The Many Ways to Be Bilingual, with Christa Jimenez (TGMS 32)

Today on the show, I talk with Christa Jimenez about the commitment she’s made to raise her children to be bilingual. She is living in the US, but she is doing a lot of things to keep her two girls connected with their heritage, since her husband is from Costa Rica. Christa is the founder of the blog Pura Vida Moms. She’s a former Spanish teacher, and she’s also the host of an online vlog called BilingualWe. She and I talk about some of the common methods of teaching children another language and how even learning a few phrases can transform a child’s brain.

Links mentioned on the show:

Spanglish Baby

Three methods of language learning:

1. Minority Language at Home
2. One-parent, One-language
3. Situational, contextual

Great quotes from the show:

“Mothering is its own language.”

“Bilingualism is a spectrum. It can look like different things.”

“As soon as kids start hearing a second language…their brain is re-wired in a different way.”

“As far as bilingualism…nothing is too little.”

I hope you gleaned some ideas from this that will inspire you to at least attempt to get some second language exposure in the life of your child. If you want to listen to another episode about language learning and raising bilingual kids, check out episode 26, Bringing Up a Bilingual Child with Rita Rosenback.

Find Christa:

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter |BilingualWe

Find Mary Grace:

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

We would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below, or find us on social media.

FEATURED RESOURCE: This is for you moms who may be living away from your home country or who have lived overseas in the past and are seeking ways to build community and gain knowledge about some of the issues affecting families who are expats, missionaries, diplomats, service workers and so on. The resource is the Families in Global Transition Conference, which is happening this week in the Netherlands. You can go on the website and follow them on Twitter. Follow the hashtag #FIGT17NL to hear about everything that is going on at the conference this week. You can also look up all the presenters and speakers and get an idea of some of the issues they are talking about. The theme is Building on the Basics: Creating Your Tribe on the Move, and the keynote speaker is Naomi Hattaway, who runs the I am a Triangle platform, and she is going to be on the show in a couple of weeks.

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Thanks for listening today, Have a great week, and remember, you can live a global life wherever you are, and teach your kids to do the same.

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