My interest in learning other languages can be traced back to learning Latin while attending Catholic school. Even as a young child, I was fascinated that there was another way to communicate, and I was always anxious to learn what the prayers and hymns in Latin meant. I attribute these early learning experiences to fostering my interest in mastering Spanish, a language derived from Latin, once I got to high school. Recently I have become very interested in the roleRead More ...
The Role of Religion in Language Learning
The Amazing Thing This Mom’s Doing to Make Sure Her Son Grows up Bilingual
When Aidan (my now 4.5 year old) was 3 years old, he decided that he was going to refuse to do anything “Chinese”. He used to lower his head and shove his hands deep into his pockets when asked to speak Chinese. He one day declared that he didn’t want to speak Chinese anymore. My son decided Chinese wasn’t cool, or hip, or relevant to anything he was interested in. Everything fun was in English, his Chinese friends all spoke EnglishRead More ...
Introducing the SpanglishBaby Gift Guide
Can you believe Christmas is less than three weeks away? I can’t — especially because I haven’t done ANY shopping at all. ¡Auxilio! If you’re anything like me, then you’ll like what I’m about to tell you… For a couple of years now, we’ve been wanting to put together a gift guide and I’m happy to announce we’ve finally done it! The thing with our Ultimate Gift Guide for Bilingual Kids is that it’s really not only to get gift givingRead More ...
Raising Bilingual Kids: What is the mL@H Method?
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 ...
Week in Links for #BilingualKids — Nov. 30
When Sign Language Influences Speech by François Grosjean on Psychology Today — I don’t know sign language, but this is an interesting read for those who do. Call of Duty and World of Warcraft Double as Language Class by Laura Kane on The Toronto Star — A strong case for the benefits of online video gaming when raising bilingual children. Statewide Shortage of Bilingual Teacher Recruits Controversy in Fox Valley by Emily McFarlan Miller on The Courier-News — Hopefully many of the kids being raised bilingualRead More ...