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So far daruma has created 43 blog entries.

April 2019

42. North Carolina: A Dual-Language Success Story

2019-09-06T12:48:15-04:00By |Episodes|

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 [...]

41. French Immersion at Université Sainte-Anne: A Bubble of Joy

2019-09-06T12:48:15-04:00By |Episodes|

41. French Immersion at Université Sainte-Anne: A Bubble of Joy This fifth episode in our series on some of the finest summer language immersion programs takes us to Université Sainte-Anne in the tiny village of Church Point, Nova Scotia. A French immersion summer program, it is Canada’s most popular and attracts many students from the United States as well. Hear how its small size works to its advantage, and why many students claim to learn more in five weeks here than in five years of classes elsewhere. The French heard [...]

March 2019

40. Children of a Silent God: A Bilingual Journey Through American Sign Language

2019-09-06T12:48:15-04:00By |Episodes|

 40: Children of a Silent God: A Bilingual Journey Through American Sign Language While bilingual schools for spoken languages are becoming more popular in America, fewer children are attending bilingual schools for signed languages. What does that mean for deaf children who should be learning ASL—American Sign Language—as their first language, and at a young age? And what, if anything, can reverse the trend?  In this episode, we talk with two professionals from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world’s leading university for the deaf; an attorney for education policy at the National [...]

39. America the Bilingual Goes to Morocco

2019-09-06T12:48:15-04:00By |Episodes|

 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 [...]

February 2019

38. STARTALK: Another Peace Corps for the 21st Century

2019-09-06T12:48:16-04:00By |Episodes|

 38. STARTALK: Another Peace Corps for the 21st Century On September 11, 2001, the value of knowing another language was probably the last thing on the minds of most Americans. But 9/11 revealed another fissure in this country’s infrastructure: the thousands of jobs going unfilled in our intelligence agencies because not enough Americans speak the language of the countries these agencies must understand. The Department of Defense has done something about it. In 2007, its National Security Agency started funding a summer program throughout the country to teach what it identified as critical-need [...]

37. Concordia Language Villages: Waltzing with Mops, and Other Adventures

2019-09-06T12:48:16-04:00By |Episodes|

 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 [...]

January 2019

36. A Tidal Wave of Love: The John Rassias Legacy

2019-09-06T12:48:16-04:00By |Episodes|

 36. A Tidal Wave of Love: The John Rassias Legacy In our continuing series of episodes featuring the most well-known summer language immersion programs in America, in Episode 36 we travel to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, home of the famed Rassias Center, named in honor of the beloved professor John Rassias. For years, almost since I began studying bilingualism in America, I heard about John Rassias—mostly from former students who raved about how he was such an inspiring and effective teacher. I knew I would have to learn more about him and [...]

35. The Magic of Middlebury

2019-09-06T12:48:16-04:00By |Episodes|

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 [...]

November 2018

34. Parents, Give Your Child Bilingual Wings

2023-08-25T12:52:39-04:00By |Episodes|

34. Parents, Give Your Child Bilingual Wings Jenny (front row, far left) and husband Mike (top row, far right) with some of their scholarship students at the Speedwell Foundation’s annual picnic. Jenny K. Messner credits the high school cultural exchange program of AFS with transforming her life. Living in Brazil for a year in the 1970s, Jenny learned a new culture, became fluent in Portuguese, and parlayed her language skills into a career in international finance. Then she found a way to help hundreds of other young American bilinguals-to-be follow in [...]

October 2018

33. Let’s Go to the Movies… in Another Language

2019-09-06T12:48:17-04:00By |Episodes|

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 [...]

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