Susan

Last week in the supermarket a woman overheard me speaking to my kids in Spanish and asked me, where I was from.  As I am often asked this question, I answered with my usual response that I was born in Pennsylvania, but learned Spanish as an adult.  Since she seemed interested, I explained to her that I am raising my children to be trilingual.  “You have a very good accent,” she kindly told me and went on to finish herRead More ...

I never thought it would happen to me, but it did.  The societal pressure to put my children on the achievement treadmill started to influence some of my parenting decisions.  All parents want to give their children experiences to help them grow into successful adults, but sometimes we go overboard.  Children today often have schedules crammed full of sports’ practices, dances classes, education enrichment programs, art classes and even programs teaching them reading and math.  Like any good parent, IRead More ...

My husband and I are raising our sons to be trilingual.  Using the OPOL method, I speak to the children in Spanish, and he speaks to them in German.  While our baby is still in the babbling stage, our two and a half year old is quite verbal, constantly commenting on what he sees and asking questions to learn more.  I am often told what a wonderful gift I am giving my children by speaking to them Spanish.  Our pediatrician,Read More ...

Spanish in Japan! I never thought that I would be using Spanish while working in Japan, but Spanish was more common than I ever imagined it to be. My first job out of college was teaching at a Japanese high school. Having worked so hard to learn Spanish, I was determined to keep my language skills while teaching English and studying Japanese. I had feared that while in Japan my fluency in Spanish would diminish, but every now and then,Read More ...

As we mentioned yesterday, this week we’ll be introducing you to our five regular contributors – one each day. We hope you had a chance to meet Chelsea yesterday. If not, we suggest you go here. Today, we’d like you to meet Susan who, together with her husband is raising her kids trilingual. Welcome to our ever-growing SpanglishBaby familia! Susan O. Stephan is a credentialed Spanish Teacher in the state of California who earned her Master’s degree in Educational LinguisticsRead More ...