Bilingual Avenue with Marianna Du Bosq

Bilingual Avenue is a podcast created for parents raising bilingual children and educators teaching dual language learners. The Bilingual Avenue podcast is a guide on what to do, how to do it and what to expect when working with multilingual children. Tune in for insightful interviews with experts and parents as they share best practices, failures, obstacles and inspiration to guide your journey with bilingual children. If you are looking for resources, strategies and actionable tips, Bilingual Avenue is for you!

176: What NOT to do when raising a bilingual child 12/11/2018

175: Is my Bilingual Child Confused? 12/04/2018

174: The Benefits of Talking to your Bilingual Children 11/27/2018

173: Teaching Bilingual Kids Literacy 11/20/2018

172: My Best Games for Bilingual Kids! 11/13/2018

171: Creating a Need for a Bilingual Child 10/30/2018

170: Increasing Exposure for Bilingual Children 10/23/2018

169: Getting your bilingual kids to speak! 10/17/2018

168: 5 fun & easy ways to celebrate the bilingual journey with your kids! 10/11/2018

167: How to adjust when language conditions change with Bruna 06/22/2017

166: How to teach Spanish to elementary students 06/06/2017

165: 10 must listen Bilingual Avenue episodes 05/24/2017

164: Five easy strategies to teach preschoolers Spanish 05/11/2017

163: Raising bilingual kids when there are few speakers of your target language 05/02/2017

162: How to teach your toddler Spanish in a fun way including my favorite toys 04/25/2017

161: Music for little language learners with 123 Andrés 04/20/2017

160: 8 toys to help you teach baby Spanish in a fun way 04/04/2017

159: My personal language story & what I learned from it 03/28/2017

158: How to teach your kids Spanish with five easy actions! 03/21/2017

157: Bilingual Play Date Activities 03/09/2017

157: Bilingual Play Date Activities On this episode of Bilingual Avenue, I share activities that you can carry out at a bilingual play date. Let’s talk a bit about how children of different ages play. This will help you with your planning and to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your participants. Play date activity tips by age group 0-2 year olds Kids at this age learn by exploring with their hands and mouth. They absolutely love to bang, throw, drop, shake and put things in their mouth. Now I understand you don’t necessarily want a bunch of toddlers throwing and banging things around your house. But you can include things like sensory bins for them to play. Add some toys that can help you work on target words in the bin to make sure you incorporate some language. Keep in mind that toddlers will generally not play with another child but instead play in parallel. 3 – 5 year olds Children this age love imaginary play which is great because there is so much you can do here to work on language skills. Create activities that tap into children’s fantasy play and imagination. The best part about this age group is that they are much more likely to interact with other kids. My kids have both loved to interact with play little kitchens which is great because you can incorporate lots of vocabulary around pretend food and pretend cooking. You can also adapt this activity for different ages. 6 – 9 year olds Little ones at this age are able to create deeper connections with friends. However, with deeper connections also comes conflict. Be aware that while hosting a play date this age there could be some arguing. This is generally because children in this age group are much more competitive and can get very disappointed if they lose. Therefore, avoid activities that involved winners and losers. In fact, for this stage I recommend having one friend over for a play date. Keep it even smaller than before to reduce the likelihood of arguments. Dress up for example is fun for this age group and there is no competition. It also allows for some very natural ways to introduce vocabulary through articles of clothing. 10 -14 year olds Older kids can enjoy play dates too. There will likely be a lot less parent guidance for this group and much more free play. Keep in mind that peer pressure has a big influence with kids this age. Silliness comes in super handy with this group so consider that when planning your activities. So what do you think? Are you up for the challenge? Don’t overthink it and host one. They will only get better with time and you learn what works and what doesn’t. /episode/index/show/bilingualavenue/id/5154345

156: How to host a bilingual play date 02/28/2017

155: Music for your bilingual kids & how to find it! 02/21/2017

155: Music for your bilingual kids & how to find it! Music is one my favorite tools to integrate into the language learning process for little kids. Songs provide a simple, fun and interactive way for children to interact with language and with culture. There are also many benefits to incorporating music into your language journey. Read through this list and see if you can avoid humming a few of your favorite tunes! Nursery rhymes provide the opportunity for lots of repetition which in turn builds on your child’s memory skills. Memory skills are critical for language learning since our little ones have to remember all the new words they are learning throughout their day. Songs can also help preserve culture through generations! These tunes get passed down from grandparents to parents to kids creating a connection that travels across decades. Music is just fun! There is also something highly satisfying about indulging in the auditory sense. You will often find me break into song when my kiddos are not having the best of their days. Almost always, like magic, it can turn their frown upside down. Are you sold on why you need to make this front and center on your language journey? I know what you may be thinking. Finding music in your target language isn’t always easy! I am hoping I can change your mind after reading this post! We are so lucky to live in such a powerful digital age withe endless possibilities, one of them being the ability to stream music! On a previous post, Todd shared how he often listens to Disney Princess in Spanish in the car while driving our kids. He uses a playlist from Apple Music to do so. This service is amazing because it allows you to stream music found in the app. You can even download it to your phone so you can listen to it on the go. We use Apple Music but there are many other services such as Spotify, Tidal, Pandora to name a few. Now there are some country limitations. For example, when we lived in Germany we did not have access to Pandora, however, we did have access to Spotify. Your choices may or may not be limited depending of your region of the world. Perhaps the best part about most of these music streaming services is that they offer access to music from artists from all over the world. This makes it so much easier to find music in the language you are working on with your kids. For some of these services you can create a personalized list of songs based on artists that you enjoy. You could pick a handful of artists that sing in your target language and the services does the rest of the work for you. This could be hit or miss based on your language. For example, when my first was born about 4.5 years ago there were only a handful of children's songs in Spanish on Pandora and our list was, therefore, fairly limited but it was still better than nothing. If you are not using a streaming service to get a better variety of music in your target language I strongly encourage you to do so. Especially since for most of these services if you pay the monthly or annual fee you have the ability to download songs to your phone so you can listen to them with your kids any time you want. I have a mix of kinds songs in Spanish and a few of my favorite artists. I am not one that gets tired of listening to the same song time after time. However, I do need to sometimes get a break from kids’ music. I can pop in an artist like Franco de Vita and know that the kiddos are still listening to Spanish words even if just passively. How can you use this tool in your home to infuse more exposure to your day? /episode/index/show/bilingualavenue/id/5103015

154: Get the most out of the reading routine with your bilingual kids 02/17/2017

152: Accountability: A to Z of Raising Bilingual Kids 02/07/2017

152: Accountability: A to Z of Raising Bilingual Kids Have you ever thought about how accountability can help you on the bilingual journey? This month, bloggers from around the world are coming together to write about the fascinating world of raising bilingual kids with topics from A to Z. Bilingual Avenue is kicking things off with accountability! It is not uncommon to lack the motivation needed to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. Some days we are full of energy and ready to take on the world. Then on other days those same goals seem simply impossible! As busy parents, we sometimes let everyday life get in the way of achieving our goals. This is one of the reasons why I believe it is so important to find ways to stay accountable to your family’s language objectives. There are two main types of accountability, personal and external. Personal Accountability Leveraging personal accountability essentially means that you are accountable to yourself. You could, in other words, consider this your will power. Some of us have stronger will powers than others. I would ask that you reflect on your own ability to carry through your commitments. If you know that you have a difficult time achieving personal obligations, then you may want to set up systems to strengthen your personal accountability. It can be as simple as writing yourself a letter that you will revisit when you reach tougher times on your family’s language journey. But it can also be as elaborate as drafting a detailed daily routine that includes all sorts of language exposure for your child. The key here is to find ways to create personal accountability as a tool to help you stay motivated when raising bilingual kids gets tough! One great way to find personal accountability is to reflect on WHY you want to raise bilingual kids in the first place. Don’t be afraid to dig into your reasons! To help you think through how you may leverage accountability for your own family, I am giving you a bit of homework. List three personal reasons why you have chosen to raise multilingual children that can keep you personally accountable to your family’s language goals.External Accountability Think of external accountability as an individual or a group that helps you achieve your family’s language goals. This group does not have to be limited to just bilingual individuals. Even your child’s pediatrician can serve as external accountability. Strive to find pediatricians who are supportive of multilingualism. They can help you assess your child’s language development just like they assess other developmental indicators. As your child gets older, schools can serve as part of your accountability team. When you first start out, you may not know exactly how your external accountability will develop. Give it some time and push yourself to increase this type of accountability overtime. Just like I gave you homework to dig into your personal accountability, I want you think about your external support network. List three individuals or groups that will assist in holding you accountable through your family’s language journey. For more inspiration to raise your bilingual kids, make sure to check out all the other wonderful posts in the A to Z of raising bilingual kids. /episode/index/show/bilingualavenue/id/5047642

153: Valentine's day activities for bilingual kids 02/07/2017

151: One Parent, One Language as a single parent 01/24/2017

150: 2016 recap - What worked and what didn't 01/17/2017

149: Pitfalls for bilingual families and how to avoid them with Laura & Abner Solano 01/11/2017

148: Q&A - 18 easy tips to boost vocabulary and grammar in the target language 12/22/2016

147: Parenting Abroad with Jennifer Langkjaer 12/14/2016

Bilingual Avenue with Marianna Du Bosq

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