ml@h

In preparation for our addition to the family, my husband and I have switched to speaking Spanish to each other nearly all the time. We even text in Spanish. This is a pretty big break from our pattern of communicating in English with each other and Spanish only with the other native speakers in our life. I have always known that it’s difficult for me to use Spanish when I’m upset, angry, or otherwise emotionally out of sorts. However, IRead More ...

Last week, I posted a question to our Facebook page asking parents who use the mL@H method to raise their children bilingual to share some of the difficulties they’ve encountered with it. I wanted to write a post around those answers based on some of my own difficulties with the method. But then, one of the parents asked what mL@H stands for and I figured I needed to step back a bit. Inadvertently, I assumed everyone who’s raising bilingual childrenRead More ...

The bell rings and Santiago runs to get the door shrieking with excitement. He’s been waiting all afternoon for friends of ours to come over for dinner so he can play with their 7-year-old son. “Hi, Liam!” he says and hugs him as soon as I open the door. “Hi, Santiago!” Liam responds and off they run to play with Vanessa who’s in the playroom in the basement. A bit later, they all come up to the kitchen where I’mRead More ...

I love having a child who’s a perfect example of how well the Minority Language at Home method (or mL@H) really works. If you’ve been following SpanglishBaby for a while, you know that, at this point, my daughter Vanessa, who’s almost 6-years-old, is fully bilingual and biliterate. Although the days of me worrying that Vanessa wouldn’t get enough exposure to English because we’ve only spoken to her in Spanish since the day she was born are long gone, the funny thingRead More ...

Before Vanessa started preschool a couple of months after she turned two, I often wondered how she was going to survive for four hours surrounded solely by English. I worried that others would think she had no manners because even though she already understood the concept of “gracias” and “por favor,” she knew nothing about “thanks” and “please.” I explained the situation to her teachers and they reassured me everything would be fine. You see, up until then, her lifeRead More ...