THE BILINGUAL CHILD MONTH IS HERE AGAIN!

It is that time of year to celebrate: The bilingual child month is here!

We are delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate this wonderful month with you! Being bilingual is fun and fabulous – what a perfect reason to celebrate it! The best part of this celebration is that it doesn’t take much effort to focus on bilingualism: share a bilingual book with your students, visit an international district in a nearby city, or hang out together talking about the different languages spoken in your classroom or community. These are such wonderful ways to bring language and culture into our students’ lives.

Parents can be encouraged this month to pay special attention to the home language. Send home bilingual books and tell parents about the many benefits of speaking their home language(s) as much as possible!

Last year in our post Celebrate the Bilingual Children Month, we shared some of our favorite ways teachers can share bilingualism and biculturalism with their students. We suggest that you read it to find out if any of the tips might come in handy in your classroom this year!

To help teachers and families have easy access to information on supporting bilingualism in their classrooms and homes, we have put together a list of useful and informative articles. We hope you will find just what you need to stay inspired, motivated and engaged during this wonderful month of bilingualism! 

Finding Bilingual Books and Resources

• Grants and Funding for Bilingual Classrooms – if you need funding for your school’s bilingual books and resources, check out this list that we put together just for you!
• Bilingual Book Promotion Launched on International Literacy Day – Find out how you can win free bilingual books!

Bilingual Books in the Classroom

• Bilingual Storytime: 5 Different Types
• Bilingual Books in Bilingual Classrooms
• Bilingual Books to Boost Reading Comprehension
• Bilingual Books in Multicultural Lesson Plans
• Dual Language Books Benefit Bilingual Children
• 10 Ways to Use Bilingual Books with Children

Tips & Activities

• The Value of Cooperative Learning Activities for English Language Learners
• Bilingual Children: 5 Tips for Using Language in Context
• 8 Tips to Protect English Language Learners from Bullying in Your Classroom and School
• 5 Tips to Help Bilingual Children Shine in the Classroom

Benefits of Language Learning

• Bilingual Children: Benefits of Learning to Read in the Home Language
• 6 Reasons Why Children Should Learn Languages As Early As Possible
• Teaching Children Languages: Benefits and Strategies
• Learning Foreign Languages: 5 Reasons Why a Small Amount of Language Exposure Is Beneficial
• Supporting Bilingualism: 4 Reasons Parents Should Speak Heritage Languages at Home

We hope you will find valuable information, resources and tips in the above articles. There are many more article on our website. We encourage you to look through them to find even more support and inspiration.

We invite you to continue visiting our blog as often as you can. We are dedicated to sharing information and resources to help you support bilingual children in your classroom and at home.

Photo credit: zehhhra

How are you celebrating The Bilingual Child Month with your students in class or children at home?