Not all communication, however, is created equally. In order for children to really learn and explore language, they must be active participants! One of my favorite tools for developing this skill in children is asking them open-ended questions.
5 New Years Resolutions for Raising Bilingual Children
I absolutely love the holiday season! For me, it all starts in October. The temperatures start to cool down (so it’s slightly less hot here in North Florida!) and the fall fun begins! It’s all fall festivals and corn mazes until Thanksgiving. Then, Christmas officially begins in my household! We start pulling out the decorations, decorate the trees, and begin planning the festivities with our friends and family. Life is just one big celebration until January 1st. Then, January 2nd hits and I find myself feeling a little bit empty! What do we have to look forward to next?
15 Ways to Celebrate Multiculturalism During The Holidays
As the parents of bilingual and bicultural children, and as a teacher wanting to expose children to many cultures and ways of living, I am often looking for opportunities and activities to share with my kiddos. The holidays are a wonderful time to not only celebrate and enjoy our own traditions, but a great time to explore those of others. Here, I made a small list of activities that we can partake in, in order to celebrate multiculturalism during the holidays.
Bilingual and Bicultural: Lessons from a 6 year old
Kids are funny. You think you are teaching them so much and preparing them for the future, but suddenly, they turn around and teach you something in turn! In fact, if you pay close enough attention, they will teach you wonderful things every single day! This little lesson from my 6 year old daughter on biculturalism is so cute, that I couldn’t wait to share with you guys!
From Unmotivated to Fluency: A Bilingual Journey
The journey to becoming bilingual is, for some, an easy road, that can begin at birth. For others of us, however, the road can be long and difficult, but completely worth it!
In my case, I received English classes, (although they only taught us basic things) from the time I was in elementary school until I graduated from High School. So, I spent many years of my life in contact with the language.
4 Tried and True Language Learning Techniques
Some methods, however, are tried and true and I wanted to make sure we could use some of the best language-learning techniques and adapt them for use in our app. After all, we wanted to make a tool that would support parents and teachers, while being fun and intuitive enough for kids to enjoy using. I’m going to break down some of our techniques and hopefully inspire you to use them in real life!
Can My Child Learn 3 or More Languages at a Time?
Recently, I spoke with someone who had been raising her child in Spanish only, for fear of confusing her child. She lives in the U.S. and knows that the child will learn English once she enters school. She, like many people still do, believes in the myth that introducing multiple languages at a young age will cause confusion and language delays.
8 Reasons Why You Should Teach Your Bilingual Child Rhymes
The research is a little murky as to whether rhyming helps children read or if it’s reading that helps children rhyme. What is known, however, is that the two are extremely intertwined. So, if that’s the case, why should we teach children rhymes and poems?
The Importance of Community When Raising Multilingual Kids
Raising children to be bilingual is a rather daunting task. I think anyone who has been on this journey has felt overwhelmed and not up to the task at one point or another. This is why it’s so important to use all of the resources available to us and one of the most important resources is the community.
Tips for Introducing a Second Language at Home
Guest Post: Hello! First I will introduce myself! I’m Deborah Sigler, Founder and Director of Bambolango. In this article I am going to tell you a little more about who I am and what we do at Bambolango in our day to day life. And we will also explore together some ideas and tips on how to introduce or reinforce a second language with our children from an early age.