Multilingual Mania

Parent to Parent: “The Brain Changes When Exposed to Another Language”

September 19, 2011

Jenean Flanagan is a mother who is exposing her daughter to Spanish, French and Mandarin. She also owns Peninsula Lango, which teaches Spanish, Mandarin and French to preschool and elementary aged children. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family. Are you monolingual? Multilingual? In which way are you raising bilingual children? My [...]

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Hispanic Heritage Student Writing Contest [2011]

September 14, 2011

Every year September 15 marks the start of Hispanic Heritage month, a month of celebration which runs from September 15-October 15 of each year. This year we will be hosting our second annual Hispanic Heritage Student Writing Contest where students in grades 3-12 write about a Latina or Latino who has made a significant impact [...]

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Parent to Parent: Raising Bilingual Children is About Much More Than Bilingualism

September 12, 2011

Our first interview to kick off the Parent to Parent interview series is with Deonne Knill, a mother of a second grader who is in a Spanish immersion program. Deonne is also a school board member of Arco Iris Spanish Immersion School. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family. I am a [...]

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Multilingual Mania Launches New Interview Series of Parents Raising Bilingual Children

September 7, 2011

On Monday, September 12, 2011 Multilingual Mania will be launching Parent to Parent, a weekly interview series of parents who are raising bilingual children. Every Monday, the Parent to Parent interview series will feature one parent each week who will share their personal experiences, tips, and resources for raising bilingual children. If you are interested [...]

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Confession: I Had Low Expectations For My English Language Learners

September 1, 2011

There once was a time when I really underestimated the potential of my English language learners. When I first started teaching, I was placed in a fifth grade bilingual classroom, and my students had previously been transitioned into English-only instruction in the fourth grade. Who would have thought that over thirteen years later I’d be [...]

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Hitting a Multilingual Parenting Road Block: Tips and Ideas

August 30, 2011

It’s not uncommon these days to find families with parents speaking different tongues. With advancement in global communication, we see people of different cultures and even countries interacting and coming together. One of the results of this is growing multicultural and multilingual families. This phenomenon has its own pros and cons. All these apart, you [...]

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Linguistic Racism in the U.S.

August 24, 2011

A story out of Denver highlights a growing trend in the United States: linguistic racism. The tale, as reported by ABC 7, involved the arrest and detention of a number of legal immigrants by ICE. Their crime: the individuals arrested were all speaking Spanish. The Colorado American Civil Liberties Union called it racial profiling at [...]

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The Benefits of the Seal of Biliteracy

August 16, 2011

The Seal of Biliteracy is a special recognition that promotes and validates bilingualism and biliteracy in English and another language. The Seal of Biliteracy has been implemented by many school districts in California and is currently spreading to other districts throughout the nation. There are many benefits to implementing a Seal of Biliteracy in your [...]

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Giveaway: 32 Emergent Reader Books in Spanish

August 14, 2011

As bilingual educators, we know how hard it is to get your hands on multilingual materials and books. Luckily we are hosting a giveaway of a set of 32 emergent reader books in Spanish for educators as well as parents who are raising bilingual children. This set of 32 Spanish books consists of fiction and [...]

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My Love-Hate Relationship With Homework

August 8, 2011

I have had a complicated love-hate relationship with homework all of my life. As a child I hated completing it and when I would complete it, I just ended up losing it or throwing it away by accident. I was always the child whose mother or teacher would find her homework squished up in the [...]