The Future is Bilingual

Suzy is an Armenian-American EFL (English as a foreign language) instructor, multilingual poet and mom raising two young multilingual children. She grew up bilingually and much of her poetry focuses on the immigrant experience, especially for children of immigrants like herself. She shares with us her journey learning her various languages, how she met her French husband, and how they are raising their two children to be trilingual in Armenian, French and English. Suzy and Heather, who both teach English to foreigners in the U.S., agree that their experiences living abroad in France help them better relate to their students and to their struggles learning English while living and working in the U.S. They also discuss how important it is to learn about the culture as well as the language and grammar if we want to become proficient speakers. Suzy grew up in L.A. which has many dual-language programs and she is happy her son will be attending one and gaining exposure to a fourth language through school.

To follow Suzy and her work:

Instagram

Linktree

Other resources mentioned during the episode:

Poetry Unbound

Armenian YouTube Channel

Armenian workbooks

French YouTube Channel

Today's interview is with Tanner, a college student majoring in music business and minoring in Japanese. We talk a lot about Japan and Japanese culture, but first we discuss the other languages she has studied and what got her interested in Japanese. We touch on how her classes are taught using a flipped classroom model, which Heather also uses when teaching with Freestyle Languages. Tanner shares her experiences, tips and interests related to learning Japanese but also dabbling in Mandarin Chinese and Korean while Heather shares some travel stories of when she visited Japan with the high school she taught for.

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If you enjoy this podcast, please do one (or more!) of the following:

- follow it wherever you listen

- follow me on Instagram ⁠@thefutureisbilingual⁠

- share it with a friend and on your social media

- take a minute to rate it

- leave a rating and review ⁠here⁠

- buy me a coffee ⁠here⁠

Today's interview is with Maria Twena, a second-generation Latina, a bilingual children’s book author, and the creator of "MariVi: The Master Navigator". Maria tells us about what it was like growing up and straddling not only two languages but also two cultures and two opposing worldviews, one collectivist and one individualist. She only realized as an adult how challenging her experiences had been and that many bicultural children share these same experiences. She created her book series "MariVi" because she didn't see herself depicted in the general media nor in the Spanish-language media. She strongly felt the need to start a conversation about the experiences bicultural children have and her books and animated TV show do just that. She's embarking on no small feat. She plans to create a massive resource of 18 books spanning 6 years of schooling (from 1st to 6th grade, 3 books per school year) showing all the different aspects of growing up biculturally and bilingually.

Her first two books are out and available on Amazon: ⁠School Crossing (Book 1)⁠ & ⁠Weekend Ways⁠, and the 1st season of MariVi the animated TV series is available exclusively on the new free streaming platform Nuestra.TV.

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Other resources mentioned:

- Study about marketing to Hispanics: https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2007/10/17/hispanic-search-marketing-u-s-focus-global-perspective/

If you enjoy this podcast, please do one (or more!) of the following:

- follow it

- follow me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thefutureisbilingual/)

- share it with a friend and on your social media

- take a minute to rate it

- leave a rating and review (https://ratethispodcast.com/bilingual)

- buy me a coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/futurebilingual)

Today's guest, Jesse, is a multilingual father of two and a seasoned English teacher living in Spain. He first started teaching English in South Korea and shares stories of his seven years spent over there. Throughout the episode we talk about the importance of intentionality when raising our children, for example we both make a concerted effort to expose our children to different cultures and different ways of living. We also get honest about parenting and the struggles we face raising bilingual kids. We swap stories about teaching students of different levels and drop some hilarious truth bombs. We hope this episode will resonate with you and we would love to hear your comments on instagram @thefutureisbilingual or via email [email protected].

To get in touch with Jesse:

- LinkTree (Social media information and resources): https://linktr.ee/jesse.sweed

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/sweedacademy

- His free resource "The Conscious Leading Playbook" (resources, 10-minute framework to journal consistently and focus on your goals, and a unique format for your day planner): https://eaglemethod.newzenler.com/f/playbook 

Bienvenue au premier épisode du podcast "The Future is Bilingual" en français ! 🎉

J'ai hâte d'écouter vos pensées, vos réactions, et vos expériences personnelles alors partagez-les avec moi sur Instagram @thefutureisbilingual et continuons cette discussion (https://www.instagram.com/thefutureisbilingual/). Vous pouvez aussi trouver plus d'informations sur mon site-web (https://thefutureisbilingual.wordpress.com/).

Si vous aimez ce podcast, suivez-le, partagez-le, donnez-lui 5 étoiles sur votre appli préférée, et laissez un commentaire ici (https://ratethispodcast.com/bilingual). Vous pouvez aussi soutenir mon travail en m'achetant un café ici (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/futurebilingual). Je vous remercie du fond de mon coeur <3

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Personnes et choses mentionnées dans cet épisode :

Ma conversation avec Guillaume, un hyper-polyglotte belge qui est aussi enseignant de langues (Ep. 36 & Ep. 37)

- Ep. 36: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-future-is-bilingual/episodes/From-Polynot-to-Polyglot---Interview-with-Guillaume--Part-1-e101af4

- Ep. 37: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-future-is-bilingual/episodes/Interview-with-Guillaume--Part-2-e10b315

- Son IG: https://www.instagram.com/cameleondeslangues/?hl=fr

- Son site-web: http://cameleondeslangues.be/

- Son YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5K9FTeQtm6YvlVml6oxuig

Les transcriptions et traductions de notre conversation

- Ep. 36: https://thefutureisbilingual.wordpress.com/2021/05/09/from-polynot-to-polyglot-interview-with-guillaume-ep-36/

- Ep. 37: https://thefutureisbilingual.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/interview-with-guillaume-part-2/

Mon amie Heidi et son podcast "Love, Joy and Languages"

- Son IG: https://www.instagram.com/love.joyandlanguages/

- Son Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Ea7UwPYgrR3Zc1bpY0VkE

- Son site-web: https://lovejoyandlanguages.com/

In this episode, I attempt to tackle the highly controversial topic of native speakerism and what it means to be a good language teacher. The episode is divided into three main parts:

1. My personal experiences learning multiple languages, including a shameful secret

2. My professional experiences as a teacher of 4 languages

3. What I learned from others during an open discussion I lead at the Polyglot Gathering online this past March on the same topic.

There are so many things that could and need to be said on this topic, and I invite you to keep the conversation going by replying to my posts on Instagram on the topic or writing me a message (https://www.instagram.com/thefutureisbilingual/). You can also find out more about the show on my website (https://thefutureisbilingual.wordpress.com/).

If you enjoy this podcast, please consider doing one (or more!) of the following:

- follow it

- share it with a friend and on your social media

- take a minute to rate it

- leave a rating and review (https://ratethispodcast.com/bilingual)

- buy me a coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/futurebilingual)

Episode 57 - Tiffany takes us on a journey around the world from Colombia to France to the U.S. and back again. She tells us about her adoption, growing up bilingual in France, what it was like going to an international school, how she met her husband, and how they are raising their two children multilingually. So much wisdom in this episode! Tiffany works as a communications associate at The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law so I am delighted to have this episode come out on Earth Day 2023! I love Tiffany's message that we don't have to chose which parts of our identities to embrace, we can embrace them all and celebrate our rich cultural and linguistic diversity.

You can find Heather on Instagram @thefutureisbilingual, on her website or by writing to her at [email protected].  If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a rating on your favorite podcast app and a review here. You can also buy a coffee to help support the show :)

Episode 56 - Today's episode is with Lauren from Polyglot Station and Language TV Club! She is a language enthusiast and a speech language pathologist. She tells us how she started Polyglot Station and where the idea for the Language TV Club came from. They regularly have clubs in German, Italian, French, and Spanish, but they also include other languages. The idea is we all watch the same show on our own time on Netflix and meet to talk about it in the target language. It’s the perfect way for intermediate and advanced learners to practice and continue using their language while also learning more about the culture. All learners are welcome to join and listen in if they’re not ready to speak much yet.

I am personally very interested in this topic as I am teaching a Spanish course based on "Casa de Papel" (Money Heist) and I'm developing curriculum for a French class based on "Dix Pour Cent" (Call My Agent).  If you're interested in learning more about these classes, check out Freestyle Languages, the company I teach for.

During our chat, Laurent tells us the best and worst parts about learning a language through TV shows. She also gives us her expert opinion on whether we should or shouldn’t watch with subtitles. Lastly, she gets honest about the languages she speaks and the ones she only dabbled in, and what she learned from those experiences.  I also ask her for her opinion on learning a language like Mandarin or Japanese that has a complex writing system since she speaks Mandarin.

Thank you so much to Lauren for sharing her journey and fantastic ideas with us.  You can get in touch with Lauren and check out all she's offering online on Instagram and on her websites:

- Polyglot Station on IG

- Language TV Club on IG

- Polyglot Station Website

- Language TV Club Website

- Become a Host for Language TV Club

- 8 Strategies to Improve Language Learning with T.V. Shows

- Chrome extension for dual-language subtitles