bilingual education

As I mentioned last week, NPR is dedicating the next few days to a series entitled Two Languages, Many Voices: Latinos in the U.S. about bicultural Latinos and their impact on education, technology, religion and entertainment. The first part in the series about the town of West Liberty in Iowa and how the majority of its population is Latino aired earlier today in Morning Edition. The story, along with an interactive map of how Latinos are reshaping communities are both available onRead More ...

I’ve been a fan of NPR for a very long time for a lot of reasons, but mainly because, as a journalist, I feel there’s little quality news programming left out there. If you listen to NPR, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, then this would be a great time for you to check it out. Starting next week, NPR will begin a series entitled Two Languages, Many Voices: Latinos in the U.S. on Morning Edition. TheRead More ...

Back in August, a question in the Ask an Expert column really hit home with me. The mother who felt that her vocabulary was weak and her proficiency in Spanish was lacking particularly moved me. She was seeking ideas on how to build her own Spanish proficiency to best help her child become bilingual. As a non-native Spanish speaker, I could relate to her fears and insecurities about being a non-native speaker. I was also impressed by her determination to giveRead More ...

Living in Orlando, Florida, provides a multitude of opportunities to speak Spanish. Everywhere I go, I hear Spanish speakers. At the bank, I often notice that not a single person is speaking English when I walk in. Sometimes, I find myself jumping in to translate for monolingual Spanish speakers in the grocery store or at the mall. There is one place in which they are not being accommodated, though: education. Latinos make up 24% of the K-12 population of Florida, yetRead More ...

Spongebob Squarepants is not good for your 4-year-old’s brain – at least that’s what a new study from the University of Virginia says. Researchers divided sixty 4-year-olds into three groups. The first group watched a 9-minute clip of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants, the second watched a 9-minute clip of PBS’s Caillou, and the third group drew pictures for nine minutes instead of watching television. When the nine minutes was up, each group was tested in what psychologists call “executive function.” TheRead More ...