"America The Bilingual" Podcast: Review & Inspirational Language-Learning Tool

Hello, everyone and welcome back to my blog! Today is a very special day, as it marks 2 years of having started this language-learning blog. I am overwhelmed by the amount of lovely comments and words of encouragement I have received over the years- it truly makes writing for you so special and rewarding. I am humbled to have such an amazing support system and hope to make all of you even prouder this upcoming year.

As you may have read in my first post of the year, this year holds many challenges, yet exciting adventures abroad. On Sunday, I embark on my third study-abroad journey in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where I hope to learn more about what makes Cameroon so linguistically and culturally unique. With over 200 languages spoken and French being one of its official national languages (the language I will be speaking and studying in while I am there), I am sure that I will be filled with many fun linguistic experiences that I cannot wait to share with you.

That being said, for this week’s post, I thought that I would share what my favorite language-learning podcast is: America the Bilingual, a podcast that is “part of the Lead with Languages campaign of ACTFL- The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages” written by Steve Leveen and its Mexican and bilingual producer, Fernando Hernández. In 2017 alone, 20 episodes were launched that are usually anywhere between 10-30 minutes long. In my opinion, every second and minute is filled with many interesting anecdotes and personal stories of how learning languages, or being reluctant to learn them has positively, or negatively impacted monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual individuals’ lives.

This upcoming year will mark its second year of being on air, so there is currently only a minosode available in 2018, as far as I am concerned; however, Steve has mentioned just how thrilled he is to launch their new episodes very soon. A few of the episodes’ titles are: “The Lamp of empathy”, “With a little help from his friends- and good French wine”, “Just call me Anna”, and “Mother Tongue”, which instantly pull you in as a listener. I personally find this podcast in particular to not only be worth your time, but to also be very informative. You can learn anything from the cognitive, personal, and professional benefits of acquiring a second language as a native speaker, or as an adult, of studying abroad in high-school, or college, and of what kinds of career possibilities you can have as a linguistically capable and informed global citizen.

This podcast does not just spew out facts giving you the number of speakers of x language, or of y language, but rather takes the time to recount real human experiences of the beauties, mysteries, confusion, and frustration that comes with having multiple identities and personalities. It talks about our well-known eureka moments when something finally clicks in another language and why languages are not meant to be subjects, but rather tools with which we can more easily navigate the complexities of the 21^st century.

It also has the goal to inform educators, learners, families, parents, and friends about why we should invest in our children’s language education starting at a very young age and what we can do to “reverse” that if we started “too late.” Ultimately, it is a podcast that does not give you fluffy details to make it sound more easy than it is- it speaks of the truth, of what people actually experience when they are in their home countries and abroad. It will move you. It will inspire you and it will hopefully make you want to pick up a language that has been stored in some part of your brain, but has been out of use for years. To attest to this, I have listened to 16/20 episodes in just a matter of two weeks and will continue to listen to all of its episodes as long as it continues to air. As Steve Leveene always says, you do have hope and can make it, even as a recovered monolingual.

Here is its link to download it on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/america-the-bilingual/id1219082864?mt=2