minority language

“Au revoir,” my daughter finally said to the owner of our neighborhood French bakery recently as we were leaving after getting our fill of the most yummy, buttery croissants and perfectly baked quiche Lorraine. I was beaming. She’s known how to say goodbye in French for a while now, but she always refuses to say it when I prod…I wonder why? We go to the bakery at least once every two weeks, after I pick her up from preschool .Read More ...

This post was originally published on February 18, 2009. One of the biggest challenges we face in our bilingual journey is being consistent and finding ways to nurture the minority language outside the home. No matter which method your family chooses to use–OPOL (One Parent, One Language) or mL@H (Minority Language at Home)–it’s important to have resources and strategies to immerse your child in the second language in fun and playful ways. I know, for a fact, that my daughter,Read More ...

A day summer camp is exactly what the name implies. Your child attends camp daily for however many weeks you're interested in (or you can afford.) Obviously, the longer your child attends, the better the end result. As far as I understand, the daily curriculum is taught in the target language, which depending on the program you choose, can range from Spanish to Arabic. Normally, age requirements are a bit more lax in this type of setting. At the one I've been looking into for Vanessa - the Denver Montclair International School - for example, they accept kids as young as three. By the way, their Spanish program is so popular, it's pretty much sold out for the entire summer! "Day camps work really well for really young kids," says Carl-Martin Nelson, the director of communications at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota. "We find that half the time it's the parents who are not ready for regular summer camps and the other half it's the children" ...