A friend of mine who is a Spanish teacher at a local elementary school said something over the weekend that got me thinking about whether or not everybody is capable of learning a new language. She said that in her years as a teacher, she’s seen with her own two eyes how some children struggle to learn Spanish read more ...
My four-year-old daughter, Vanessa, just finished two weeks of an immersion language summer camp…in FRENCH! I’ve been wanting her to go there since last summer, but things didn’t really work out the way I’d plan them and so we had to wait until this year. And, I’m actually glad we did! French is my third read more ...
It’s been a while since the last time we took a look at the media buzz regarding bilingualism. In the past, we’ve let you know our reaction to newspaper articles, blog posts or videos related to bilingual education, Latino culture and the Spanish language. Now, we constantly share them on our Facebook page and strike read more ...
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on this blog in November 2009. I was recently talking to somebody of Hispanic descent who wasn’t taught Spanish at home, but learned it later on in life. She vowed she wouldn’t follow her parents’ footsteps, but ended up doing exactly the same thing with her kids who are read more ...
This week my daughter and I met up with a Spanish-speaking amiga and her 3 and a half year old son. Camila and him have a preschool, platonic-love relationship and are always looking forward to their play dates. While at the park, my friend mentioned that the only other kid her son interacted with in read more ...
I used to be pretty harsh on myself if I couldn’t finish a sentence without going back and forth between English and Spanish when speaking with other bilinguals, an action commonly known as code-switching among linguists. Like many bilinguals and monolinguals alike, I simply believed this was wrong. I thought it meant I wasn’t really read more ...
After almost 18 months nurturing SpanglishBaby into the incredible useful online resource for those raising bilingual and bicultural children it has become thanks to all our readers, I tend to think that everyone knows about the myths and misconceptions associated with bilingualism (or multilingualism). I guess after such a long time reading, researching and learning read more ...
We hope you’ve enjoyed and learned a few things during our bilingual homeschooling week. As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, although there are tons of resources for those homeschooling their children, there are not a whole lot when it comes to doing it in two languages. Either way, we’ve put together a read more ...
When I was ten years old, after eating breakfast and saying good-bye to my older siblings who headed out for high school, it was time for Spanish dialogue class with my dad. He had a book of dialogues he had used while learning Spanish to be a missionary in Mexico. We memorized dialogues and I read more ...
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” — Mark Twain One of the main purposes of SpanglishBaby’s existence is to share with our readers the kind of useful information that can make the journey to raising bilingual children a bit less daunting. Education is not a new topic to this blog. We read more ...
My baby is finally starting to use his sign language with me! It is so exciting to have him let me know his wants and needs through signs. I had used sign language with my first son, and it was a wonderful way to communicate before he could speak. We stuck to the basics—milk, more, read more ...
I come from a long line of atypical Latin American women who don’t really know how to cook. (My mom won’t be happy I’m divulging this information. Sorry mamita, I still think you’re an amazing woman!). I don’t have pangs of nostalgia for my grandmother’s arroz con pollo or for my tía’s empanadas. Growing up, read more ...
Most of us have been affected one way or another by the economic woes this country has been through in the last couple of years. And, although children might be too young to understand all the implications and repercussions of a bad economy, they are not blind to the changes these bring about in their lives. Yet, at least for read more ...
