50. How to give your kids the gift of two languages Jack Roepers, a polyglot and native Dutch speaker, started his sons Cyrus (L) and Philip (R) on the path to bilingualism from birth. Are there certain best practices for starting your children on a lifelong path to bilingualism? Absolutely, and in Episode 50, Steve shares the three that are most essential. They can work even if parents are not (or not yet) bilingual. You’ll also meet two families who started their children off as bilingual speakers and [...]

48.How Should You Learn Your New Language? Dr. Guadalupe Valdés with the much-revered sociolinguist Joshua Fishman in front of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where Guadalupe is a professor. You’ll hear in this episode why Steve feels indebted to them. If how you’re going to learn a new language is the first question you consider on your bilingual journey, Steve has a surprise for you. In Episode 48, he reveals an even more important question to ask yourself about that new language—before you decide how you’ll learn it. It’s [...]

46. Summer Language Camps: A Short-Course on Six We Love Steve (at right) interviews founder Andreina Galavis and logistics director Michael Perez of Camp Lingua in South Florida. Language immersion there is embedded into traditional summer camp activities. How will your child (and perhaps you, too) spend some of next summer’s vacation? Consider enrolling in a summer language immersion program. It’s possible to go from zero to 60 in terms of fluency in a matter of weeks. And with year-abroad programs downsizing into weeks-abroad programs for many college students, a [...]

44. Africa's Relaxed Multilingualism In the west African country of Cameroon, it’s not unusual for youngsters playing a neighborhood game of soccer to encounter different languages among their friends. And throughout Africa, it’s not uncommon for people to speak three languages—even if they don’t write or read all three. How do they do it? And what can the United States learn from this continent of polyglots? For Episode 44 of the America the Bilingual podcast, Steve talked with three African educators he met at the 2018 ACTFL conference. All these gentlemen are teaching [...]

42. North Carolina: A Dual-Language Success Story In 2005, North Carolina had seven dual-language schools; in 2018, there were 140. A 2018 graduating class at one of these dual-language high schools had two valedictorians—one a native Spanish speaker and the other a native English speaker, both now fluent in the other’s native tongue. How did North Carolina do it? Can their success be replicated? And are the number of dual-language schools outpacing the number of bilingual teachers needed for them? In Episode 42 of America the Bilingual, host Steve Leveen talks to six [...]