Guest Post

The following is a guest post by bilingualism expert, Dr. Fred Genesee, Professor of Psychology at McGill University in Canada. There are many good reasons for raising children bilingually. First and foremost are personal and family reasons. If members of the immediate family or extended family include people who speak other languages, then it is a benefit for everyone if your child speaks their languages. This is especially true if some family members speak only one language and might beRead More ...

When I meet new people, I often try to slip into the conversation that I’m Mexican-American. You can’t tell by looking at me (I’m the whitey-whitest in a family of fairly white Mexicans) and you can’t tell by talking with me because my Spanish is terrible. I love my culture and I’m so proud to be Latina, but I often feel like a fraud because I can’t really speak the language. The fact that I’m not bilingual is one ofRead More ...

This is the continuation of yesterday’s post. We first learned about Susan McKinney de Ortega through a message she sent to let us know about her own blog and how she occasionally writes about raising two bilingual and bicultural teenage girls in San Miguel de Allende, México. The more we read about her and her family the more we wanted details. Luckily, she had written all about it in the short story “Two Red Lines” you’re about to read whichRead More ...

Although this is the first time we’re doing this, both Ana Lilian and I are so sure you’re going to so thoroughly enjoy the following essay, that the decision to post it was not hard to make. We first learned about Susan McKinney de Ortega through a message she sent to let us know about her own blog and how she occasionally writes about raising two bilingual and bicultural teenage girls in San Miguel de Allende, México.  The more weRead More ...

As a German mother living in Scotland with a Scottish husband I’m attempting to bring our 2 1/2 year old daughter up bilingually. We are encountering a situation where our daughter understands German, the minority language, perfectly, but most of her utterances are in English. She needs a lot of positive encouragement to even say single words in German. This is worrying, and from reading other parents’ experiences, I know that our daughter isn’t unusual, and neither are our worriesRead More ...

My baby boy is supposed to arrive in about four weeks. ¡Auxilio! (It sounds even more impending now that I’ve written it down like that…) I’m excited and ready to meet him, but I’m also a bit worried about how our family’s dynamic will change and how my daughter, Vanessa, will react once she finally meets her “manito“–as she calls him. Another concern of mine is how I’ll get used to the grueling and demanding schedule associated with having aRead More ...

The following is a guest post by fellow mamá bloguera, Silvia M, who is raising two bilingual children using the OPOL method in California. If you’d like to know more about Silvia, you can find her blogging here: Mama Latina Tips. When my firstborn was a few months old, I joined a mom’s group looking for some adult conversation and support. In one of our meetings, we watched the video “Sign with your baby” by Joseph Garcia and I fellRead More ...

The following is a guest post by Deanna Lyles, cofounder of Bilingual Readers, a brand new publishing company which provides resources for bilingual and multilingual families and communities. Bilingual Readers will launch its catalogue of bilingual books in October 2009. Get to know them better at www.bilingualreaders.com A very patient Spanish speaking mom has been reading her daughter Sara’s favorite book Yo Tigre out loud to her in Spanish every night at bedtime for the last month. But tonight Mom’sRead More ...