Daily Blog

Recently my 13 year old son and I got to try out an online video-conferencing Spanish program called, “Homeschool Spanish Academy” and we’re really excited to share our experience with SpanglishBaby readers. Homeschool Spanish Academy – What is it? Founded in 2010, Homeschool Spanish Academy is an online “Spanish institution that offers interactive immersion lessons with native-speaking Spanish instructors in Central America,” (Guatemala to be exact.) As the name indicates, Homeschool Spanish Academy is aimed at homeschooled children, but IRead More ...

Newly pregnant with our first child, there were so many hopes and dreams I aspired to give my daughter: a secure sense of self, confidence in her womanhood and the ability to define her cultural identity in whichever way she chooses. Being of mixed races and cultures, I wondered who would win in the battle of personal identity definition…Alina or society at large. With that in mind, before Alina was born, I decided she would be bilingual in order toRead More ...

Language transfer, when someone applies knowledge from their native language to a second language, is typical in budding bilinguals like my daughter. Although in her case, she really does a lot of the transferring the other way around, from what I like to think as her second language (English) into her native one (Spanish). Of course, it could be argued that in a case like hers, where she has been exposed to both languages pretty much since birth, it’s hardRead More ...

They’re much milder now, but my boys’ speech delays were so very pervasive for the longest time. We went from no speech to echolalia (our own speech parroted back to us) to practicing simple requests over and over and over.  I was always somewhat amazed by other children their age when I heard them speaking on the playground, stringing together such complex thoughts so effortlessly. A friend of mine, whose daughter is two years younger than my sons, once askedRead More ...

Yes, I am so, so, so nervous about this! As you know, we’re in the process of applying to dual language immersion programs in our area and we’ve got our heart set in our girl being accepted into the Spanish dual immersion program at Franklin Magnet School, aka International Foreign Language Academy of Glendale. Today is the day the public lottery is held and we’ll know if our girl’s name gets drawn to be amongst the 24 or so childrenRead More ...

Raising bilingual children in the United States can be challenging, but having a plan in place, significantly increases your chance for success. If you are not lucky enough to have a bilingual school to support you, creativity and effort are necessary to help your child acquire Spanish. In my head there was always an informal idea on how I would raise my children to speak Spanish, but now that they are in preschool, I am re-evaluating my action plan. ToRead More ...

Last week we had lots of fun asking the SpanglishBaby Familia on Facebook to share with us their favorite dichos. You know, those proverbial and poetic phrases full of wisdom you heard again and again from your abuela, tías, mamá y papá and now you find yourself repeating (and preaching!) to your kids at any given moment. You suddenly realize you inherited more from your mami than only her good skin and laugh. The other beauty about dichos is thatRead More ...

There is one thing I have noticed about SpanglishBaby’s (and other parenting blogs’) readership that I don’t like: very few fathers are represented! This is nothing new; moms have historically been the ones attending playdates and talking about the trends in diaper bags. Still, fatherhood has changed considerably and, when it comes to maintaining a home culture and language, the presence of Papi is just as important as that of Mami. Since my significant other is one of the mostRead More ...