(Thanks to Laurie Tiemens and Lisa Mirman's for sharing these wonderful recomendations):

Coming off the feature on Nightline, several of you asked how I teach Spanish to my kids as a non native speaker. I am writing now to share some angles on how I expose my kids to foreign languages.

Just to provide a context, I am fairly fluent in Spanish but I learned it the "hard way" by studying in high school and spending lots of time abroad. I started speaking to my kids exclusively in Spanish from birth. I must be honest and say that it was a VERY big challenge and felt quite unnatural at first, but my Spanish has really evolved along the way and as early as 12 months old it was clear the kids were completely comprehending both English and Spanish. I was SO motivated when I saw how effortless it was for them that I launched into providing a foundation for several languages. (Reading "How to Teach your Baby to Read" was also incredibly influential on this topic) I often think of how natural it is for Europeans, for example, to be exposed to many languages and I want it to be just as natural for my family.

Here are some things I have embraced along the way that may provide you with some ideas and resources:

1) I have only hired Spanish speakers to help with any cleaning or babysitting. That has given my kids consistent exposure to native speakers. Now I am seeking out babysitters who speak any foreign language, particularly Mandarin.

2) I consciously offer musical selections to the kids to create a musical environment in several languages. I have been VERY pleased with the musical CDs from www.teachmetapes. com. They offer
10 languages. I have the ones for Mandarin Chinese which the kids love to dance to and sing along. We also incorporate lots of Putamayo as it is just fun music from all over the world.

3) I leverage the library for ANY language resource as it free and gives you a chance to trial things. When the kids check out DVDs from there my stipulation is they must have a foreign language track. I have found the "teach me tapes" in other languages, we have checked out Muzzy in Italian and German, etc. It really is just a matter of conducting a good catalog search to see what you may
discover.

4) We have an extensive personal "library" of books in Spanish. Anytime friends or family have asked what they can get the kids I say the most appreciated gifts are books or videos in Spanish. For my second baby shower I asked for it to simply be a "book" shower where everyone shared their favorite book from childhood or better yet a book in Spanish (very easy to find at Barnes and Nobles). That really added to our collection!! From birth I only read to them in Spanish (my husband read the English books) and this helped my vocabulary too.

5) I have an electronic translator (I think from Walmart) which is very handy for continuing to fill in my gaps of knowledge.

6) Anytime my kids ask to watch a video, it is only in a foreign language. Here in the US it is easy to get Spanish and French language tracks on most new DVDs. My Dad travels extensively to and from China so I asked him to bring me a DVD player and children's DVDs in Mandarin.

7) I have the "How to Teach Your Baby Math" CD from IAHP which allows me to do the math program in 5 languages. I let the kids choose what they want to hear so it is a game for them. (English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese)

8) I also own the Picture Dictionaries from IAHP…a set of 10 volumes which also shows words and bits spoken by native speakers in 5 languages. Again, I let the kids tell me what language they want
to hear.

9) I have used the many Spanish bits provided on www.theclassicalmommy.com, especially the "Yo Puedo Leer" series created by Perla. My kids beg for these every day.

10) I personally have not invested in language software yet, but I know Rosetta Stone comes highly recommended.

11) Here locally there is a Chinese language class one day a week where at the toddler level they simply play, read and sing in Mandarin for two hours. Attending schools like these provides you with a network for getting babysitters and other learning materials, especially if you do not speak the language yourself.

12) My kids also enjoy using "First Thousand Words in Chinese" which is an Usborne Internet-linked picture dictionary where they can point to things they want to hear and I can use the Internet link to pronounce that word in Chinese. These of course are available in many languages too.
I'd love to hear input and resources from other moms as there are so many creative ideas out there. This topic always seems to be of immense interest to "professional" moms!!

Cheers, Lisa Mirman (-: