39. America the Bilingual Goes to Morocco In the United States, we hear periodic news reports about people being accosted for speaking another language in public. In order to be a patriotic, real American, one must, it seems, speak only English. If you do happen to speak another language, you should keep it at home, or in your church, maybe. And if your other language happens to be Arabic, for heaven’s sake, don’t speak it in an airport. This is what’s normal in many parts of America today. But there was also a [...]

 37. Concordia Language Villages: Waltzing with Mops, and Other Adventures In our continuing series of dual language summer immersion programs, in Episode 37 of the America the Bilingual podcast, we learn what it means to “live the language” at Concordia Language Villages—from learning opera in Italian, soccer in German, volleyball in Spanish, and French while waltzing with mops. Concordia has become famous over the past 50 years for language learning, and its campus in Bemidji, Minnesota, is one that Walt Disney might have approved of as part of his vision for EPCOT. Each EPCOT-like [...]

35. The Magic of Middlebury World War I shattered a way of life for millions. But one positive result, invented by a German-American immigrant, continues to deliver blessings to Americans today. Almost no one knows her name or her story, but the peacemaking legacy of Lilian L. Stroebe, today called summer language immersion experiences, continues to flourish at the Middlebury Language Schools that she founded. These schools are the subject of Episode 35 of America the Bilingual: “The Magic of Middlebury.” In the summer of 2018, 1,500 students were enrolled in Middlebury [...]

33. Let’s Go to the Movies…in Another Language IMDB/Warner Brothers image Immersion, say many who’ve done it, is the best way to learn another language. But moving to Florence or Fez isn’t the only way to achieve it. Movies, especially with the help of new streaming services and à la carte language options, offer a virtual language immersion where you can choose how deep to wade in—from just dangling your toe to diving in head first. In Episode 33 of the America the Bilingual podcast, we venture into the four stages [...]

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 [...]