Daily Blog

Last week in the supermarket a woman overheard me speaking to my kids in Spanish and asked me, where I was from.  As I am often asked this question, I answered with my usual response that I was born in Pennsylvania, but learned Spanish as an adult.  Since she seemed interested, I explained to her that I am raising my children to be trilingual.  “You have a very good accent,” she kindly told me and went on to finish herRead More ...

Yes, I speak Spanish every day. Yes, I use it in a business and personal context. Yes, I feel muy cómoda switching to Spanish unexpectedly. So, why do I feel like my Spanish skills have stagnated? When I find myself explaining how to get past “the learning plateau” to a tutoring client, I am always reminded of my own relationship to the Spanish language. My job is to help others overcome that period during a course, test preparation, or languageRead More ...

I have had several adventures and challenges that have helped me prepare for motherhood. I believe they have prepped me for the stamina, patience, and determination I would need to raise a little one. For instance, I volunteered in what was known as the poorest region of Central America for six weeks when I was 21.  I spent day and night with a family of 12 in Lempira, Honduras. My “room” was used for storage. It had several bags ofRead More ...

I’m getting myself ready to travel with my daughter, Camila, to El Salvador where we will spend one whole month with la familia.  It will be such an amazing full-immersion experience for her right now at the age of three.  I will have many stories to share from there and I’m planning on keeping you all up-to-date on all the language and cultural experiences (hope not shocks!) that she’ll be going through. Especially since I’m signing her up at aRead More ...

  In honor of my daughter, Vanessa, who turns 4 years today, I’m re-posting this article from July 16, 2009, so I can spend the day having fun with my bilingual child. ¡Feliz Cumpleaños, hija linda! I absolutely love summer…for a lot of reasons, but mainly because my daughter is a summer baby which means we get to celebrate her cumpleaños outdoors in the melting heat (as opposed to indoors hiding from the snow.) In fact, both Vanessa and CamilaRead More ...

From September to June, we’re all about structure around here.  My boys have been in preschool since they were two.  We have home visits from teachers once a week, there’s a never-ending flurry of notes back and forth in communication logs, we have speech therapy and appointments with the psychiatrist.  So it’s no wonder that once June hits, I’m ready for all of us to take it a little easier.  I take on less work, or more work that IRead More ...

It’s been a while since the last time we took a look at the media buzz regarding bilingualism. In the past, we’ve let you know our reaction to newspaper articles, blog posts or videos related to bilingual education, Latino culture and the Spanish language. Now, we constantly share them on our Facebook page and strike up a conversation there. But what was in the news last week deserves a more in-depth look. The Los Angeles Times, printed three op-ed articlesRead More ...

I’ve been thinking about two things lately: my daughter’s name and her linguistic environment.  When we named her Marisol, we intentionally chose a Spanish name, including that rolled “r.”  We knew it would be butchered often, but loved it anyway and it became her name.  Her middle and last names are also very clearly Latino names as well.  Throughout our days, though, I wonder if her name will make her feel out of place, or self-conscious because it is soRead More ...