Today we’d like to introduce you to Rocio Raña.
Hi Rocio, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I moved to the U.S. on my own to pursue graduate studies and I immediately fell in love with the country I now call my home. And I have always felt grateful for the chance of living here. Through my studies and work, I have learned about U.S. Spanish, the communities that shape it, and the role of English in the development of first and second-generation Spanish speakers. Part of my learning came from teaching about bilingualism, literacy, and heritage Spanish at different colleges to mostly Latinx students.
Through my students, I learned how much they had to give and how little had been given to them in terms of their home language and culture. Here we had thousands of students who could have so easily been fully bilingual, bicultural, and bi-literate who were struggling with Spanish and had close to no knowledge of their community’s history in the U.S. At the same time, schools all over the country were (and still are) bringing bilingual teachers from Latin America to fill unfilled positions.
And in these musings, I was when I had my own Latinx children born in the U.S., and I felt directly what millions of other immigrant families have faced and continue to face daily: the lack of understanding and resources needed for kids like my own (raised with a language other than English at home) and the constant push for assimilation to English and abandonment of home language and culture. And slowly the idea for the BLAST bilingual platform began to take shape in my mind. In 2018, I started writing down ideas every week to apply for grants.
We got our first grant in 2019. The money we got at that time didn’t allow me to quit my other job, but it allowed me to work part-time on this project and move the idea forward to develop our MVP. Last year, we received a larger grant and I was finally able to devote myself full-time to this project. For me, this is my life project. I feel that everything I worked on for the last 15 years has led me to this project and contributed to my understanding of my community and what needs to change to guarantee a better future for my children and the rest of the Latinx children in my community.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I’ve had countless opportunities afforded to me in the U.S., and there have also been plenty of challenges. As an immigrant, you have the unique opportunity to reinvent yourself in a new country, but you also lack the support system that you may have back home, where your family and childhood friends are.
There’ve been times of loneliness, times of financial struggle, and times when I couldn’t gain access to opportunities and spaces because of my immigration status or cultural behavior.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about LangInnov?
LangInnov is developing the BLAST bilingual platform which is aimed at the underserved Latinx bilingual population in the American school system. Despite their growing size (25% of the public school population), Latinx children still do not have adequate support to succeed in an academic setting and are often the victims of a systematic process that favors the acquisition of the English language and mainstream white culture at the expense of their home language and heritage culture.
The lack of adequate bilingual and culturally-inclusive resources has also led to a disproportionate misplacement of Latinx bilinguals in special education and increased drop-out rates. Our vision for BLAST is anchored on a holistic view of learning that provides support to all parties involved in a child’s education. The first tool we developed within the BLAST platform is a fully-automated, child-friendly, and standard-aligned bilingual assessment for Kindergarten bilinguals, allowing them to respond in English and Spanish to measure pre-literacy, listening comprehension, and speaking (using speech recognition technology), as well as analytical skills.
The bilingual assessment provides a starting point for understanding bilingual and multilingual learners and their specific needs. We are at present developing language and literacy assessments for 1st and 2nd graders, as well as a suite of bilingual literacy activities that will be automatically recommended to children based on assessment results and activity performance. The goal of the personalized bundle of activities is to develop the skills identified by the assessment as needing improvement, both in English and Spanish.
BLAST is used at bilingual and dual language schools across the country, We are the only truly bilingual solution in the market that is fully tech-enabled and automated. At present, we are looking for investments to continue expanding the platform resources and our reach.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I think there are two: resilience and drive.
Pricing:
- BLAST is a SaaS platform that costs $24 per child per year.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://blastbilingual.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blastbilingualapp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlastBilingual/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/langinnov/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/blastbilingual/
- Other: https://www.langinnov.com/
Image Credits
Mariela Murdocco
