Multilingual Mamas

In this episode we interviewed Anna Attal, a native English speaker who attended a dual immersion school in Spanish. She tells us about her experience learning Spanish as well as the other benefits of early exposure to other languages and cultures. Overall, she highly recommends the program and says it made her more confident, open-minded, and passionate about learning languages.

In this episode, we interview María Elena Gutiérrez, daughter of a Spanish dad and American mother, who grew up in the US, went to UT Austin, became a dual immersion teacher, and is raising two bilingual daughters. Given that our children have similar profiles, we allow ourselves to imagine that our children will be just as bilingual and confident as Maria Elena is! We discuss her dad's quizzing methods, maintaining Spanish traditions in the US, learning to read and write, using (peninsular) Spanish in public, visiting Madrid, family language practices, teaching at a bilingual school, and so much more in this jam-packed episode.

In this episode we sit down with the two adult daughters of Spaniards, Mili and Pedro, who we interviewed in our last episode of season 3. Sofia and Paula grew up between Germany, the United States, and Hungary, and have now decided to study in the Netherlands. They reflect back on their international upbringing and how it shaped their worldview and identities. Despite having their lives uprooted several times during their adolescence, both appreciate the experiences their parents provided for them and express their desire to continue to travel and explore different countries in their future careers as an international lawyer and physician. Sofia and Paula mention the city of Maastricht, and the university there several times as a haven for international students. Learn more about it here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht

We wrap season 3 of multilingual mamas reflecting back on the diverse selection of interviews we conducted this season. This time around, we learned about testing practices in US public schools, the bilingual parenting mental load, and how raising bilingual children in a country where two languages or more share a co-official language status looks very different. As usual, in this episode we share where we are in our bilingual parenting journey, including specific information about the challenges we faced this years as well as the wins we celebrated. Make sure to listen all the way to the end of the episode, we have a little surprise in store for you.

Lina Mueller, the daughter of two Americans who was born and raised in Guatemala, discusses what it was like to grow up speaking Spanish without it being a part of her familial heritage, the confusion some express when they hear a Guatemalan accent come out of a blonde who also speaks perfect English, how her mom created an international school in Antigua, what her identity as a white, English-speaking woman has meant for her experience with bilingualism and biculturalism, and how immersion in another culture has allowed her to overcome the ethnocentrism that plagues many Americans.

En este episodio hablamos con Mili Paredes y su marido Pedro, una pareja española que emigró a Alemania y que ha criado a sus hijas en tres países diferentes: Alemania, EE .UU . y Hungría. Nos hablan de los factores que tuvieron en cuenta a la hora de mudarse, las ventajas y desventajas de su estilo de vida, y de que es importante abrirse a nuevas experiencias y no quedarse anclado en echar de menos la patria. También nos hablan de sus hijas, donde viven ahora y de cómo su estilo de vida les ha abierto muchas puertas a nivel profesional y personal.

In this episode we chat with the Mayers, a family of two non-native speakers of Spanish raising their two children bilingual in Spanish and English using an unconventional method. Instead of the more common, one parent-one language method, they would speak in Spanish Monday through Friday and English on the weekends as an entire family. We discuss the benefits of this method such as familial cohesion, cross-linguistic skill transfer, and space for a break from the minority language. It just goes to show, there's no one right way to raise bilingual children!

In this episode we sit down with Dr. Kim Potowski, professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and one of the leading experts on dual immersion and Spanish heritage speakers in the United States. She discusses not only the lessons she's learned from working with Hispanic families trying to raise bilingual children, but also her own experiences raising her two children bilingual in Spanish and English. She has created a treasure trove of materials for parents and teachers that can be found on her website here: https://www.potowski.org/

In this episode we talk with Diandra Morse, a social worker and founder of Bilingual Playdate, an Instagram account and online platform that advocates for multilingualism and serves as a resource for bilingual families. Diandra discusses many topics in this interview including their family's decision to have her non-native Spanish-speaking husband use only Spanish at home, the mental load of bilingual parenting, obstacles to multilingualism in the US, and how race and language intersect to shape her and her biracial children's experiences with bilingualism. Check out her IG account here: https://www.instagram.com/bilingualplaydate/?hl=en

When Veronica Benavides decided to reclaim her Spanish, a language she was discouraged from speaking as a child in Texas, and raise her children in her heritage language, she realized that most bilingual parenting resources for non-dominant parents were geared towards second language speakers. Given the unique emotional and linguistic experience with heritage languages and the lack of existing resources for these families, Dr. Benavides founded the Language Preservation Project (https://thelanguageproject.co), which guides families through the process of reclaiming their family languages, discarding harmful deficit-oriented framing of language proficiencies, and focusing on connection as the heart of bilingualism.

In this episode we talk to Juliana Ramírez, a bilingual school psychologist and owner of a consulting firm, PERA Services, who explains everything you need to know about special education services, your rights in the US, and how bilingualism might impact your child's assessment for services. One of our most practical, this information-packed episode is a must listen for any parents confused about educational bureaucracy or anxious about their child being misunderstood due to limited English proficiency. Even if your child hasn't started school or will attend private school, Juliana's information is useful to you!

Dr. Sergio Loza, professor and Director of the Spanish heritage program at the University of Oregon, discusses his experiences growing up in Arizona in the late 90s and early 2000s when English-only and other anti-immigrant legislation was being passed. He describes how he went from hating school, doubting his abilities, and envying his white classmates to valuing his bilingualism, revering his community, and leveraging his talents to improve the educational experience of future generations. Dr. Loza attributes some of this shift to important mentors, teachers, classmates, family members and to his development of Critical Language Awareness. He recommends the following readings for those wishing to understand the power of language ideologies, especially in educational settings: Glenn Martínez (2003) https://brill.com/view/journals/hlj/1/1/article-p44_5.xml Jennifer Leeman (2005) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2005.tb02451.x Jennifer Leeman (2012) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280156348_Investigating_Language_Ideologies_in_Spanish_as_a_Heritage_Language Dr. Loza's co-authored book with Dr. Sara Beaudrie is available here: https://www.routledge.com/Heritage-Language-Program-Direction-Research-into-Practice/Beaudrie-Loza/p/book/9781032190013 Note: Dr. Loza mentions the correction of the form haiga by some of his Spanish teachers. This form is an equivalent of haya from other Spanish varieties and has existed in parallel with haya since at least the Middle Ages across the Spanish-speaking world. The /g/ appeared in this form via a process similar to the one that led to the appearance of a /g/ in forms like vengo or traigo. Given that it frequently appears in rural varieties of Spanish, it is often stigmatized in a fashion similar to English ain't.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Krista Byers-Heinlein, a Professor of Developmental Psychology at Concordia University, who specializes in infant development with a focus on language acquisition. She talks about her personal experiences growing up bilingual in Canada, as well as raising a bilingual child in Montréal, the largest metropolitan French-speaking area in the province of Québec. We also discuss how bilingualism researchers are able to study infants long before they're talking and why that research is important. If you are interested in having your baby participate in one of her studies (and getting a cute T-shirt as compensation), you can find the information here: http://infantresearch.ca/welcome

In this episode, we chat with Dr. Silvia Perpiñán, a linguist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and mother of a trilingual daughter. One of the languages Silvia and her daughter speak is Catalán, the Romance language native to several regions of Spain and southern France, but which is now a minority language despite concerted revitalization and maintenance efforts. Dr. Perpiñán reflects on the difference between indigenous language maintenance and immigrant language maintenance as well as how societies can better support multilingualism and be more linguistically tolerant.

In this episode we talk to Dr. Julio Torres, professor of Spanish at UC Irvine and specialist in bilingual education and instructed heritage language acquisition. Dr. Torres, who himself grew up bilingual between Puerto Rico and the mainland US, reflects on the language ideologies he encountered in his different Spanish and English classes and how they shaped how he viewed his own multilingualism. He now trains future teachers in critical language awareness and hopes to empower future generations of bilingual children and their parents to advocate for their language varieties and educational needs. He also gives parents advice on what to expect when their child takes a class in their home language and how to work with the teacher in productive ways.

In this episode we talk with Burkel siblings Eric and Martine about their experience uprooting their lives in Southern California in the early 70s and moving to France as pre-teens. They discuss the difficulties they encountered not being able to attend public French school due to not speaking any French at all (initially), and how their adolescence in France changed their outlook of the world in a positive way despite the initial culture shock. Eric and Martine speak openly about their imperfect bilingualism and how they still tried to do everything in their power to pass their biculturalism-bilingualism on to their children with differing degrees of success.

Dr. Iulia Pittman, born and raised in a Hungarian-speaking region of Romania, has dedicated her life to learning and teaching languages. Her recent work in the United States as a German professor and linguist has shown her firsthand just how challenging it can be to raise multilingual children here. In our first episode of season 3, we sit down to talk about her about her adolescent children, her book for bilingual parents, and how to avoid some common mistakes parents make when trying to maintain a minority language.

We wrap up our second season of Multilingual Mamas reflecting, once more, on all the things we have learned from professionals and fellow parents. This has been a big year for us, going from adding members to our families to seeing our kids become more and more verbal as well as aware of their multilingual environment. Once again, we provide an update on our children's language development and on our personal journey raising our kids multilingual. We end the episode with a sneak peek of what is to come in season 3.

In this episode, we sit down with bilingual children's book author, Natalia Simons, a Spanish-English bilingual who grew up in England. She talks about her desire to help children going through the experiences of isolation, confusion, and alienation that can come with bilingualism and biculturalism, and to instead help them view their dual identities as their superpower. Her books, including The Spanglish Girl are available for purchase on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Spanglish-Girl-Chica-Espanglish/dp/B08NWVMDQF

In this episode we tackle an issue that comes up for many multilingual or multicultural families: moving. We talk with psychiatrist Dr. Alma Moser about her work with “third-culture kids”, or children who are forming their own individual identity, different from that of both their parents and their peers. Dr. Moser discusses common challenges children face when moving and how parents can best support their children through this process. Books referenced: Zurer Pearson, B. (2010). Consigue que tu hijo sea billingüe. Bilingual Readers: Madrid. (English version) https://www.amazon.com/Consigue-que-hijo-biling%C3%BCe-Spanish/dp/1518748481 SINEWS: Multilingual Therapy Blog: https://www.sinews.es/en/blog/

University professor, Jöelle Muhlemann, recently moved with her two adolescent sons and husband to Belgium from the United States. Her children were already trilingual, speaking French, English and Swiss German, and Jöelle talks to us about what the process of adapting to life in Belgium and learning Flemish has been like for her family. She shares some wonderful advice for anyone considering taking the big step of immigrating and helping children adapt to life in a new language and culture.

Gabriella Gómez Saxon, a proud Colombian-American and Wake Forest University student currently studying abroad in Spain, talks to us about growing up bilingual in North Carolina and attending a K-8 dual immersion school. She talks about how important it was for her to have Hispanic friends and role models from a young age, to maintain strong ties to the Hispanic community in Charlotte, and to never have her bilingualism or biculturalism questioned. Despite Gabriella's skills and confidence, she still experiences the challenges of linguistic insecurity and not fitting neatly within labels.

In this episode of Multilingual Mamas we talk to Mavi Turner, a bilingual young adult who shares with us her experience growing up bilingual in the US. She discusses her relationship with Spanish grammar as well as how she felt visiting family in Spain at different times during her childhood and adolescence. Mavi embraces bilingualism and hopes that she can pass Spanish down to her children in the future.

En este capítulo hablamos con Javier Garrido que nació y se crió en Suiza, como muchos de los hijos de inmigrantes españoles que emigraron a diferentes países a finales de los años 60 con el objetivo de mejorar su calidad de vida. Javier nos cuenta que él nunca se llegó a sentir suizo -aunque así lo llamaban en el pueblo de sus padres cuando iba de visita en verano - a pesar de haber vivido en Suiza los primeros 15 años de su vida. También nos habla de cómo fue la experiencia de emigrar a España como adolescente y de cómo su experiencia de vida le ha ayudado en su carrera profesional como embajador de la cultura y lengua española.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This episode was recorded before Russia invaded Ukraine.Our interviewee is raising her children as Russian-Spanish bilinguals and has strong Ukrainian family ties. We hope that this episode serves to show how complex multilingualism and multiculturalism is for many people who grow up in Eastern Europe. In addition to all Ukranians at home and abroad, we also want to extend our support to all Russian expats who may be suffering discrimination during this tragic conflict. Olga Ivanova is a multilingual mom raising her children bilingual in Russian-Spanish in Salamanca (Spain). She tells us about her unique upbringing in multiple countries of Eastern Europe and how speaking multiple languages was the norm in her family. Olga is also a Professor of Spanish Language and Linguistics at the University of Salamanca, where she teaches and conducts research surrounding the topics of bilingualism, sociolinguistics, and cognition. In addition, Olga is the founder and acting director of a non-profit organization (Asociación Buvlick) that aims to support bilingualism among Russian-Spanish bilingual families in the Salamanca area.

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Amelia Tseng, a sociolinguist at the Smithsonian and American University who also grew up bilingual and bicultural in an immigrant family. She delves into the social side of multilingualism, at the individual, family, and societal levels. We discuss how different personality types, family dynamics, societal pressure, community support, pride, and socioeconomic status can affect a bilingual child's experience, and how we, as parents, can hopefully make it a more positive one.

In this episode, we sit down with Joseph and Karina Collentine, two Spanish professors and linguists who adopted their two daughters from Guatemala. They discuss how their daughters' proximity in age, race, and experience living in Arizona have uniquely shaped their linguistic and cultural identities.

In this episode, we interview Malwina Gudowska, a PhD student in linguistics and bilingualism, who has researched how raising bilingual children affects us mamas. We talk about the additional mom guilt, the stress of being the only input your child receives in one of her languages, and how moms may or may not be able to express their emotions clearly in the language they have chosen to speak to their children, We reference her article A mother's tongue: The complexity of raising multilingual children several times during the interview. If you need a hug and high five, this episode is for you. You're doing great, multilingual mamas!

After over 40 years researching bilingualism and biculturalism, publishing 10 books, founding one of the most important academic journals in bilingualism, writing a bilingualism blog for 10 years, and raising two multilingual sons, Francois Grosjean sits down to chat with us on a variety of topics from bilingualism of the Deaf, bilingualism in Europe vs. the United States, language loss, the difference between bilingualism and biculturalism, and baseball. In the episode, he references the following books: Life as a Bilingual (2021) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/life-as-a-bilingual/D1717C0B80AB17B81471F1136CC5F9D7#fndtn-information A Journey in Languages and Cultures (2019) https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-journey-in-languages-and-cultures-9780198754947?q=fran%C3%A7ois%20grosjean&lang=en&cc=de#

For our first episode of season 2, we sat down with Erin McKenna to talk about her experience raising three bilingual children, including a son diagnosed with both Down's Syndrome and Autism. She offers insight into the unique challenges each child faces when acquiring language and how a signing system has helped meet her family's communication needs. She has also authored a children's book called Laughter is my Language, available on Amazon, which emphasizes the beauty of laughter, something understood by all children, of all cultures and neurological profiles. Here is the link to her book: Laughter is my Language https://www.amazon.com/Laughter-Language-Erin-Flynn-McKenna/dp/1728965152

In the season 1 finale episode, Sara and Lauren reflect back on one year of Multilingual Mamas, including their favorite moments, what they've learned, and how it has changed their multilingual parenting. This episode also includes an update on their children's language development and a preview of what's to come in season 2.

In this episode, we interview Jason Lee, whose parents, both native Korean speakers, raised him bilingual in Korean and English in the United States. Both he and his wife are second-generation speakers of Korean raising their three-year-old son to be bilingual. Research often finds that third-generation speakers of minority languages in the US tend to be English-dominant or even lose the minority language completely, but Lee is committed to keeping Korean alive for his son. He discusses how the experience has strengthened his language skills in Korean and how his own bilingual upbringing served as a model for him to pass on the gift of (at least) two languages to his child.

In this episode, we interview Principal Robert Ash of Speas Global Elementary School, a public IB and Spanish-Language Dual Language Immersion School in Winston-Salem, NC. He shares with us research and personal experiences showing the numerous linguistic, academic, economic, and cultural benefits of his program for his students in addition to his thoughts on why similar programs aren't more common in the United States. We wrap up by discussing the unique challenges COVID and remote instruction have posed for a normally very structured immersion program. If you are interested in sending your child to a similar school, this episode is a must-listen!

In this episode we interview Holly Hinshelwood, an English-Spanish bilingual speech language pathologist. She discusses some of the common misconceptions about bilingual speech development that we see among parents and sometimes uninformed health care providers. Furthermore, Holly explains how the field of speech language pathology is rapidly evolving by offering testing in the patient's dominant language, which is often not the majority language. The episode closes with Holly's advice for parents on how to best advocate for a proper diagnoses for their bilingual children.

In this episode Dr. Dan Olson tells us about how him and his wife, non-native Spanish speakers, decided to raise their daughters bilingual English-Spanish. Dan is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Purdue University and he shares with us his expertise with codeswitching and how normal this linguistic practice is among bilingual individuals, especially young children. He also discusses the importance of speaker networks for language maintenance and touches on important issues such as language discrimination, and how your race/ethnicity places a role into it.

In this episode we interview Dr. Zsuzsanna Fagyal, a Hungarian mom who decided to raise her children trilingual with her French spouse while living in the US. Zsuzsanna tells us about how she and her spouse decided on a family language policy to optimize trilingual language acquisition for her children, who are now adults. She argues that is is important to be flexible with your children's language use choices, but that it is necessary to remind them that if they do not use them they will loose them. If you are raising your kids trilingual this episode is a must!

In this episode we interviewed Charles Uselman, a French-English bilingual child, (now adult), who tell us about his experience growing up with two languages in San Francisco, California. He discusses his personal experience attending a French school (L'Alliance) in the US and opens up about some of the difficulties he experienced transitioning into the US college system.

In this episode we interview Hannah Inzko and Tamara McLaughin, two monolingual-raised mothers who decided to send their kids to bilingual (Spanish-English) schools. They tell us about their experiences pre- and post-pandemic, and discuss the motivation and reasons that led them to make this decision.

In this episode we discuss the pros and cons of this book. Overall, this book is a good read. Andreas Braun and Tony Cline do a good job at explaining and summarizing the limited research conducted with trilingual/multilingual families and their linguistic practices. We were drawn to this book because it portrays parents and sometimes children's testimonials on their linguistic practices and attitudes towards trilingualism. A note to the listener: this book is contextualized in Europe, the authors only interviewed families living in Germany and the UK, but these families spoke a wide variety of languages (Polish, Rumanian, Vietnamese, etc).

In this episode we interview Silvia Tiboni-Craft, a native of Urbino (Italy), who has lived in the US for more than 10 years. She is raising her twin daughters Vittoria and Julia bilingual in Italian and English. She is in the process of starting to teach her daughters who to read in Italian and tell us all about her approach with "La scuola della mamma".

In this episode we welcome Brunella Martinelli de Medeiros Fiuza, a native of Vitória, Brazil, who now lives in Johnson City, TN. Both Brunella and her husband are trilingual, being native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, and second language speakers of English and Spanish. In this episode, we discuss the importance of connecting children’s home language to the culture, the importance of literacy, and some unexpected benefits of the COVID stay-at-home orders.

In episode 3 of Multilingual Mamas, we interview Ariane Brearly-Smith, a British mother of 3 bilingual French-English now adult men. She tells us what it was like raising bilingual children in Europe in the 90s and how she worked hard for her children to learn, not only English, but British English. Ariane has a very interesting linguistic background and is the mother-in-law of one of the co-presenters of Multilingual Mamas. Listen to the episode and find out whose!

In episode 2 of Multilingual Mamas, we discuss monolingual and bilingual child language acquisition. Our very first guest, Dr. Tania Ionin, who is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializes in adult and child language acquisition. She walks us through the different stages of child language acquisition and tells us about her personal experience raising her bilingual (Russian and English) daughters. [The audio of this episode is sometimes choppy, we apologize for the inconvenience]

In episode 1 of Multilingual Mamas, we discuss some popular myths about bilingualism and the research behind the reality. We discuss the idea that bilingualism confuses children, that real bilinguals learned both their languages from birth, and many more. At the end, we also discuss some important terminology surrounding conversations about bilingualism such as first vs. dominant language and sequential vs. simultaneous bilingualism.

In this episode, we introduce ourselves and our linguistic background. We discuss the languages we speak with our partners and children, some the strategies that we use with our children, and we end the episode explaining why we decided to create this podcast.