FAQ

Do I, or my child, have to be Spanish-speaking to join classes at EL PEQUEÑO ARTISTA™?

No. Many non-Spanish-speaking people send their children to expose them at an early age to a second language, or to reinforce the Spanish they hear from their Latina babysitters, both of which are encouraged. At El pequeño artista, the best classes for absolute beginners are the Music and Dance programs. The rest of the workshops require some previous basic knowledge of the language. If you have questions or concerns about the level of proficiency that your child needs to join a particular class, please contact us at

How did EL PEQUEÑO ARTISTA get started?

The owner of El pequeño artista, Carolina Conde, is a native Venezuelan mother of a two-year-old. Concerned that her son wasn't having enough exposure to the Spanish language, she started looking for extracurricular activities for him to do in Spanish. The wonderful music program Música para mí was the only option found. Surprised and disappointed that there were no other classes in Spanish, in comparison to the variety available in English, she decided to gather a number of Spanish-speaking artists residing in New York, develop art workshops and start a studio where kids could have access to great art, in the Spanish language.

I am afraid my bilingual child will be confused with both languages and will have delays in his linguistic development.

"Children who have regular and rich exposure to both languages on a daily or weekly basis from parents and other caregivers exhibit the same milestones in language development and at roughly the same ages as monolingual children. It is important to remember that there are large individual differences in language acquisition -- some children acquire their first words or use complex utterances much earlier than other children. Delay in the emergence of these milestones does not necessarily mean that there is something seriously wrong; in most cases it simply means that the child has taken longer to reach this stage. The same kinds of differences are characteristic of bilingual children.
It is important that parents of bilingual children provide systematic exposure to both languages all the time and that they avoid radical changes to the language environment of the child. Such changes can disrupt language development and create difficulties for the child."

—Bilingual Acquisition byFred Genesee, Professor of Psychology at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, and author of several books on bilingualism, including Learning Through Two Languages: Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education (Heinle & Heinle, 1987) and Educating Second Language Children (Cambridge University Press, 1994).