31. Not Your Uncle's Language Class Steve Leveen's Spanish test What older generations may remember from their language classes—drills of verb conjugations, constant corrections of grammar and sentence structure—is not what they’ll find in many global-language classes today. What we’ll hear in “Not Your Uncle’s Language Class,” Episode 31 of the America the Bilingual podcast, may shock many of us old-schoolers: Global-language teachers are no longer looking for perfection from their students! A new and not-so-perfect order At the 2017 national conference of the American Council on the [...]

29. When Baby’s First Words Are Not Spoken This little one is clearly communicating a desire: “More!” Used by permission of Dr. Joseph Garcia. “The hearing community tends to see deaf people and signing as something that’s on the sidelines of our society rather than in the mainstream….[but] the world is starting to see that there is a great gift that the deaf have given the hearing by using their language to communicate to pre-speech—or I should say, pre-articulate speech—infants.” “And yeah, it is amazing.” Meet Dr. Joseph Garcia, a long-time [...]

27. How to Learn a Language Without Studying It When people find out I’m learning Spanish, they frequently ask me, “How are you doing it?” It’s an obvious question. But over the years I’ve discovered that it’s not the best question. A better one is, “What are you doing with your language?” For when you can answer that question, you have discovered a place, or places, where your adopted language can live in your life. That, as we’ll hear in this episode, makes all the difference. The way we acquire language About 70 percent [...]

 25. Dual-Language Education, Report #2: Winds of Change In this second episode on the dual-language movement, we hear from six voices of change in America. They trace their heritages to different countries and have had different life experiences, but they share a common vision for America. They would move our old melting pot respectfully to a museum of American history. In its place, they would welcome all Americans to step up onto a launch pad constructed of English and reinforced with bilingualism. It’s not that melting together—or at least coming together—is completely wrong. [...]

In Case You Thought Latin Was Dead… How has a presumably dead language become such a disruptor? Because Latin certainly seems to be just that. It’s one of the most frequently taught languages in American schools. It’s a language that few speak and yet can help people think. And it’s been shown to be effective in strengthening English literacy. Who knew? In this episode, you’ll meet two Latinists who make their living by teaching the language, and one who makes his living by allowing Latin to teach him. Quotations in these episode notes [...]