Meet The Coaches

Rita Rosenback

Rita is an author, Family Language Coach, blogger and speaker, who was born into a bilingual family on the Swedish-speaking west coast of Finland. After studying languages in Finland and Germany she worked as a university teacher, translator, interpreter and manager of multinational teams. Rita is now a full-time writer and coach and has been living in the U.K. since 1998. Rita is the mother of two grown-up multilingual daughters, who are the inspiration for her book: “Bringing up a Bilingual Child”, an easy-to-read guide for parents, where she navigates the reader across the “Seven Cs of Multilingual Parenting: Communication, Confidence, Commitment, Consistency, Creativity, Culture and Celebration”. Currently English and Swedish are Rita’s main languages, but she instantly switches to Finnish or German or to her Finland-Swedish dialect when the opportunity presents itself (and when push comes to shove, she can communicate in a very basic Punjabi). Rita is the creator and driving force of this website, and she gives talks and holds workshops for parents and teachers on the topic of bilingual children. She also coaches families on how to make the most of their languages and raise their children to become confident speakers of the chosen languages.

Maria Babin

Maria Babin, born and raised in the United States to a Peruvian father and a Mexican mother, is today the proud mom of four trilingual children. After living in France for nearly 14 years Maria and her family have now moved back to the United States. Maria graduated from Brigham Young University in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in French, and received a Master’s in Education from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She teaches first grade dual immersion French at a public school in Draper, Utah. She also blogs from time to time at Trilingual Mama where she shares some of her family’s trilingual adventures.

Annabelle Humanes

Dr Annabelle Humanes was born and raised in France. She moved to the U.K where she lived and worked as an academic for over a decade. Her research and teaching focused on language acquisition ( in young bilinguals and language teaching at school). She has published extensively in those areas. 

Becoming a mother somewhat changed her perspective on multilingualism when the theory she was very familiar with was put into practice. While her views remain evidence-based, she is a strong believer in living in multiple languages as naturally as possible. 

She currently lives in Germany and is raising two little world citizens with 4 languages (French, English, German and Portuguese) and cultures. She also currently runs language enrichment classes and playgroups for French-speaking families living in Germany. She writes on her blog the piri-piri lexicon about being a displaced mum, combining cultures, her passion for travelling with her children and raising little multilinguals as effortlessly as possible. She also runs a Facebook group for families living in/with multiple languages. 

Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett

Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett is a Chinese language and culture consultant who helps parents introduce Mandarin and Chinese culture to their children.  She is the author of the “Let’s Learn Mandarin Chinese with Miss Panda!” audio album and the host of the Playful Chinese podcast.  Amanda is the mother of two bilingual children.  She has extensive language teaching experience with kids and business professionals in the United States and international schools. Her students call her “Miss Panda!”  She was born in Taiwan and her parents are from China. She is a member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign and National Association for the Education of Young Children.  Amanda blogs at Miss Panda Chinese.  She currently lives in Washington D.C. with her family, including two lovely trilingual cats, Qwerty and Bella, as well as a bilingual Lemon.  You can contact her via her website.

Mary-Pat O’Malley-Keighran

Mary-Pat O’Malley is a lecturer, author, researcher, speech and language therapist and lover of all things to do with speech, language and communication. She has over 25 years’ experience of working with families and 16 years’ experience of teaching in university. Mary-Pat has done extensive research in communication including story-telling and non-word repetition in bilingual children. She is passionate about making bilingualism research and speech and language therapy for bilingual children accessible to parents. Mary-Pat is currently a lecturer in speech and language therapy at NUI Galway on the west coast of Ireland and you can find her blog at Talk Nua. (CORU Reg. No. SL018147).

Ute Limacher-Riebold

Ute Limacher-Riebold is a researcher, writer and an independent Language Consultant and Intercultural Communication Trainer at Ute’s International Lounge. She has a PhD in French literature and a Masters in Bilingualism and is a trained Speech and Language Specialist. Ute combines her knowledge in linguistics and intercultural communication, and her experience as multilingual and multicultural, who managed to successfully adapt to other languages and cultures, Ute made it her mission to translate research into evidence based, easy-to-apply tips for parents, families and practitioners, to use in everyday life. After Italy, France, and Switzerland she now lives in the Netherlands with her Swiss husband and three multilingual and multicultural children. Ute is fluent in English, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Swissgerman, and understands Spanish and Portuguese.

Monica Bravo Granström

Dr. Monica Bravo Granström is the Managing Director at the Academy for Continuing Education at the University of Education Weingarten, Germany. Originally from Sweden, she has lived abroad in Spain and Luxembourg before moving to Germany. She speaks Swedish with her children, Spanish with her husband, and German and English at work. Monica holds a Master in Spanish, a Master in Translation, and a Ph.D. in Pedagogics, and her research focuses on multilingualism in an international, cross-disciplinary approach. She is also the author of “I love Svenska”, a handbook for Swedes living abroad on how to raise a Swedish-speaking child. Monica is one of the founders and an active member of the worldwide network SMUL (Svenska som modersmål utomlands – Swedish as a mother tongue abroad). She is part of the managing team of SMUL-akademin, an online academy for learning Swedish, and the editor-in-chief of its magazine, SMUL-magasinet.