A Journey in Multilingual Blogging
On July 1st, 2013 we launched the Esperanza blog: Language, Learning, and Culture. Five women with a love for progressive language education, but different backgrounds and interests, came together to share their ideas. Today we have a growing archive of language learning resources, cultural insights, and musings on learning, teaching, and life.
Thank you to our readers and all of the people who have shared ideas and supported us! We are taking a break and will be back with new posts as of January 6th, 2014. Let us know if there are topics you would like to see more of, and please continue to share our posts and the language love.
Our Bloggers
As the coordinator of the blog, I would like to thank my colleagues for all of their effort. I am so impressed with the quality of the articles by these wonderful women and I am looking forward to more in 2014! Here is a little bit about each of us:
Heather Escobar is living in Vancouver with her Mexican wife and bicultural daughter. She primarily blogs about raising her daughter bilingually (with hopes for multilingualism in the future) in an English-dominant society. Her posts about her bilingual family have been some of our most popular. In the new year, Heather will be offering English, French, and Spanish services in Vancouver.
Mary Leighton is currently traveling in Turkey and working on her Turkish. In the new year she will be working with people in villages in Eastern Turkey who want to improve their English to communicate with visitors who come on walking tours. Her interview with multilingual Jeremy is our most popular post to date. She plans to return to Vancouver in the summer.
Roma Ilnyckyj is currently working in Vancouver as a freelance editor, and has an ongoing gig at Talk Science to Me. In her posts, she often shares the joys and frustrations of teaching and learning languages. Her most popular post this year was called Embracing Language Play, which explores the potential for teaching grammar by examining the language of the lolcat! Next year, she will be travelling to China so we can expect some interesting posts on her adventures with Mandarin.
Yane Brogiollo primarily blogs in Portuguese about learning that language and about Brazilian culture. Her posts have been full of images, videos, voice-recordings, and music that seem to make the culture of Brazil and the beauty of Portuguese jump right off the page. In the new year, she will be offering training and services in Portuguese in the Vancouver area.
And then there’s me, Nicole Benson. My most popular posts have been about Intercultural Bilingual Education in Latin America. I am currently researching the topic for my job at UNICEF Peru in Lima. I will be back in Vancouver in early May where I will be offering Spanish and English lessons, translations, and related services.
Happy Holidays!
Again, I want to thank all of my fellow bloggers and all of our readers! Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and a wonderful year ahead!
Felices Fiestas! Joyeuses Fêtes! Boas Festas! Mutlu Bayramlar! 节日快乐! أعيادا سعيدة!
