Marikay McCabe and Mirka Vlčková are two of the co-founders of The Bilingual Montessori Project. Marikay McCabe founded Madrid Montessori School in 2006 and was its Director until 2017. In 2018 she established Learning Ecologies to continue supporting Montessori educators as a school consultant and by offering seminars on bilingualism and school organization & leadership.  In 2020 she co-founded the Bilingual Montessori initiative in order to offer a virtual home for educators working...

Today's Frequently Asked Question is: What are the stages of second language acquisition? I'm back with another Frequently Asked Questions episode - a quick, bite-sized episode focusing on one frequently asked question about language acquisition, Montessori language development principles, or multilingualism. I alternate these episodes with the longer-form interviews parents, educators and experts in their fields on topics relating to Montessori and multilingualism that you’re already...

Nasma Alkhafif is an Early Childhood Consultant and bilingual mom living in Columbus, Ohio. Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, she holds a Master's in Education and a Bachelor's in Psychology. Nasma is also a certified AMI 3-6 Guide and Positive Discipline Parent Educator. As a parenting coach and consultant, Nasma  is passionate about providing children with the best environment and resources needed to reach their full potential. In addition to her professional work, Nasma is a mother of two...

Harvard-educated doctora of education Vero Benavides has spent her career exploring and advocating for the intersection of identity, language, and learning. Throughout her career in education—as a high school and middle school teacher, a Fulbright scholar, a leadership coach, and the Executive Director of a leading early childhood educational research and training center—she's always sought to create strengths-based environments where all people and children thrive. Now, as founder and CEO...

In Episode 3 of the Multilingual Montessori Podcast, I spoke with Chelsea Daniel, an AMI Montessori guide, birth doula, and certified yoga instructor living in Brooklyn, NY. Chelsea is the founder of Chickadee Yoga, where she teaches children's yoga, prenatal yoga, and postnatal/baby + me yoga classes. We discuss the intersection of mindfulness and Montessori, how to use mindfulness to support children, and how we as adults can use mindfulness practices to be our best selves when caring for...

Paula Lillard Preschlack was a teacher and the head of school at Forest Bluff School in Illinois for over 25 years. Her work focuses on the principles and benefits of the Montessori approach. Paula attended Hampshire College and holds a Master's Degree in Education from Loyola College in Maryland, has diplomas from the Association Montessori Internationale for Assistants to Infancy, Primary, and Elementary Levels, and she audited the NAMTA/AMI Orientation to Adolescent Studies. Paula and her...

Claudia Serrano Johnson is a bilingual speech-language pathologist and a mom of three living in Virginia. Claudia is passionate about empowering Latinx parents with accurate information on bilingual language development. On her social media platforms, she clarifies misinformation such as "Bilingualism causes delays", "Bilingualism confuses children", and "Bilingual children speak later." Claudia feels strongly that these myths negatively impact the bilingual community by making parents fear...

Linda McGurk is a Swedish-American freelance writer and author of the  book, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom’s Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient and Confident Kids. Linda is a passionate advocate for the Nordic outdoor tradition friluftsliv and believes that the best childhood memories are created outside, while jumping in puddles, digging in dirt, catching bugs and climbing trees. Her latest book, The Open-Air Life: Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and...

Today's Frequently Asked Question is: Can I Teach My Child a Language That Isn’t My Native Language? I'm back with another Frequently Asked Questions episode - a quick, bite-sized episode focusing on one frequently asked question about language acquisition, Montessori language development principles, or multilingualism. I alternate these episodes with the longer-form interviews parents, educators and experts in their fields on topics relating to Montessori and multilingualism that you’re...

Meagan De Clerck is a multilingual mom of four. Meagan lives with her family in Northern Vermont and homeschools her children with a Montessori-inspired curriculum. Meagan’s children are trilingual; she and her husband use the one parent one language method in their home. Meagan speaks exclusively in Spanish to her children, her husband speaks exclusively in French, and they get English exposure from their community. Since we recorded this episode over the summer, Meagan has also started...

A question I hear all the time is: Is it too late to raise my child bilingual? This is the first episode of a new series of short, bite-sized episodes where I’ll tackle a frequently asked question about language acquisition, Montessori language development principles, or multilingualism. I’ll alternate these episodes with the longer-form interviews that you're already familiar with, so every other week you’ll continue to hear from parents, educators and experts in their fields on topics...

Natalia Sáez is a professor and researcher at Teachers College Columbia University focusing on second language development as well as bilingual/bicultural education. Natalia is also the founder and co-owner of TraducGlobal, which offers language services to clients around the world. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Cognitive Science from Universidad de Chile, and a Master of Arts degree in Applied Linguistics from Teachers College Columbia University, from which she also has a Doctor of...

Beth Allison is a mom, educator, and entrepreneur who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Beth is Navajo and grew up on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, but she is not fluent in the Navajo language. When her son, who is now 2 and a half, was born, Beth decided to learn Navajo along with him. She quickly found that there weren’t as many teaching resources for an indigenous language like Navajo as there are for world languages like Spanish and Mandarin. So she began creating and sharing resources and...

Diandra Morse is a bilingual mom, licensed clinical social worker and child advocate living in Syracuse, New York with her husband and two bilingual sons. Diandra is Dominican American and was raised in both the Dominican Republic and New York City. You might know Diandra from Instagram as Bilingual Playdate, where she promotes positive language attitudes towards all languages, language variations, accents, dialects and reminds parents that they are the heart of their child’s...

Jesse Gevirtz is the Director of Adolescent Programs at Austin Montessori School in Austin, Texas. Jesse has been teaching in Montessori schools for 25 years, 21 of them at Austin Montessori School. He holds an AMI Elementary Diploma and an AMI Diploma in Adolescent Studies. Jesse attended Montessori school as a child in Houston, Texas in the early 1970s. He is the parent of two Montessori children: both of his young adult daughters attended Austin Montessori School from their early childhood...

Yuna Seong is a language educator and assessment expert living in New Jersey. She is the Director of the Community Language Program, the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Certificate Program, and the Language Program Management Certificate at Teachers College Columbia University, where she hires and trains language educators and language program professionals who aspire to teach and manage their own language programs. Yuna earned her MA in Second Language Studies from...

Melina Gac Levin is an educator and bilingual parent who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is the founder of Pueblo, which supports multicultural families through parenting classes and consultations. She is also the co-founder of Nido Forest, NYC's first forest school en Español. Melina has a dual Masters from Bank Street College of Education in Infant, Toddler and Family Development and Early Childhood General and Special Education. She is a former preschool teacher, and currently teaches graduate...

Jackie Howard is a bilingual educator and former Montessori child living in Austin, Texas. Jackie grew up speaking Spanish and English at home, and went to a Montessori school from kindergarten to 8th grade. She has worked in the education field for 13 years, first as a bilingual elementary teacher, then as an instructional coach mentoring teachers, and now as a high school humanities teacher and college consultant. In our conversation, we discuss Jackie’s childhood memories of Montessori...

Lynda Apostol is a Montessori teacher, parent, and homeschool coach who lives in Southern California with her husband and two children. Lynda has worked in both public and private schools as a teacher, instructional coach and administrator. During the pandemic, she decided to homeschool her young children, and we talk about how that decision came about in our conversation. When she began sharing her homeschooling experiences on social media, she found that other parents were seeking guidance...

Sophia O’Brien-Udry is a Children’s House guide at a Montessori school in New York City. Although Sophia is monolingual herself, she teaches at a bilingual Montessori school, and we talk about her experiences working in a bilingual environment, and what she has learned about language from her bilingual colleagues and students. Sophia is also the Director of Culture at her school, where she partners with families to narrow the gap between the Montessori classroom and the home. In this episode,...

The guest for this episode is…me! I invited my good friend and former coworker Claudia to interview me about my education background and how I came to start Multilingual Montessori. Claudia was a podcast guest a few episodes back (linked below) and in honor of my 20th podcast episode, I thought it would be fun to be in the hot seat myself. I asked Claudia to interview me and she came up with some great questions for me about growing up in Manhattan and going to NYC public schools, teaching...

Siri Panday is the Director of Education for Toddler and Primary at Marin Montessori School in Northern California. Siri is trained as both a 0-3 and 3-6 AMI Guide, and she has worked in Montessori schools as a guide, administrator, and consultant for over 20 years. Early in her teaching career, she had the opportunity to help open a Montessori Children's House classroom in Kathmandu, Nepal, and we chat about her memories of teaching in Nepal and learning to speak Nepali. Siri grew up...

María Laura Ribadeneira grew up in Quito, Ecuador where she spoke Spanish at home, English at school, and studied French outside of school. She went to college in the US (with me!) where she also studied Italian and Ancient Greek, and studied abroad in Italy and France. After college graduation, she moved to Paris for a masters degree, where she has lived ever since, and just became a French citizen a year ago. In this conversation, we chat about language and identity, as well as navigating...

Tania Ginsberg-Jambou is a French-American bilingual mom and Montessorian living in California. Tania grew up speaking both French and English with her American father and French mother. Tania and her husband, who is French, have three children with whom they speak exclusively in French at home. Tania is trained as an AMI 3-6 Montessori guide, and before she became a mother, she taught in a bilingual Montessori Children’s House in Paris. She shares what that experience was like for her and...

Janina Burmeister is a mom and Montessorian living in Valencia, Spain. Janina is originally from Germany but she has lived abroad for the past twenty years! In this episode, Janina shares her experiences as an expat living in nine countries over the past two decades, and how that has shaped her cultural and linguistic identity. Janina and her husband have a five-year-old son Henry who speaks three languages: German, English and Spanish. When Henry was a baby, Janina and her husband, who are...