Montana: the picture postcard state is not conducive to the empowerment of migrant women It is international women’s day today and the world’s women are on the move like never…
Ingrid PillerMarch 8, 2013
Purísima altar Editor's Note: We are delighted to be able to share this report about 'the festive season' in Nicaragua, a context that is probably quite alien to many of our…
Frida WeissDecember 19, 2012
Saul Tello Jr., Orestimba High Valedictorian 2012 (Source: CBS Sacramento) When US high schools make international headlines, it’s usually because of a school shooting. But Orestimba High in Newman, a…
Ingrid PillerJuly 4, 2012
Does bilingualism cause temper tantrums? (Source: ehow.com) My husband and I are raising our children (aged five and two) to be trilingual in English (my L1), Spanish (my husband’s L1)…
Lisa FairbrotherJune 11, 2012
I’ve written before that I’ve never had an experience in which someone responded negatively to me when I speak German to my daughters in public here in the United States.…
Christof Demont-HeinrichMay 5, 2012
I’m not a big fan of what I call “breathless academic postmodernism,” or what I view as the often naïve valorization of, among other things, hybridization, creolization, liminality, polysemy, multiplicity,…
Christof Demont-HeinrichMarch 3, 2012
I have frequently wondered how my experiences speaking German in public with my two daughters, 7, and 5, whom my wife and I are raising as English-German bilinguals in the…
Christof Demont-HeinrichJanuary 21, 2012
Translation of Christoph Gutknecht, “Codewort Schibboleth”, originally published in Jüdische Allgemeine, July 07, 2011 Each time I visit France and have breakfast there, I am reminded of Goethe. In his…
Ingrid PillerJuly 14, 2011
When I first started teaching in Australia, I had a Korean-Australian student in one of my undergraduate classes who sounded like most of the other students in my class, like…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 18, 2011
Commemorative stamp, German Federal Post, 1989: 300 years French School Berlin I’ve been teaching about bilingualism for more than a decade and when I speak about bilingual education and dual-immersion…
Ingrid PillerOctober 26, 2010
The social networking market research site Inside Facebook has some intriguing language stats. In July, the fastest-growing languages on Facebook were Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and French. The Portuguese growth rate…
Ingrid PillerAugust 2, 2010
Installment #3 in the mini-series on multilingual signage The lovers of English poetry among you will recall how the phrase “Betreten verboten” (“No trespassing”) encapsulates his alienation from Berlin and…
Ingrid PillerMay 3, 2010
I missed the UN’s French language day! It’s not the fact that I missed it that bothers me – I’m late for pretty much everything – it’s the fact that…
Ingrid PillerApril 4, 2010
If you could choose to learn a foreign language, which one would it be? And why? Such choices are usually constrained by what is on offer. However, someone must choose…
Ingrid PillerDecember 14, 2009
This work is licensed under a