Photo by sergis blog

While I was registering to get the H1N1 vaccine this weekend at the local high school, the lady who was taking in the forms very politely asked if I’d rather get the information in Spanish. (I guess she’d overheard us while we were making the line.) I, also very politely, answered that it didn’t matter because I was bilingual. I don’t know if, at first, she didn’t understand me because she asked the question again. So, I repeated that either language was fine since I was bilingual. Then she smiled and said: “You’re so lucky! I wish I were bilingual,” and proceeded to give me the flyer in English.

So that got me thinking… What does it actually mean to be bilingual? As with many other subjective questions, let’s begin by establishing that there’s no right or wrong definition. I mean, there’s the definition given by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: “using or able to use two languages especially with equal fluency.” But does “using” mean speaking, writing and reading? A lot of people consider themselves bilingual and they only know how to speak the language, but can’t write or read it properly.

For me, it has always come down to this: As a journalist, could I apply for a job that requires me to do research, interviews and then write a story in English and Spanish? In other words, can I write, read, understand and speak both languages well enough to succeed in the job described above? The answer is yes, not only because I believe I can do it, but because that’s basically what I’ve done since I became a journalist almost 20 years ago.

As a Latina writer who is very proud of her heritage – and I think I’ve mentioned this before – nothing would be more distressing to me than to raise children who are only able to speak my mother tongue, but can’t write it or read it. Especially the way things continue to go in this country. According to this article, bilingual Hispanics make almost 3% more money than their monolingual counterparts. Can you just imagine what the percentage will be when our children enter the workforce in 15 to 20 years?

But it’s more than that. For me, it’s a very personal thing. I can’t imagine my daughter – who I’m training to be a bookworm like her mami - reading Mario Vargas Llosa in English (kudos to those who have, but I’d be lying if I said it was the same) or my son unable to write a Christmas card to his monolingual bisabuela in Spanish.

For some reason, I tend to take for granted that, even though I was raised mostly in South America (Perú, México and Argentina), English was always a part of my life, one way or the other. Not only did I attend a bilingual British school in Perú for several years before we moved to the States, but I also lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, for an entire year when I was 10. In other words, I was exposed to English in a school setting from the time I was very little.

That is why when we moved to Miami after my fourteenth birthday, although it was definitely a culture shock for me, at least I didn’t have the added pressure of not knowing the language and having to enroll in ESL courses. As for my Spanish? My foundations were pretty strong to begin with, so I just cemented them by reading and writing as much as I could. I also used my Dad as a walking dictionary. 

Today, I feel as comfortable in English as I do in Spanish. Sometimes, depending on my mood, I prefer to read books in English. Other times, I’ll only read books in Spanish for a while. But mostly, I read other stuff in both. Magazines, newspapers, blogs. Same thing when it comes to writing. My life is definitely richer because of it.

Ojalá un día mis hijos puedan decir lo mismo.

I hope my kids can say the same one day.

So, what is your definition of bilingual? What kind of bilinguals are you raising your children to be? What kind of bilingual are you?

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What Does it Mean to Be Bilingual? ------------------------------

This post was originally published on May, 11th 2009.

Today’s question was sent by Jasmine Caruthers. She’s pregnant with her first child and, both she and her husband know they want their child to learn Spanish even if they don’t speak it themselves.

“I am pregnant with my first child and both my husband and 
I speak English. However, I would like to raise my child to speak both 
English and Spanish. I was going to send my baby to a bilingual 
speaking school but I am having trouble locating any in Alabama. I 
really do not know how to go about doing this but it is important for 
my child to be bilingual. Do you have any advice on how to raise a 
child from an English speaking home, to speak Spanish? Thank you much.”

Dear Jasmine,

First of all, I think it’s great that you are so “enlightened” and convinced to raise your child bilingually even if both you and your partner are monolingual. There are a lot of people in the US who do speak two languages themselves, but are afraid of teaching them to their children for fear that they will lag behind in English or not learn it as well as other monolingual children. So, again, it’s great that you understand what a great gift it is to give your child two languages and see him grow bilingually.

The fact that neither you nor your husband speak Spanish makes your wish a bit more difficult to realize because you will truly have to rely on someone else for providing that extra language for your child. But I believe that your motivation and encouragement will make it possible.

I think the best way to go is to try to hire someone – a Spanish-speaking person – to spend time with your child in the early years (ideally birth to five and beyond). I am not sure how realistic this is for you but if you work and can afford a nanny/au pair, this would be the most successful strategy that I can think of. Be specific when you hire this person that you want him/her to speak Spanish to your child and not English. Barbara Zurer Pearson’s book “Raising a Bilingual Child” warns that many nannies end up using English with the children they watch, both because they want to practice English or because the child might speak English to them. You might want to be very firm and explain to your nanny that you are specifically hiring her/him to teach Spanish to your child, and so that no English should be used.

I used this strategy myself. When my first daughter was one and a half and my youngest was a newborn I hired a Spanish-speaking nanny to work for us for 36 hours a week. I was lucky because this woman spoke no English or Italian (which I speak to my daughters), so my daughters soon learned that they had to interact in Spanish with her. Today, at 5 and 3 and a half, my youngest daughter is pretty fluent in the language and the oldest speaks Spanish almost natively! In addition, they speak English (which they are picking up from dad and school) and Italian. It is truly amazing to see these little people move so easily back and forth between languages! And, for Spanish, I owe it all to my nanny. The new challenge will be for me to maintain Spanish-speaking opportunities for my daughters as they grow. But the nanny definitely planted the seeds.

If the nanny is out of the question, then you will have to rely on schooling. You should look everywhere in your area (as far as you are willing to commute) to find a bilingual daycare, preschool or school. Unfortunately, these are hard to find, but if you are willing to commute a bit you might increase your chances of finding one (I myself will start driving 26 miles a day this September to bring my oldest daughter to an Italian-English dual language school).

Finally, if even the school option is out, then you might have to scale down your dream of raising your child bilingually, although you can still help him/her learn some Spanish. You can do this by participating in Spanish mommy-and-me classes, by playing Spanish music and videos, perhaps by participating in Spanish-language play groups, etc. These activities won’t make your child bilingual but they might introduce him to the language, and therefore help him learn it later when new opportunities (i.e. Spanish language classes, Spanish-language programs) arise.

I wish all the best to you, your baby and your intent to raise him/her bilingually.

Simona Montanari, Ph. D.

Simona Montanari, Ph.D., is an expert on early multilingual development and Assistant Professor of Child and Family Studies at California State University in Los Angeles. You can learn more about her here and read her previous inspiring answers to our reader’s questions here.

Dr. Montanari is located in the Los Angeles area. For more information or to schedule a phone/in person consultation contact her at smontan2@calstatela.edu.

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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--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Ask an Expert: We Don´t Speak Spanish, but We Want Our Child to Learn ------------------------------

Photo by Juria Yoshikawa

More than one study has proven that the best way for children to develop their language and reading skills is through dialogue. This is particularly important for bilingual children. It is a fallacy to think that just sitting your child in front of the television set to watch a program in Spanish or to let them mouse around with a bilingual computer game will expose them to the kind of vocabulary needed to become proficient in the minority language.

So motivate your child to interact verbally with you and you’ll be teaching him the basics of language: phonetics, vocabulary and grammar. These will eventually help him develop more complex skills such as reading and writing.

5 Ways to Enrich Your Child’s Vocabulary:

1) Don’t change the way you normally speak – You don’t have to simplify your vocabulary when you talk to your children. They will get what you’re trying to say even when they don’t understand every single word. I’m pretty sure part of the reason why my daughter’s vocabulary is so extensive for her age is because I always speak to her the way I would if I were talking to, say, my husband.

2) Expand on the conversation - You can do this by responding to your child using longer sentences based on his simple phrases. When my 3-year-old daughter, Vanessa, says something like: “Yo amo mucho a mi perrito”. I say something like: “Yo también lo amo mucho porque es bueno y juguetón. Y, ¿tú por qué lo amas”? I also do this a lot when I read her a book and she points to something in particular. I expand on what she says by asking her to describe the object in more detail or relating it to something we did or saw recently. That always gets her going.

3) Understand that her mistakes are part of her progress – Grammar and pronunciation errors will happen as your child establishes her own knowledge of the language. Maybe she understands the rule about conjugating certain verbs, for example, but she’s not aware of the exceptions – and if you know anything about Spanish, then you know those abound. Just give her the correct model in your response, but don’t make a big deal out of it. My daughter does this constantly with the verb poner. So she’ll say, “Por qué papito ponió su mochila ahí”? And I’ll respond, “Papito puso su mochila ahí para no olvidársela“. I’m pretty sure that, as with other things, she’ll eventually get it.

4) Turn everything into a topic of conversation – Try to provide your children with all kinds of experiences in as many different places as possible and as often as possible. I love taking walks around our neighborhood with Vanessa because just about anything going on out there becomes a topic of conversation and helps expand her vocabulary: children playing basketball, Halloween decorations, the mailman delivering a package, etc.  In fact, it was thanks to one of our walks that she learned the phrase “darle la vuelta a la manzana” which translates as a walk around the block. Now, whenever she wants to take a walk, she says: “Vamos a dar la vuelta a la manzana, mami“.

5) Learn to listen. Being a good listener is such an essential trait, yet not everybody possesses it. My father used to say: “Calla y escucha”. Roughly translated into: “Shut up and listen.” The truth is you learn far more from listening than from talking – especially when it comes to helping your child enrich his vocabulary. It’s absolutely normal for little ones to go off on a tangent when verbalizing an idea or sharing a story with you. Just listen without interrupting and then you’ll be better equipped to ask the kind of questions that will lead to even more conversations.

What are some strategies you use to enrich your child’s vocabulary?

If you like what we’re talking about sign up for free SpanglishBaby updates via email or via RSS. You’ll like it.

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--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


5 Ways to Enrich Your Child’s Vocabulary ------------------------------

Lori Langer de Ramirez is one of the amazing experts on  our  Ask an Expert panel.

She has a website called Mis Cositas where she has compiled tons of information regarding language learning and culture for kids.  One of the pages on her site is Mis Cositas TV where she showcases a series of short videos.  The videos are organized, and even color-coded, by category:  travel, culture, language, illustrated folktales and educational, amongst others.

Many of these videos star Lori´s very own son, Niko.  In this one, the adorable Niko acts out different emotions and says their names in Spanish.  Kids love looking at other kids on the screen, especially one so funny as Niko!

Las Emociones de Niko

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--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Video of the Week: Las Emociones de Niko ------------------------------

This post was originally published on April 27, 2009.

Another Monday another question answered by one of the members of our amazing and always growing panel of experts as part of our weekly series: Ask an Expert. If you have missed previous entries, no worries, you can catch up on all their useful advice by clicking here.

Today’s question comes from Natalia Coto an Argentinian living in Calgary, Canada, with her two sons, 29 and 10 months old and monolingual husband.

I’m really glad I’ve found this website made by and for moms experiencing circumstances so similar to mine regarding raising bilingual children!

My intentions were to ensure that my children grew up bilingual all along, but right now, with my older one, I’m worried that I haven’t reinforced his exposure to my language enough, since he’s picking up English at an amazing pace -I guess that’s what happens at this age with speech in general, but Spanish doesn’t come up to him as easy, not nearly. He won’t spontaneously say anything in Spanish, and half the time he won’t even try to repeat what I “translate.”

He goes to daycare three times a week (English only), watches quite a bit of  TV (again, just English) and talks in English to his dad  so it is hard for me to counterbalance all that input. To make matters worse, I’ve just come to realize (after reading Barbara Zurer Pearson’s book) that it might have been a huge mistake on my part to talk (and read!!!) to Oliver ALSO in English sometimes.  I confess this has been happening mostly in the last four, five months, at the time when he was starting to learn tons of words and expressions (in English, from daycare I gather), and I felt like ‘consolidating’ this new knowledge by repeating and giving him opportunities to use those words.

Now that I’ve decided to talk to him exclusively in Spanish, I’m feeling some resistance and fear that I’ve weakened the very basis of his becoming bilingual effortlessly by not defining our relationship ONLY in Spanish from the beginning. Is it too late to make up for this mistake?  How should I deal with this day by day: is translating and insisting on speaking ONLY in Spanish likely to backfire when dealing with a stubborn little person? I don’t have much material (DVDs, books) in Spanish either, suggestions? We get to go to South America once a year, and maybe a visit from somebody of my family from there yearly too, but that is such a short period for him to really ‘immerse’ in the language that I can’t really count on that as a booster.

Thanks for any useful comment.  I hope to hear from anybody that has gone or is going through the same. I feel a bit embarrassed of this recent ‘relapse’ on teaching Oli my language.  In an all-English environment it can get a bit lonely sometimes (I’m a late learner of English, so I could never resign myself to the fact that my kids won’t speak -and hopefully read and write- fluently in Spanish!) Thank you very much again!

Dear Natalia,

You are experiencing first hand why I wanted to write a book for parents and why Ana and Roxana started SpanglishBaby. Your situation—and Oliver’s resistance to your language—will strike a chord with many SpanglishBaby readers. You feel like the only one for miles around who speaks Spanish, and I see from your very fluent letter that you are quite comfortable in English. You’re expecting yourself to raise bilingual children all alone in an all-English environment. It’s possible to do that, but it’s so much better and easier with a community. It could be an actual physical one—or it could be electronic, on the web or through Skype.

I am thrilled that you have read my book and that I get to hear that you have. (Thank you, SpanglishBaby!) It is true, as you say, that I recommend speaking only Spanish if possible, and I report that it’s easier if you can set up the habits of your household before the child is aware that there is another way to go about things. But I also caution that if you let language become a battlefield with your child, you will lose.

One thing I think I hear in your letter is that you have few opportunities, yourself, to speak Spanish in your daily life. That is where I would start– with yourself. A powerful way to encourage Oliver to *want* to speak Spanish is to do it in front of him. Look harder for at least one person in Calgary—yes, Calgary—who can speak Spanish with you. Try the university. (A young woman from my small town in Massachusetts teaches Spanish there.) I’m sure she can help put you in touch with someone who wants or needs to speak Spanish. Then, try to find ways to do the things you are already doing—going to the park, having playdates, eating a meal—with the other Spanish speaker. Let Oliver see you laughing and having fun—in Spanish.

A second step will be to find Spanish-speaking playmates for the children, but first work on making Spanish at least a small part of your own life and routines.

On a day-to-day basis, you can certainly translate what Oliver says to you as a base for your response to him. “Oh, tu fuiste al zoo? Qué viste?” [Oh, you went to the zoo? What did you see there?], but I wouldn’t make him repeat it. You also have his little brother. If Oli hears you speaking only Spanish with the baby, he may conclude that he only understands Spanish and may speak to him in Spanish, too. If you have a cat or a dog, speak to them in Spanish.: ) Oli may be almost old enough for you to explain to him that Spanish was the language your mother and father and your oldest and dearest friends spoke with you, so you have very special feelings about Spanish and it makes you feel good to speak it with very special people, like him. If he doesn’t want to respond in Spanish for now, that’s all right, but it’s very important for you to speak it for your own reasons (and not “resign yourself” that your kids won’t speak it).

Other tips:

1. Look for a Spanish speaker to help take care of the children. Maybe a student, or a student’s wife. I report some hints from Jane Merrill in my book (chapter 4) for finding such people and giving them guidance. If you can’t afford to hire someone, maybe you can arrange some trades.
2. Don’t discount those “occasional” visitors from abroad. Spend time preparing for them. You might be able to work with Oli (and soon the baby) on some “routines” or dialogues, so they can help the visitors feel at home—or for some other reason that doesn’t focus on him.
3. Have the visitors help you find books and CDs and DVDs for the children. Look for them when you go to Argentina. (There are many more outlets for Spanish materials in the U.S. than before. Several of them advertise on this website.)
4. Don’t expect Oli to choose a Spanish DVD over an English one, but if you (and the baby) start watching one “that you like to see,” he’ll probably join you eventually.
5. Also, start planning now for how in a few years from now you can spend enough time in South America so Oli will eventually feel comfortable going there on his own. Many people, in fact the editor of my book, reported that trips to see her grandparents, once the child was old enough to go on her own, are what turned the situation around for her.

Children’s language—and their ideas about language–change. If you don’t persevere in Spanish now, it will be harder for him to rediscover it later when he’s ready. In terms of reinforcing his English learning from the school, that seems to me to be your husband’s territory. It sounds like a perfect way for father and son to bond.

Hopefully many readers of SpanglishBaby will write you with encouragement and advice, and some may even become regular correspondents with you. You’ve taken an important first step by reaching out to SpanglishBaby. Now let it help you start to turn things around.

Best wishes,
Barbara

Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. - A bilingualism expert with over twenty years of research experience in the fields of bilingualism, linguistics, and communication disorders, Pearson is the author of the informative and extremely useful book Raising a Bilingual Child. She is currently a Research Associate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her pioneering work on bilingual learning by infants and children and on language assessment has been published in scholarly journals and in the book Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children. As Project Manager, she contributed to the creation of the innovative DELV tests, culture-fair assessments of language development published by The Psychological Corporation. You can see her answers by going here.

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!

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Ask an Expert: Is it too late to reinforce the minority language at home? ------------------------------

Photo by Andy Castro

For weeks now, most have been getting ready for Halloween with costumes, decorations, pumpkin patches and carvings and all-around spookiness.  I’ve never been a big Halloween celebrator, but I’m obviously getting into it now that my girl can have fun with it.  Which is really what this holiday is for-just having fun, getting great pictures and over-dosing on all sorts of sweets.

In our bicultural home we also have a fondness for Día de los Muertos, which is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, and is a traditional Mexican holiday dedicated to the memory of the loved ones we’ve lost.  The idea is that we celebrate and remember them with joy, cheerfulness and colors.

This tradition is so full of history and symbolism that it’s one I’m hanging on to tightly to instill some meaning into these over-hyped holidays.

Altars are made in honor of family and friends that have passed away and are decorated with their pictures, personal objects or mementos and candles.  Their favorite food and drinks are also placed on the altar, along with a trail of marigold flowers to create a path so their soul can find its way back and join the celebration for the day. The idea is that by placing these artifacts, flowers and foods the person will be remembered and celebrated for who they were in life and this will encourage them to pay a visit.  The concept might sound spooky, but it really is celebrated with so much positiveness towards the inevitability of death, and in such a festive environment, that the feeling of being scared will rarely creep upon you.

So much so, that even cemeteries and burial places take on a carnival-like atmosphere.  Aside from creating private altars in their homes, people also head out to cemeteries to visit their beloved and tend to their resting place.   The burial grounds are cleaned, decorated and adorned with ofrendas (offerings) such as pan de muerto, strings of flor de cempazuchitl (marigold), sugar skulls and toys.  In many parts of Mexico it’s also a custom that the families camp out all night in cemeteries to accompany the dead during their “visit.”

Day of the Dead is a holiday infused with so much tradition and history that Mexico as a whole embraces it.  You can see some very elaborate, to the point of being works of art, altars in public schools, government offices and most public spaces.  In fact, it’s one of the few ancient indigenous celebrations to remain after the Spanish conquest.

The most important icons associated with Día de los Muertos are the calaca, the Catrina, las calaveras and the pan de muerto.  These are all basically representations of death in a playful way.  The message is that passing away is just one more inevitable stage in life that should be met with joy because it just is what it is.  Talk about chilling out!

I’ll tell you a bit more about each so you can incorporate these in your own Día de los Muertos celebration.  It’s all about making it work for you.

Photo by JL.V

CALAVERAS

The name simply means “skull.”  However, in Day of the Dead terms it takes on several meanings.

1.   A sugar or chocolate skull which is fancifully decorated in many colors and which is typically personalized with the name of the person it will be given to as a treat.  This is a very fun tradition to start with your kids.  You can buy simple calaveras via Amazon and have fun decorating them with different color frostings.  These can be handed out as Día de los Muertos gifts to friends.

2.   A satirical and humorous short poem written to criticize a social situation or person, usually  aimed at politicians and celebrities.  You can imagine the fun cartoonists and print news outlets have with these ones!  Schools also bring out kids’ literary creativity during this season by having them make up their own calaveras literarias and even holding contests for the best ones.

Here’s a great example of one written for the great Colombian novelist Gabriel García Marquez. (Sorry…it’s in Spanish and the translation wouldn’t make sense):

Al escritor García Márquez

Quiso esconderse en Macondo,
La muerte fue tras él.
Ella se puso sus moños
y lo tiró a un hoyo hondo
¿ De qué se murió Gabriel ?
De amor y otros demonios.

3.  Artistic representations of skulls abound during this holiday.  These are also called calaveras.  We can thank artist José Guadalupe Posada for popularizing them and for dreaming up La Calavera de La Catrina as a satire to the upper classes. Little did he know it would become his most famous lithograph and one of the most obvious graphic representations of Día de los Muertos and Mexican culture at large.

Photo by sillysocks

PAN DE MUERTOS

It literally translates into “Bread of the Dead” and is what I look forward to the most.  It’s basically a soft and sweet, round-shaped bread that’s baked to place as an ofrenda on the altars and to be shared by families and friends with hot chocolate or coffee.  Traditionally, the top of the bread is decorated with pieces of dough thinly rolled out to resemble bones.  Take a look around  your local Latin market or bakery to see if they’ve baked some this week.  If not, and you’re feeling adventurous, try out this recipe I found here.

Photo by Sarah B in SD

CALACAS

These are basically skeletons having a blast in their afterlife!  Calacas are used as decoration and also to spoof on popular celebrities and politicians by creating calacas in their image.  The tradition is to dress them up in colorful clothes and have them appear to be dancing,  playing a musical instrument, eating and just plain having fun.  A great example is this video called Viva Calaca of animated skeletons dancing to a high-energy song.  Warning:  your kids will want to dance like a calaca!

Octavio Paz, Mexican poet and essayist honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature, perfectly defines in his book El Laberinto de la Soledad the special relationship Mexicans have with death:

“Para el habitante de New York, París o Londres, la muerte es la palabra que jamás se pronuncia porque quema los labios. El mexicano en cambio, la frecuenta, la burla, la acaricia, duerme con ella, la festeja, es uno de sus juguetes favoritos y su amor más permanente”.

Translation: “For a resident of New York, Paris or London death is a word that is never uttered because it burns the lips.  A Mexican, on the other hand, frequents it, defies it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it, it’s one of his favorite toys and his most permanent love.”

Visit our sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, for some cool and colorful finds to bring joy and originality to your Day of the Dead festivities.

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


How to Celebrate Día de los Muertos ------------------------------

Her original name was not Dora and Latina she was not.

More than 10 years ago and after working with outside creators to come up with new ideas, Nickelodeon’s Valerie Walsh Valdes and Chris Gifford were given the opportunity of a lifetime: to develop their own show. This is what they thought up: a show about a preschool girl who has a bunch of animal friends and goes exploring every day. Her name was Tess.

But the network’s executives had other ideas. They had just come back from a conference which dealt with the fact that Latinos were the most underrepresented minority on television. What to do about it? Convert ‘Tess’ into a bilingual Latina girl called Dora. The problem? Neither Gifford nor Walsh Valdes were bilingual. So they hired a Latino writer and several Latino-savvy consultants, including Spanish language experts, and Dora the Explorer was born.

“We wanted to give an authentic cultural identity to the character, but also to the world around her,” said Walsh Valdes, the co-creator and executive producer of both Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go.

Making the character a 7-year-old bilingual Latina was Nickelodeon’s response to the lack of positive Latino roles in the media.

“The idea was to make learning a second language appealing,” explained Walsh Valdes. “We were trying to make that [being bilingual] into a positive, something you should be proud of.”

But the idea was also to make Dora universally appealing.

“We didn’t want to alienate audiences who don’t speak another language, who are not bilingual,” said Walsh Valdes.

Which is the reason why Dora the Explorer is not really about teaching Spanish, it’s more about a little girl who goes on a different adventure in each show and happens to be bilingual in English and Spanish. However, since learning at this stage of a child’s life is something fun, the creators of the show definitely take advantage of that, according to Walsh Valdes.

Preschoolers are introduced to a new Spanish word or phrase which Dora uses repeatedly throughout each particular episode. Although Walsh Valdes said they’ve never “claimed to be teaching Spanish,” countless parents around the country credit Dora the Explorer with helping their children learn lots of vocabulary in Spanish.

The show is not only insanely popular in the U.S. – according to Nickelodeon, it’s the top preschool show on all of commercial television – but also at the international level. And it might have to do with the fact that bilingualism is a pretty normal way of growing up in most of the rest of the world.

“It’s not just kids who speak Spanish that identify with Dora,” explained Walsh Valdes. “Other bilingual kids see themselves in her.”

The co-creator of this show credits its unthinkable success to a couple of reasons. The first one is that each show presents “really great stories for that age group” – universal stories that appeal to preschoolers no matter their background. The second one is the “interactive” nature of the show. In other words, the fact that Dora always asks for the audience’s help so the adventure can move along, hence the short silent period right after a question is asked.

Although my daughter, Vanessa, didn’t really start “watching” TV until after she turned two – meaning it’s only been about a year – I have noticed how much more motivated she is to respond to Dora’s request now that she is a little older and has a larger vocabulary.

Gifting her daughter with bilingualism

Ironically, even though Walsh Valdes is not bilingual – despite taking four years of high school Spanish, as she says – she is raising her 2-year-old daughter to be, thanks to the creation of Dora the Explorer. Remember the Latino writer they hired back when Dora was being created? She married him. So now, thanks to her Cuban-born husband and their Latina nanny, Walsh Valdes is experiencing first-hand the amazing ability of children to learn two languages at once.

“I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m learning more from my daughter than I ever did in high school,” Walsh Valdez shared. “My husband says she is as verbal in Spanish as she is in English, which is amazing!”

Valerie Walsh Valdez

VALERIE WALSH VALDES is creator and executive producer of preschool phenomenon Dora the Explorer.  She is also the creator and executive producer of Nick Jr.’s hit preschool series Go, Diego, Go!.
A graduate of New York University, Walsh Valdes earned a master’s degree in Film and Dramatic Writing, and a master’s degree in Education.  While at NYU, she was a member of the Creative Arts Team, an educational theater company dedicated to creating and performing issue-based dramas in New York City schools.  Walsh Valdes has also worked in independent film and theater and produced numerous short films, directed both theater and independent features, and written several screenplays.
Walsh Valdes lives in NY and LA with her husband and daughter.

FYI: We’re giving away FIVE copies of “Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom” – the latest special episode in the Dora the Explorer series which airs Sunday on Nickelodeon – over at our new sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. Don’t miss out!

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Your Story: How Dora the Explorer was Born ------------------------------

Funny coincidence happened last week. I was rummaging through a resale store with my girl and we found some fairy wings that were just her size. She’s at the stage where she’s discovering that dress up is fun. She really had no idea what they were, but she knew she wanted them on. We drove back home and to our surprise found a screener copy of Walt Disney Picture’s newest “Disney Fairies” movie Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure for us to watch and be able to tell you about it.

Well, Camila had her first encounter ever with fairies. Now she knows what those wings are, and the funny thing is that every time she watches this DVD she has to have the wings on! How’s that for interactive?

In this, Disney’s 2nd movie featuring one of their most beloved and well-known characters, Tinker Bell ventures out beyond Pixie Hollow in a secret mission to find the solution to a problem she created and that put her home in trouble. Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure is this feisty fairy’s biggest adventure so far. Set during Autumn when the fairies are busy changing the colors of the leaves on human’s trees, helping geese fly south and tending to pumpkin patches, Tink is summoned by the Queen and entrusted with the important job of creating a magical scepter which will capture the light of a rare blue moon to create the needed reserves of pixie dust for Pixie Hollow.

However, Tink’s temperament leads her to an accident she must repair by crossing the oceans into the unknown in a long and dangerous journey. Along the way she makes a new friend, Blaze, a sweet firefly who will be her guiding light. In the end, Tink learns about the value of friendship and of owning up to one’s own mistakes.

The child in me still enjoys stories about fairies and this is one with a beautiful and magical scenery, a story of responsibility and no witches in sight. I’ll gladly let me girl feast on this one…with the Spanish language option on, of course!

Starting today, all the little fairies in your life can be mesmerized with Tinker Bell’s new exciting adventure. Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure is now available as a “Combo Pack” (includes a Blu-ray + DVD) and as a DVD in standard definition.

We were able to get a couple of clips in Spanish so you can start enjoying Tinker Bell’s magical world now:

Hall of Sceptor

Blaze

We invite you to visit our new sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. This week we’ll be giving away Dora’s new movie and also a pack of Ice Age DVDs. Don’t miss out!

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Video of the Week: Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure ------------------------------

Q- What if I plan to raise my baby in a bilingual environment? Will using signs confuse him?

A- This is a great question, and one that concerns so many families.

Our world definitely seems to be shrinking and families who speak more than one language are eager to pass on their “cultural roots” to the next generation. Learning more than once language from birth gives children so many benefits. Benefits that last a lifetime!

In the short-term, however, babies who are learning more than one spoken language do tend to have some delay in their rate of spoken language acquisition. This is not to say that these children are being “held back” in any way. Quite the contrary— they just have twice as much to process so their speech development takes a little time to catch up! They are actually developing a larger and more complex network in the area of the brain that handles spoken language (the left cerebral hemisphere).

Now, you might wonder if adding a third language in the form of American Sign Language might confuse your child and cause further delay in speech development. I have great news for you! Using sign language will not cause any delay— in fact, bilingual babies who sign have been shown to learn both spoken languages better and faster than children who learn two spoken languages alone.

Think of ASL as a “language bridge” that can be used to link the two spoken languages together.

When mommy nurses, for example, she can sign and say “Leche” (Spanish for Milk), and when daddy gives a bottle, he can use the same sign as he says, “Milk.” In this way, baby is given a visual signal showing that “Leche” and “Milk” both mean the same thing. This makes it so much easier for baby to figure things out that there is more than one way to say the same thing.

Many bilingual couples and families who have chosen to bring a child into their lives through foreign adoption have found signing classes to be a wonderful resource.

Another amazing benefit— remember how I said that spoken language is handled by the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain? Well check this out— people who sign from birth develop a language center in the angular gyrus of the right hemisphere of the brain. So, people who learn spoken and signed language from infancy have language centers on both sides! Now that’s using your head!

Monta Briant with her kids

Monta Briant is the best-selling author of the Baby Sign Language Basics series of books and learning materials. In addition, she teaches classes all over San Diego, does free monthly story-times at many of our city and county libraries, and is mommy to Sirena, age 9 and Aiden , age 5.

For information on classes for you and your child, please visit www.babysignlanguage.net

As always, feel free to leave your thoughts or advice about this in the comments below. You can also leave your own question for the Experts here.

We invite you to visit our new sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. There’s giveaways every week!

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Ask an Expert: Will Using Sign Language Confuse my Bilingual Baby? ------------------------------

Photo by "T"eresa

One of the biggest disagreements my mother and I have had over the years is the amount – or lack thereof – of makeup I wear. Whenever she sees me getting ready to go out – no importa donde – her comment is always the same: “Hijita, ¿no te vas a maquillar un poquito?” Thing is, I have put makeup on, just not tons of it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like making myself up, but I don’t go all out just to drop-off my daughter at preschool or to pick a gallon of milk at the grocery store before the next big snow storm. But I come from a family of Latina women who wouldn’t be caught dead without makeup or a few canas sin teñir at the corner drugstore. I don’t ever remember seeing mi abuelita, who is 94 years old, without lipstick. She owns one in every hue of pink and she puts it on every single day of her life – even if she’s staying home watching her favorite novelas from her rocking chair because “nunca sabes quien puede venir.”

I guess I’m not very Latina in that sense – and I haven’t even started talking about hair and my inadequacies when it comes to styling it. I have the kind of hair that’s neither straight nor curly. It’s just in between. To be honest, upon moving to Colorado, nothing made me happier than realizing I would no longer need to worry about my hair. After years of suffering in Miami’s horrendously humid weather, I can now wash my hair, apply some gel and go on my merry way – and actually get away with it!

So, imagine my horror when I found out I had given birth to a baby girl three years ago. (It was a surprise. I didn’t want to find out until birth and I was pretty convinced I was having a boy thanks to my so-called ‘maternal instinct’ – so much for that!) I immediately worried about how I would style her hair, especially because she was born with a full set of dark black hair which needed to be trimmed a few weeks after she was born.

My poor daughter pretty much looks the same all the time: a single ponytail or two pigtails using all her hair or part of her hair or – my favorite – no style at all. Unfortunately, this last look usually means her hair is all over the place because she has knots I can’t get near for fear she will start wailing non-stop.

I recently realized just how clumsy I am at all things related to little girl’s hairstyles and how things have not gotten better as my daughter’s hair has gotten longer, as many suggested. We were getting ready to go to a birthday party and I decided I’d go all out and blow dry her hair thinking to myself: “how hard can that possibly be?” After all, unlike me, she has very little, thin hair. Well, I’m embarrassed to say I pretty much failed and she ended up with her hair in a ponytail. (I did manage to put on a nice red bow, at least.)

I actually envy those little girls whose hair looks like an elaborate maze full of vibrant bows and ribbons. Vanessa owns a gazillion of these, but they’re mostly for show.

This topic is pretty trivial, I know, but I hate to think that my daughter looks like an unkept child (because it has nothing to do with that but with her mom’s ineptness). I guess I can’t get away from “el que dirán” – now, that’s VERY Latina-like, don’t you think?

Don’t forget to enter our latest giveaway over at our new sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. Go here for your chance to win one of two copies of ¡Al Galope!, a super cool book your kids will surely love! Deadline is Sunday at midnight EST.

----------------- FEATURED SPONSOR -----------------
--Cody's Cuentos- Classic children's fairytales...in Spanish!

--Ingenio-Bilingual Toys

--Latino Educators- Bringing Bilingual Educators and Parents Together


Not very Latina-like… ------------------------------