Bilingual Avenue With Marianna Du Bosq

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview Hanna Cheda.  Hanna is a corporate translator, interpreter and a writer.  She currently lives in Poland with her family and is raising her children, together with her husband, with Polish, Spanish and English. Hanna shares how she’s incorporating all three languages into her household. 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I answer a question from a listener who is wondering if she should try to establish a support network for her language journey.  I talk about my thoughts on the value of building a network with other parents and provide some ideas on how parents may be able to find other multilingual families. 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview Jenny Kung, the creator of the English Student. Jenny is a firm believer in the power of clear, simple and colorful visual aids in promoting effective learning which lead her to the creation of her website the English Student.  Her website now offers a collection of free visuals to learn English and so we’ll be chatting today about the power of visuals for learning any language and how you may be able to leverage this great tool!

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I answer a question from a mother who often feels awkward speaking to her daughter in a language other than the community language.  She asked for my personal experience and wondered if she will ever feel comfortable talking to her daughter in Russian in public.  I share my experience and encourage her to keep trying it for a few months before giving up. 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, Betty Galvan, a former teacher turned stay-at-home-mom, turned blogger and freelance writer raising three bilingual sons. Betty describes some of the challenges she faces as a second generation Mexican American raising bilingual children while also sharing her proud parenting moments.  

On this episode of the Bilingual Avenue podcast, I interview my father, José Hennig!  We talk about his own language journey, our transition to our new community in the United States and his lessons learned from his experience raising three bilingual children.  It’s an emotional interview for me while full of great advice for other parents facing a transition. 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview Dr. Lisa Lopez, an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of South Florida.  Her research agenda involves furthering our understanding of, and improving upon, the educational and environmental opportunities of Latino children in the United States. Dr. Lopez shares with the audience the strategies that work best to support the learning needs of dual language students in the classroom including what instruction models work best. 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I share with a listener my thoughts on how to leverage a family trip to Puerto Rico to increase exposure for his kids in Spanish, their family target language.  

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview Ryan Cole.  Ryan is an America father living in the Czech Republic  where he is raising two bilingual boys together with his Czech wife.  He is also the creator of a website application called a Little Lexicon which lets you translate and share your bilingual toddler’s vocabulary with friends and friends.

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I answer a mother’s question regarding whether she will confuse her child if she reads books in more than one language.  I share with her the pros and cons and how to go about making a distinction between the two languages when reading.  I share my thoughts on how reading in both languages can demonstrate to your child the abilities you gain as a multilingual. 

On this episode interview Susanna Zarayski! Susanna has studied eleven languages, and speaks eight of them. She is the author of the books, Language is Music also available in Spanish, Portuguese Russian and English. Her goal is to empower people to use music and media to learn foreign languages.  We chat about how music can help you and your child learn a language. 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I address a mother’s concern about her daughters switching between English and French when speaking to each other.  I describe code switching and language borrowing and whether or not they should be of concern.  

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview Audrey Kratovil who grew up in a monolingual English-speaking home yet her love Spanish led her on a path where she now speaks exclusively to her daughter in her second language.  Audrey shares great insights from her language journey.

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I share how my family spends family time even when we are not all speaking the same language! I specifically share how we manage dinner time and play time! 

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview Harriet Cannon, a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 25 years of experience and co-author of the book titled Mixed Blessings: A Guide to Multicultural and Multiethnic Relationships.  Harriet shares the joys and challenges that a couple may experience when raising multilingual children and strategies to navigate these relationships. 

On this episode, I expand on a question I provided on a Google Hangout on International Mother Language Day.  I give the listener some tips on how to help his children transition to the community language.  We also discuss ideas on how to increase exposure without having the exposure come from the parents.  

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I interview actress, producer, philanthropist and mother, Joyce Giraud.  She shares with us her family’s bilingual journey and how her mother’s advice to be patient and persevere gave her the motivation to stay committed to her sons’ language learning.  

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I share my thoughts with a listener on which language she should introduce to her children.  She is deciding between French which is spoken by a larger percentage of the population and Italian which she is very passionate about. Tune in to hear my recommendation.  

On this episode, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira talks bout some common misconceptions about multilinguals.  Specifically, we discuss the following myths: Multilinguals can learn languages easily, but only in childhood; Multilinguals don’t have many languages, they have many half-languages; Mulitlingualism should be encouraged but only in languages that matter; Multilinguals are multilinguals because they are gifted for languages.    

On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I share my thoughts with a listener who is proficient in English but not completely fluent.  I give her some words of encouragement while suggesting some ideas to support and infuse more English into her interactions with her son.