Aileen Passariello-McAleer: Think Bilingual Ambassador

Language support: Spanish/English/Italian

Target age group/s: Ages 0-8 years old

Bio: Aileen Passariello-McAleer is an American of Venezuelan descent from Miami, FL. Her parents immigrated to the United States to provide their future children with better opportunities. She has a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Post graduation, she pursued a career with IBM in New York City. Her work in the healthcare space as a client manager inspired her to pursue an MBA, which she completed at the University of Texas in Austin Texas. She decided to stay in Austin because of the exciting and dynamic startup culture.

After working  with various startups in Austin, she realized it was time to create something of her own. She began raising her children in a bilingual household and wanted to share her experiences with others. She taught Spanish out of her home to parents that also wanted to raise bilingual children. Her methodology of “learning like a child” attracted many parents with young children. MamaLingua was born out of these experiences and months later in 2012, Aileen formally launched it with one of her students, Christia Hoffman. Today, MamaLingua has evolved from a home classroom to a language learning platform, including a bilingual app for Android and iOS that can be used to implement introductory words and phrases in Spanish or English. The MamaLingua community has reached well beyond Austin, Texas, expanding nationally and globally. She blogs about her experiences raising bilingual children sharing her stories, adventures, and strategies for creating a bilingual household for your children.

In what capacity does Aileen support families as a Think Bilingual Ambassador: Aileen is excited to facilitate meet-up groups centered around language learning for her target age group, provide lists of resources and other ideas for language learning and cultural exchange, introduce members to other community members seeking to learn/maintain a language, and provide technical support for challenges faced when learning and/or maintaining language and culture.