June 2021

51. What they don’t teach you in Harvard’s Spanish classes

2021-06-09T10:54:09-04:00By |Episodes|

51. What they don't teach you in Harvard's Spanish classes Once upon a cold and snowy Harvard winter, when Steve went to Spanish class. A middle-aged guy named Steve walks into an intermediate-Spanish class for Harvard undergrads, and does a quick assessment of their advantages versus his. Theirs: They’re smarter. They take tests really well. They’ve had more Spanish. They can hear perfectly fine. They’re highly motivated to get good grades. They seem to relish the mental struggle. Steve’s: He shows up on time. And it [...]

May 2021

50. How to give your kids the gift of two languages

2021-06-08T12:38:07-04:00By |Episodes|

50. How to give your kids the gift of two languages Jack Roepers, a polyglot and native Dutch speaker, started his sons Cyrus (L) and Philip (R) on the path to bilingualism from birth. Are there certain best practices for starting your children on a lifelong path to bilingualism? Absolutely, and in Episode 50, Steve shares the three that are most essential. They can work even if parents are not (or not yet) bilingual. You’ll also meet two families who started their children off as bilingual speakers and [...]

49. How Bilinguals Find Their ‘Where’

2021-05-12T09:54:42-04:00By |Episodes|

49. How Bilinguals Find Their ‘Where’ In Episode 49, Steve introduces seven bilinguals whose new language came alive for them when they found where in their lives it should live. Lorna Auerbach is one of them. She had struggled as a young student trying to learn a second language. But later, as an adult, she blossomed when she connected her “where” to the work she was passionate about—and found the language that she really wanted to learn. Lorna Auerbach Father Chuck Durante is another. A Catholic priest, he [...]

April 2021

48. How should you learn your new language?

2021-05-11T18:29:32-04:00By |Episodes|

48.How Should You Learn Your New Language? Dr. Guadalupe Valdés with the much-revered sociolinguist Joshua Fishman in front of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where Guadalupe is a professor. You’ll hear in this episode why Steve feels indebted to them. If how you’re going to learn a new language is the first question you consider on your bilingual journey, Steve has a surprise for you. In Episode 48, he reveals an even more important question to ask yourself about that new language—before you decide how you’ll learn it. It’s [...]

March 2021

47. When Becoming Bilingual Becomes Irresistible

2021-05-11T18:29:12-04:00By |Episodes|

47. When Becoming Bilingual Becomes Irresistible In Episode 47, Steve shares why he decided in midlife to leave behind a comfortable career as CEO of his own company and light out for the long road to bilingualism. Enjoy this first free audiobook chapter of America’s Bilingual Century by Steve Leveen. You’re listening to the preface of the book, narrated by Sean Pratt. Then check out the story on Sean, and why this award-winning audiobook narrator was so taken with Steve’s book. He’ll also show you how he marked up the [...]

October 2019

46. Summer Language Camps: A Short-Course on Six We Love

2019-10-30T08:01:34-04:00By |Episodes|

46. Summer Language Camps: A Short-Course on Six We Love Steve (at right) interviews founder Andreina Galavis and logistics director Michael Perez of Camp Lingua in South Florida. Language immersion there is embedded into traditional summer camp activities. How will your child (and perhaps you, too) spend some of next summer’s vacation? Consider enrolling in a summer language immersion program. It’s possible to go from zero to 60 in terms of fluency in a matter of weeks. And with year-abroad programs downsizing into weeks-abroad programs for many college students, a [...]

September 2019

45. Top Tips from Teachers for Adult Language Learners

2019-10-02T08:10:06-04:00By |Episodes|

45. Top Tips from Teachers for Adult Language Learners Can you guess all the languages that are welcoming you to this podcast? Answers at the end of these episode notes. Take this short quiz: When adult language learners start out, they might sound (a) like a native speaker, (b) like Taylor Swift, (c) like they’re just starting out. One challenge adult language learners have is that they (a) might surpass their kids, (b) might sound like Taylor Swift, (c) act like adults. When encountering speakers of the language they’re [...]

June 2019

44. Africa’s Relaxed Multilingualism

2019-09-06T12:48:14-04:00By |Episodes|

44. Africa's Relaxed Multilingualism In the west African country of Cameroon, it’s not unusual for youngsters playing a neighborhood game of soccer to encounter different languages among their friends. And throughout Africa, it’s not uncommon for people to speak three languages—even if they don’t write or read all three. How do they do it? And what can the United States learn from this continent of polyglots? For Episode 44 of the America the Bilingual podcast, Steve talked with three African educators he met at the 2018 ACTFL conference. All these gentlemen are teaching [...]

May 2019

43. Buds of Bilingualism

2019-09-06T12:48:14-04:00By |Episodes|

43. Buds of Bilingualism None of us can master every language, but we can all learn phrases that extend a symbolic hand in greeting and say, “To show I respect you, and therefore your language, I’ll try to speak a few words of it.” No matter how poor the result linguistically, you’ve often made a friend. And thus, a bud of bilingualism blooms. Like the buds of flowers, it holds the promise of something wonderful. In Episode 43 of the America the Bilingual podcast, we’ll hear how some native English-speaking Americans practice buds [...]

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 [...]

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