) and I (an advanced non-native French speaker) have raised our two boys bilingually since they were born. They are 7 and 10 and in the 2nd and 5th grades. We normally live in the US and spend five to six weeks in France every two years. But, we wanted more! We are currently at the mid-point of a five-month stay in France. Although we have been pleased with their bilingual progress while living inRead More ...

On this Election Day, I am pondering how much America is changing and how much it is changing me. The earliest recollection I have of the political process is the 1992 election in which Ross Perot ran for president. I was 6 years old. This was long before I had an overwhelming cultural awareness, and certainly before I spoke Spanish. Twenty years ago, this country was not plagued with worry about how well the government would represent Latinos, and hearingRead More ...

It’s been three weeks since the controversy of whether Disney Junior’s Princess Sofia the First is Latina or not exploded. I was skeptical from the moment I saw the first headlines proclaiming she was Disney’s first Latina princess were shared all over social media. I became obsessed with the story and in trying to get a quote from Disney that either confirmed or denied that the adorable Sofia was really “our” princess because I just didn’t believe she was. ForRead More ...