spanish

It’s been two weeks since we arrived in Puerto Rico and the experience has already been much more than I expected. My kids have been so immersed in Spanish at every level and in so many settings that a couple of days ago Vanessa actually came up to me and out of nowhere asked: “Mami, ¿qué tal si me olvido mi inglés?” I wanted to laugh at her ingenuity, but I just reassured her that this wouldn’t happen. Truth is sheRead More ...

From the moment the test read “pregnant,” it didn’t take long before I was sitting on a plane reading about the OPOL method and other strategies for giving one’s child the gift of two languages. Friends asked me about birth plans and attachment parenting, but I researched precious little of the topics concerning my other mama friends. I was fascinated by language development and raising a bicultural baby. The only problem? I don’t speak Spanish. I was relying on myRead More ...

Editor’s note: In the next months, we’ll be bringing you interviews with those who have first-hand experience with dual language immersion schools or programs: the parents who have their kids enrolled in them. The idea is to give you a closer look at what these programs are really like, how and why they work, as well as some of the challenges they face. Thanks to our contributor Elsie for coming up with this great idea! Today, I’m happy to shareRead More ...

The reasons for raising a bilingual child are varied. For me, it’s mostly because I can’t fathom my children not speaking my mother tongue, not being able to communicate with my family back in Peru or my husband’s family in Puerto Rico. But it’s also because of all the proven cognitive benefits of speaking more than one language as well as the financial advantages. I recently got the opportunity to show my 6-year-old daughter Vanessa exactly how it pays toRead More ...

In many ways I feel the same way as Roxana when she wrote, in an earlier post, My Daughter is Bilingual Thanks To Her Teachers, about the important role teachers have played in developing my daughters bilingualism. For the past six months my nena has been hearing English for the majority of her day. I can attest that she is an example of how children acquire language at what seems like a pretty fast pace compared to older children and/orRead More ...