Preview of Season Two (A Minisode)

Steve conducting an interview in the Atb Office

As we close Season One of America the Bilingual, we are filled with gratitude for the hundreds of interviewees—teachers, scholars, and bilinguals of all types. Thank you for answering our incessant questions and adding your voices to our first 20 episodes.

We will resume our schedule with Season Two on March 28th, 2018. In the meantime, we’re in production on a dozen new episodes, including:

  • How Monolingual English-speaking Parents Can Raise Bilingual Children

Says Allison Altmann, the mother of 14-month old Charlotte, “I’d love Charlotte to be able to speak another language….It just seems like there’s so many amazing advantages for her brain and for her life, and I’d love her to have that.”

  • Latin in the 21st Century

The ACTFL Teacher of the Year in 2016 was Dr. Edward Zarrow, a Latin teacher at Westwood High School in Westwood, Mass. “A student named Sam came into my class and said, ‘Doctor Z, I have the most exciting news ever! I get to go to Vatican City and I might be in a room with the Pope.’ Immediately every light bulb in my brain lit on fire because as a Latin teacher, how often have we heard, ‘So you teach Latin. Who you going to talk to? The Pope?’ I took him by the shoulders. ‘Sam, you’re going to talk to the Pope in Latin. You’re going to make our dream come true!’”

  • How to Learn a Language by Not Studying It

Susan Golden had two months off between jobs. “I went to Italy to cooking school that was purposely taught in Italian for people from abroad so that they could get some exposure to the Italian language. That was an incredible way to be introduced to a language!”

A Request

Dear listeners, we’re hungry for stories. Write to us at America the Bilingual and let us know your language story—your language biography, as we call it. Among other stories, we’re looking to hear from people who became bilingual as adults—how did you do it? And why? We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

And our heartfelt thanks to you, listeners, for being with us for our first season. Thank you for listening, for telling your friends, and for helping to spread bilingualism across America.

Credits

America the Bilingual is part of the Lead with Languages campaign of ACTFL — The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

The programs are written by me, Steve Leveen, and our producer, Fernando Hernández (who also does our cool sound design and mixing). Our associate producer is Beckie Rankin. Check out the rest of our cast, including Mim Harrison, Carlos Plaza, Daruma Tech, and especially our mascot, Chet. Maja Thomas is editorial consultant.

Music in this episode with a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License by (in order of appearance):

Anonymous 420, Komiku, Loyalty Freak Music, and Kevin Macleod.