What is behind the Mamaestra Program?

Hello Mamaestras

My name is Cecilia Guerrero. I'm from Ecuador's Middle of the World. A year ago, I moved to San Francisco, California, USA. On my first day, I started working on a project titled "La Maestra de Español".

Mamaestra de Español is a program that promotes bilingualism and offers various teaching resources, strategies, and language coaching to stimulate the Spanish language in babies and take advantage of their neural potential. As Chomsky's Theory explains, all humans may be born with an innate understanding of language. According to Chomsky, we can acquire language because we're genetically programmed with a universal grammar.

Additionally, the science indicates that babies' brains are the best learning machines ever created and that infants' learning is time-sensitive. “Their brains will never be better at learning a second language than when they are between 0 and 3 years old.”

The concept of bilingualism goes beyond neurology.
Here are some reasons:

Cognitive, academic, and social advantages can be gained by bilingual children.
Developing cross-cultural attitudes, behaviors, and friendships can be enhanced by learning another language.
Learning one's heritage language can lead to greater self-confidence and self-esteem.
Today's multilingual, the multicultural world requires advanced knowledge of more than one language.

What do we look for with this product?

This project is aimed for Latino families who are looking to preserve culture and identity and for non-Spanish-speaking mothers who want to raise bilingual babies.

We strive to equip caregivers, speech therapists and teachers with the tools, materials, books, toys, and tips they need to forge a path to bilingualism for their children.

You can learn a language in a variety of ways, such as through casual conversation, songs, rhymes, reading, music, stories, and more. The products and programs address all theories of second language acquisition and uncover bilingualism myths in a case study.

Behaviourist by Skinner - Children imitate adults. Their correct utterances are reinforced when they get what they want or are praised.
Innateness by Chomsky - A child's brain contains special language-learning mechanisms at birth.
Cognitive Language by Piaget - is just one aspect of a child's overall intellectual development.
Interaction by Bruner - This theory emphasizes the interaction between children and their care-givers.
Colwyn Trevarthen studied the interaction between parents and babies.
Howard Gardner with a theory challenged the traditional notion that a “g” for general intelligence, only focuses on cognitive abilities but we have 8 intelligences that we can work to have them improve.

Also uncovers a lot of myths of the bilingualism.

1. Only bilingual parents can raise bilingual children and bilingual parents always raise bilingual children

2. I’m too late! You have to start very early for second language learning, or you will miss the boat.

3. Only native speakers and teachers can teach children a second language

4. Children who are raised in the same family will have the same language skills as one another.

5. It’s important to correct errors as soon as they appear in grammar and vocabulary (to prevent the formation of bad habits

6. Exposing my child to two languages means she will be a late talker.

7. Mixing languages is a sign of confusion, and languages must stay separate one-parent–one-language parenting is the best way).

8. Television, DVDs, and edutainment, like talking toys, are great ways to pick up some languages.

9. Bilingual education programs are for non-English speakers.

10. Two languages are the most to which a very young child should be exposed.

How did the venture start?

This venture started three years ago, one of my students became an aunt.

She asked me if I could help her teach her niece Spanish.

In addition to talking a lot, I gave her 50 cards to help her during her Spanish time with the baby. The experiment continue, despite her advanced level of Spanish. She used music, TV - Youtube, and some of my coaching. She did this initiative with no expectations until one day, she was crying at her crib shouting "pato". Her parents do not speak this language. Her parents asked my student what "duck" meant.

She told them it was a duck. As soon as they gave it to her, she was calm and happy.

She thought of a duck because of this. Each time they went to a small lake, they would see a duckling. Look, that's a duck and that's a duckling. (Mira ese es un pato y el otro es un patito). Same the aunt practice with -Perro -perritito - gato -gatito.

Repetition is effective for this reason. She even learned strong words. Today, she is back with her little new nephew (brother of the little girl of the case study).

For sure, bilingualism is not about reading books, giving a child a phone or turning on the TV, or giving a nanny to do the job in her time.

Bilingualism is about helping a child produce the language. It has to be enjoyable and engaging, in other words, we need to immerse them. This is why we have a series of storybooks, songbooks, and toybooks.

I divided the program in three stages.

Mamaestra ONE
It is based on two main types of research:

According to a study about synaptic pruning, children are born with 100 billion neurons. During brain development, the brain eliminates connections that are rarely or never used. It is called synaptic pruning. The neurological rule is if you don't use it you lose it. Why don't we use it?

The other reason is supported by Colwyn Trevarthen. He argues that talk and singing provide emotional stability and music gives small children clues, together with a sense of what is going on, even when they do not understand the words.

We aimed to have the infant’s repeated exposure to words clearly helps her brain build the neural connections that will enable her to learn more words later on.

How do we do that?

Baby talk - infant-directed speech (IDS) - Child-directed speech is the way a person's linguistic characteristics alter when speaking to an infant or toddler. This style of speech tends to be slower, with exaggerated intonations, a higher pitch range, and longer pauses than regular speech.

Mamaestra UNO, bring music because we relate a song with an infant-directed speech to attributes in speech input that can enhance language learning. However, the benefits of these two types of stimuli have never been better to facilitate language learning. Results showed that both song and IDS facilitated immediate word learning and long-term memory of the words.

Let´s talk about Bruno, no, no, no. Let's talk about the Mamaestra DOS.

We work with children to help them grow their vocabulary. Puppets are used to learn the new words, but we also created a songbook to accompany them. While playing with puppets, children can improve several motor skills.

Check them out:

Language Development - Children love to have ‘conversations’ with a puppet that will encourage language development.

Social Development - The shy child, or the young child still learning social skills, has an opportunity to be more sociable through the medium of a puppet.

Emotional Development - Puppets can teach children about their emotions. Children can interact with the puppets as they share their ability to be happy, sad, angry, funny or jealous.

Listening Skills - Puppets are great tutors. The puppet on your hand can encourage your child to listen to it as it gives instructions or tells a story. Puppets can help children to learn rhymes and songs as they imitate the puppet too.

Motor Skills - There are a number of motor skills that children can improve through playing with puppets. The fine movement required to wear a puppet helps with dexterity and using fingers to manipulate the puppet improves fine motor coordination. Marionettes or string puppets help with eye-hand coordination as the puppet is made to walk and move in different directions. All these skills improve balance and directionality as the child has great fun playing with the puppet.

Building Self-Confidence - The act of handling a puppet inspires children to develop their self-confidence. As their self-confidence grows, they will be more willing to entertain their family and friends. With the help of a puppet friend, the child becomes more confident to speak in front of people.

Creativity - Puppets encourage creativity on several different levels. We can create funny conversations, jokes, and small roleplays like cooking in the kitchen, Tea Party, Post Office, Airport and the passport act, grocery store, hair salon and beauty make-up, cops and robbers, mom and daughter, restaurant, teacher and student (my favorite).

Story Telling and Sequencing Storytelling - It comes alive with puppets. Retelling favorite fairy tales is a great way to put on a puppet show. Learning how to repeat the rhyming part of the story, like in the Gingerbread Man, helps with memory skills.

Travel Companions - Packing a puppet in your travel bag or even popping one in your handbag is a wonderful way to provide entertainment when you need it. A hand or glove puppet and a storybook are all you need for some holiday travel fun. the doctor’s waiting room, a puppet, and a book may be all you need to distract your child. The beauty of puppets is they are lightweight, unbreakable little entertainers and they travel well.

Additional if we integrate, the Storybook, toybook, songbook, and workbook we can be part of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Summarized here:

Verbal-linguistic intelligence (well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to the sounds, meanings and rhythms of words)

Logical-mathematical intelligence (ability to think conceptually and abstractly, and capacity to discern logical and numerical patterns)

Spatial-visual intelligence (capacity to think in images and pictures, to visualize accurately and abstractly)

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (ability to control one’s body movements and to handle objects skillfully)

Musical intelligence (ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch and timber)

Interpersonal intelligence (capacity to detect and respond appropriately to the moods, motivations, and desires of others)

Intrapersonal (capacity to be self-aware and in tune with inner feelings, values, beliefs, and thinking processes)

Naturalist intelligence (ability to recognize and categorize plants, animals and other objects in nature)

Existential intelligence (sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence such as, “What is the meaning of life? Why do we die?
How did we get here?”

Our last stage before the jump to kindergarten. It is the Mamaestra 3

It is all about art - There are seven common elements in our workbook for moms and their children: Line, Shape, Form, Colour, Space, Texture, Value.

By using art as an early form of communication, children are developing skills that will enhance writing expression and reflection.

The mamaestra 3 is the toybook in paper that needs to be crafted by moms and the child. This book also pushes families to start using small structures in Spanish. Yo quiero una manzana. Yo no quiero ir al mercado. Yo quiero ir al parque. A lot of the activities are done by recycle and reuse.

Our Philosophy and our Rule

REPETITION: The key to mastery is repetition, repetition, repetition.

Both adults and children can use this method.

The repetition of everyday routines and repetition on a daily basis helps create neurological connections. Learning basic phrases and vocabulary that you say to your child every day should be your first step.

LEARN TOGETHER: Mom and baby.

Only a close relative (mamaestra) can put passion into the work. Kids need one-to-one interaction and quality time. Infants respond better to baby talk than to adult conversation, so pay attention to your voice and intonation when teaching them Spanish.

MAKE IT PERSONAL - Whether you already speak Spanish fluently or you're just getting started, Mamaestra de Espa*ol is designed to take you from zero to functional Spanish. Don't worry about your R's; our Spanish coach will help you with other material. Don't worry about your results after the first month. Remember, 80% of their brain’s physical development happens during their first 3 years. With their growing brains, they also form the connections needed for thinking, learning, and processing information. These connections, called synapses, form at a super-fast rate, about 700 per second in the first few years. Speaking to your baby fires up those important synapses in the part of their brain that handles language. The more words they hear, the stronger those mental connections get. That process can strengthen your child’s future language skills and overall ability to learn.

KEEP IT REAL - Kids learn best in context, so we've designed our books and the Mamaestra Toybook to teach Spanish in contexts that are most meaningful to them! That’s why the 20 lessons in the toybook focus on the most important topics that kids experience in real life, from mealtime to playtime, to school. And without them even realizing it, you’ll help set the stage for academic success.

FREE TOYBOOK with 20 lessons with the Mamaestra COURSE

Mamaestra Course