Keeping your second language alive

Claudia is the Endowed Joan Wieler Arno 49 Professor at…

This newest article on how to keep a second language alive offers some good ideas for children and adults to engage in activities that will support and grow a second language that is not used very much—http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201202/keeping-language-alive

Coincidently, this week I had a conversation with one of the schools I work with on strategies to engage students who are learning in two languages to use the non-dominant language in this case monolingual English speakers learning Spanish in an English only dominant culture– and we came up with some great ideas with the help of our star intern Kelley!
1. Engage college students who studied abroad in the language in question to continue to develop their skills with students who know the language
2. Link with professionals or exchange students to read books to students via Skype in the language in question from the country that speaks the language itself
3. Identify schools in other countries that can build pen pals (epals.com- helpful website), if students don’t write yet, perhaps the teachers can do the Skypeing into each others classrooms
4. Identify volunteers, including parents, in the community where the children come from that can read or play board games in the language in question

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL IDEAS? Lets get this list growing– please share

Claudia Rinaldi, Ph.D.

Claudia is the Endowed Joan Wieler Arno 49 Professor at Lasell University. She is currently a full professor of education and chair of the Education Program. Claudia has been a teacher, researcher, consultant, and professor of special education.