028: How To Overcome Fear When Learning Languages? With Ksenija Popac

Bilingual Kids Rock Podcast: Raising Multilingual Children, Multicultural Living, Growing Up With Multiple Languages.

Ksenija Popac is the founder of School Placement Consuting and University Study Consulting. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature, from the University of Belgrade, and Language, from the College of New Jersey.

She is an experienced educational consultant and educator who has been living and working internationally for over twenty years. Her expertise includes educational consulting, teaching, management, curriculum development and implementation for both Business English and the International Baccalaureate English and History, development of exams and training materials. Ksenija and her Dutch husband are teaching their daughter to speak 4 languages.

In this episode of Bilingual Kids Rock Podcast:

Ksenija’s background

Do you find more expert families learn a new language or looking for the close community to stay with people who speak the same language?

How did Ksenija learn 5 languages

Her tips on raising a multilingual child – how she’s teaching her daughter to speak in 4 languages

The importance of not mixing languages

Her daughter’s learning process in 3 language

Reading is extremely important in raising bilingual child

How does it work to learn and speak many languages at home?

The importance of learning the heritage language at home

How Ksenjia taught her daughter how literacy in Cyrillic?

Dealing with your child’s refusal to speak the heritage language

Her daughter’s impressive conversation with the taxi driver

Discussing holidays and culture in their household

How to deal with cultural differences?

Why it’s important to join and reach out to your local language community

How bilingual kids can apply learning languages in class

Items mentioned in this episode:

Reading to your bilingual babies

Code switching vs Borrowing

How parents can stick to speaking heritage language

How to foster children’s pride in their minority culture and language

Quotes in this episode:

“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes when learning a language”