“I would like to teach my kids to read in Spanish. Any suggestions on materials to use? Thanks.”

Hi Leticia! I love your name! Leticia is one of my favorite cities in Colombia – it’s in the Amazon region and it’s a very beautiful place!

With regard to your question, there are tons of great sites online that can help kids read in Spanish. Here is a collection of some of my favorites. You can also check out my Delicious bookmarks (http://www.delicious.com/miscositas) and my website for updated links that seem to pop up every day! ¡Buena suerte!

America Reads Spanish: this is a great place to start looking for reading materials. On this site you can download a book called: Essential Guide to Spanish Reading for Children and Young Adults, which is an annotated bibliographic list of great reading in Spanish sorted by age level and recommended by librarians and educators from around the country!  http://www.americareadsspanish.org/

World Digital Library: this site makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world; materials are available in Spanish and several other languages.  http://www.wdl.org/en/#

International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL): A digital library of outstanding children’s books from all over the world; read full texts with accompanying images; search archive by country to find books in Spanish – and many other languages.  http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

StoryPlace: A digital online library for kids with stories, games and activities; kids can read along with the story as the audio portion plays. http://www.storyplace.org/sp/

BookBox: A neat site with interesting stories in different languages, with subtitles or without them; you can access a sample of the story for free, but the full story is $2.99 to download and keep; free games and other materials as well; materials available in English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi and 21 other languages. http://www.bookbox.com/

MisCositas: My site! I have over 20 “virtual picturebooks” that students can read, with challenging vocabulary words linked to a pop-up picture dictionary; after reading the “book,” kids can view the accompanying video on our YouTube channel. http://www.miscositas.com

Lori Langer de Ramirez – Bilingual educator who began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York. Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está). Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching. You can read her answers here.

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Today´s question was sent by Tricia, who is looking for advice on how to create a perceived need for Spanish in her family.  For more tips check out this article Roxana recently wrote on the topic.

“Do the experts have any advice on creating a perceived need for Spanish in families that aren´t from any sort of Spanish-speaking cultural background? We´re located in a rural area with almost no Spanish speakers, making it even more difficult. We are making it a point to travel to Spanish-speaking countries, but I´m still kind of constantly scrambling to find ways to give a 4, 9, and11 year old any sense of needing to speak Spanish (other than with me). I’d definitely appreciate any suggestions!”

Dear Tricia,

What a great question – and a timely one for me. I just returned from giving workshops at a professional conference in Europe. I was astounded (and impressed) by how many people speak English – and not just a little English, but a LOT! People in Europe are obviously convinced about the importance of learning more than one language! I wonder why it is such a struggle in the United States to convince folks of this need?

With regard to your children, I would suggest finding them a keypal (computer keyboard penpals) who speaks the minority language with whom to communicate. You can try any one of a number of services that provide worldwide connections for young people – Student Letter Exchange is one example of this kind of service. By connecting your kids with a native speaker of Spanish, you will be providing them with an important link not just to language practice, but to cultural and social connections.

You might also get them interested in Spanish-language media like films and music. If your kids are intrigued by movies, TV and music coming from the Spanish-speaking world, they will find themselves more engaged on a personal level with the language and see more of a need to speak and understand it. Try these sites:

• La música en español

• Yahoo música en español

• TvGratis.tv

• Películas gratis en español

Overall, I applaud you for trying to make Spanish more relevant for your kids. If they feel connected to people who speak the language, they will be motivated and driven to learn it and to speak it better and better each day. ¡Buena suerte!

-Lori

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

Lori Langer de Ramirez – Bilingual educator who began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York. Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está). Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching. You can read her answers here.

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together
------------------------------

“Does it hurt the child’s development to emphasize more than one language? I am bilingual in both Chinese and English and my husband only speaks English. My baby goes to a daycare that speaks Chinese to him. However, since we live in CA, I wanted to expose the baby to Spanish as well, which I am proficient in but no expert. We read Spanish story books as well as Chinese ones and I speak Chinese to him when I am alone with him (since my husband only understands and speaks a little Chinese, I was worried it wasn’t fair to him to speak it all the time around the house when he’s there). We also occasionally read other language picture books for fun – like French even though I can’t be sure of the pronunciation. Is being too exposed to multiple languages weakening his grasp of Chinese? I’m not worried about English since he’ll get that at school and around our friends since everyone but my family and at daycare speaks English.”

Dear Leslie,

It doesn’t hurt a child’s development at all to emphasize more than one language. In fact, many studies show that in the long run, bilingual children often out-score their peers on standardized tests in school! It is a wonderful gift that you are giving your son… keep speaking to him in Chinese as often as you can. In fact, it’s totally fine for you to continue speaking Chinese to your son even when your husband is around. Obviously, the common language of the home will be English.

As for adding Spanish, it is great to expose him to yet a third language, but you might want to do it through a third party – either a kiddie class or an online language learning/play website, and through YouTube videos. Research seems to favor the native speaker parent of a language speaking that language almost exclusively to the child. Since you are one of the main sources for Chinese in his life, it would be best for you to speak Chinese, your husband English, and then introduce Spanish through a website or even a Spanish-speaking friend.  Here are some fun websites to try:

• 123 Teach Me Spanish for Kids

• StoryPlace – the Children’s Digital Library

• GoGoLingo

• Little Pim Talking Coloring Book

And some great YouTube videos:

• Little Pim Spanish Playtime

• Little Runners Learning Shapes

• MisCositas – Counting 1-10 in Spanish

• MisCositas – Emotions in Spanish:

• MisCositas – Colors in Spanish:

Good luck!

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

Lori Langer de Ramirez – Bilingual educator who began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York. Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está). Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching. You can read her answers here.

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together
------------------------------

Photo by allspice1

No matter which method we´re using to raise our children bilingually, we all know that once the majority language takes over their lives we ´ll be facing the true challenge to keep them motivated to speak the minority language at home and when necessary.

Today´s Ask an Expert question was sent by a mom, Sandra Salazar, who´s facing the realization that she neglected encouraging Spanish at home with her two older boys once they started refusing to speak it and is concerned the same doesn´t happen with her little one.  This is an issue I´m sure we can all identify with.  We want to applaud Sandra for knowing it´s never too late to seek advice or to motivate the use of her heritage language with her sons.

Here to answer Sandra´s question is Lori Langer de Ramirez, bilingual educator who began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.  If you want to learn more about Lori please click here to read her previous entries and visit her interactive website, MisCositas.

How Can I encourage my 11 and 9 year olds to speak Spanish?

“I was happy to find you guys!!. I have three boys: 11, 9 and 20 months. My 11 and 9 year olds don’t speak Spanish, they only understand it. I hate myself to have let this happen. I only spoke Spanish to my firstborn but when he entered preschool he switched to only English and I let him. Then my middle would only speak English because his brother would speak to him in English. Now that I have realized my mistake I ask them to try to talk in Spanish but, of course, they refuse.  I would love to put them in lessons but they are too expensive. I am so sad and I hope it´s not too late. Also, I don’t want to make the same mistake with my little one. Please help me!!!. Both my husband and I speak fluent Spanish. Thank you so much!!!”

HI Sandra! I totally understand your feeling guilty about your sons’ proficiency in Spanish. I often feel the same way.

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

My husband is a native Spanish speaker and I am a native speaker of English. When my son was born we agreed to split the language duties: he would speak Spanish and I would speak English. Well… as you noticed in your own experience, it’s not that easy to maintain Spanish in an English-language environment. With strong influences like school, TV and friends speaking English, it’s easy to let Spanish lapse. At this point, our son understands Spanish perfectly, but his production is not nearly as strong as it is in English. What to do?

I would recommend that both you and your husband simply speak Spanish to all your boys – no matter what. The family language can be Spanish, even if the boys respond in English. Little by little, try introducing fun videos or TV in Spanish to the boys. If at all possible, try to spend a summer in a Spanish-speaking country (this is reported to do wonders for kids!). Praise your boys at any attempt to use their Spanish. Don’t be discouraged, it’s not too late!

In lieu of lessons, you can go online for fun activities and websites dedicated to language learning. For the 9 and 11 year-olds, try:

• Mexico Para Niños

• Las Tres Mellizas

• Kokone

• BrainPOP en espanol

• GoGoLingo

For the little one, just keep it up with Spanish, read to him, etc. Again, don’t be discouraged, it’s not too late! Buena suerte!

We invite you to click on the Ask an Expert tab in the navigation menu to meet the panel, learn more about their areas of expertise and to send us your question.

Do you have any thoughts or words of advice for Sandra?  They’re always welcomed!

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--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together
------------------------------

Photo by Vincent

Today’s question to Ask an Expert was sent by a SpanglishBaby reader that has asked to remain anonymous to avoid any family conflict.  We really appreciate her writing to us about her concern since we can bet its cultural relevance will resonate with many.

Lori Langer de Ramirez is the expert on our panel whose areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching. We feel her experience in  language and cultural assimilation perfectly qualify her to address this concern. If you want to learn more about Lori please click here to read her previous entries and visit her interactive website, MisCositas.

Will my daughter be hurt by negative Spanish terms of endearment?

“My question is more culturally related than solely language related: I think it’s very unfortunate that in our Latino culture, it seems acceptable for adults to talk negatively or in a degrading way to children. For example, calling children gordito, feo, panzón, etc. ‘pero de cariño’.

I know that a lot of our older generation Latino adults are set in their ways and do not have harmful intentions when they talk like this to their little ones, but it’s such a shame because ultimately our children’s self-esteem ends up being negatively affected, and they might even develop hatred towards their Latino heritage.

My current personal experience: My four month old son is easily entertained and smiles instantly at one’s playful interactions. However, my 22 month old daughter will not be playful until she feels comfortable with someone. My father-in-law always comments to her that she is ‘uraña’. The other day he told her (in a playful manner) ‘tu hermano es más bonito que tú porque el se ríe’. This comment just about drove me up the wall on. I know he does not know better, but I can’t continue to allow these type of comments made to my daughter.

Do you have any suggestions as to what I can say to him next time he says something like this to her? I want my daughter to grow up strong and I’d like to model healthy ways to stand up for herself.”

Dear friend,

Isn’t it amazing how complicated culture can be? On the one hand, the use in Spanish of terms like “gordito,” “orejón,” and the like can seem hurtful in the United States. In English it is not customary to call people by nicknames that call out their salient physical features – unless you are doing so in a teasing way – or worse – as a means of hurting someone’s feelings. In the Spanish-speaking world, however, it is common to hear these words being used as terms of endearment.

In my own experience, I have also been startled by these terms in Spanish. I am a native speaker of English and I grew up in the United States. My husband grew up in South America. I will never forget the first time he called me “gordita”! I recall feeling hurt and self-conscious, while also getting a vibe from him that the term was not meant to be disparaging. I also remember being appalled by the names he and his friends called each other: “enano,”, “el ojón,” and some others that probably shouldn’t be shared on a family-minded blog!

My husband and I have talked at length about the differences in North and South America with regard to these terms. We came to an understanding and moved on. My recommendation would be for you to try to have a similar discussion with your father-in-law. It might help to share with him why you feel that these terms hurt you and your children, and why you would prefer that he not use them. It would be interesting for you to hear from your father-in-law something about why he uses the terms, what they mean for him, and how they are used in his culture and family. If nothing else, this type of conversation will open lines of dialogue for you both and you will probably come to a better understanding of each other’s points of view on a number of topics.

If you can’t come to some agreement regarding the use of the terms, it might be something that you will decide to simply live with when you are visiting with your in-laws. When your children are older and better able to understand what is being said, the terms will provide you with an excellent “teachable moment” for discussing cross-cultural communication, which is one of the 21st century skills necessary for success in the global economy! So ultimately, you may end up thanking your suegro after all!

Do you have a question for our experts? Remember no question is too big or too simple. So, to send us your question, please click here or leave a comment below. Thank you!

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--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together
------------------------------

Photo by spud

Before diving into today’s Ask an Expert I want to thank those of you that are already participating in our brand new Forums. This is the place for you to connect with each other, so head on over there and get the conversation rolling. Today’s question is a very special one since it comes from a reader in London, Stephen P.  He’s concerned about his step-daughter’s move to his city and her acquisition of English in her teen years.

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

We sent this question to Lori Langer de Ramirez because we feel her experience in ESL, language and cultural assimilation are perfect for Stephen’s case.  If you want to learn more about Lori please click here to read her previous entries and visit her website, MisCositas

.

How can I Help my Step-Daughter Learn English ASAP?

“Soon my wife and eleven-year-old stepdaughter will be moving to England to join me. They currently live in Mexico. My wife is learning English, as is my step-daughter. But my step-daughter is finding it difficult going. What can we do once she is here in England to help her learn English as quickly as possible? It is an important age in her life because it is when she will start high school…”

Hi Stephen!

How exciting that your wife and stepdaughter will soon be joining you in England! Rest assured: they will both do great and will acquire English pretty quickly.

There are several things that you all can do as a family to help with this acquisition process – especially at the beginning.

First, classes in English as a Second Language (ESL) would be very helpful for both your wife and your stepdaughter (of course, the classes will be – and should be – different for adults and for kids). Perhaps your local school or community organization could help direct you to some classes?

With specific regard to your stepdaughter, the best thing you can do would be to introduce her to kids her own age. I am sure that she will be leaving friends behind in Mexico – as well as family. She will need to connect with people as quickly as possible so that she can start building a new network of community and friends. Once she feels comfortable and has some age-appropriate peers to play with, you will see that her English will begin to soar!

At home you can find TV shows and movies in English that interest her, allow her to take fun books from the library in English, and just fill her environment with the sounds and sights of the English language as much as possible. There are also thousands of online resources for learning languages. One excellent site offers free online English language lessons and comes from your “neck of the woods”: http://www.english-online.org.uk/. Click on the “young learners” link for your stepdaughter.

One last note, Stephen: in order for your stepdaughter to become a strongly literate person in English, it is important that she maintain her Spanish (studies have shown that literacy in one’s first language is the greatest predictor of literacy in subsequent languages). So encourage your wife to continue to speak Spanish with her, to read to her in Spanish, have her write to her relatives in Mexico, etc. Your daughter will maintain her Spanish while acquiring her new language and ultimately, become bilingual.

¡Buena suerte!

Have you or someone you know been through a similar experience? Do you have advice to share?

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Photo by -bast-

We’re starting off the week on a high note with the addition of a new bilingual expert to answer the questions you send to our weekly series: Ask an Expert.

Lori Langer de Ramirez began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York.

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está).  Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai.

She is the recipient of the Nelson Brooks Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Culture, several National Endowment for the Humanities grants for study in Mexico, Colombia and Senegal, and a Fulbright Award to India and Nepal. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching.

And now, she’s also part of the SpanglishBaby team of amazing experts. How lucky are we?

Which Language Should We Use for Learning Activities?

Today’s question was sent by a fellow mamá bloguera, Carla, who blogs at MamaHeartsBaby.

“My daughter is 21 months and we’re lucky enough to not need childcare. We love our time with her and have decided not to rush her into any kind of academic setting. We’re looking at starting to enhance the amount of toddler learning activities we do with her but aren’t quite sure how to incorporate our bilingual efforts into the mix.

Up until now, I’ve spoken just Spanish and DH does his best to use just Spanish but does use English once in a blue moon. Our daughter understands and responds in both languages, though seems to understand more in Spanish.

As we look at activities (some Montessori based and others just learning games), we wonder if we should each use one language when doing these activities. For instance, I would do the activity in Spanish one day and another day my husband in English.

Does anyone know if this would work? I’ve considered just doing it in Spanish since DH really wants to expand his own Spanish skills but I don’t want to deprive of her of expanding her English language skills.”

Hi Carla!

Bravo for all your efforts in raising your baby in a bilingual household! I have some personal experience in this area, and also some research to share with you on this topic.

First the research: If you are interested in raising a balanced bilingual (a person who is equally comfortable in two languages), it is best for parents to split the language workload. For example, in your case – one parent should speak consistently to the child in English, and the other in Spanish. It is recommended that the native speaker take the language in which s/he is more comfortable. Then you can decide which will be the common language (i.e., when mom and dad speak to each other, will it be in Spanish or in English?)

In my own home, I am a native speaker of English (although also fluent in Spanish) and my husband is a native speaker of Spanish (although also fluent in English). I speak with our son, Nikolas, in English and my husband uses predominantly Spanish. We also have a sitter who speaks only in Spanish to our son. Our common language is Spanglish! So far, Niko is dominant in English, but understands, reads, and writes Spanish very well.

There are some factors that have lead to this sort of unbalanced bilingualism in my son:

• Most of the TV, movies, books in our home are in English. While we have a nice collection of Spanish language materials, Niko gravitates towards English.

• Niko is highly computer literate and LOVES English-language websites like NickJr, BrainPop, and others. Since I am a self-proclaimed “computer geek,” and I am the English speaker, most of our time online is in English.

• My husband is a very fluent speaker of English. He often slips into English when speaking with Niko. This is a very common problem and it takes a huge effort on the part of a parent to stick to the target language when the child is responding in another.

My advice for you, Carla, is to divvy up the languages (remember, it’s best for native/heritage speakers to choose their 1st language) and then make a commitment to that language from now on with your daughter. Try to find appropriate websites, reading materials, cultural events, and television shows in both languages to support equal acquisition of both. But above all, have fun with the languages and encourage your daughter in whatever words pop out of her mouth – whether they be English, Spanish, or Spanglish!

¡Buena suerte!

Do you have a question for our experts? Remember no question is too big or too simple. So, to send us your question, please click here or leave a comment below. Thank you!

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--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together
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