About Bilingual Press

All Bilingual Press was founded in 2004 by Rita and Elwin Wirkala, who are writers, parents of trilingual children, and former teachers of Spanish and Portuguese at various levels, from elementary schools to university. In the early years of the company, they developed an effective Spanish curriculum for children, which has been adopted by thousands of families, schools and university departments, among them, the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Program for Talented Youth.  In 2020 All Bilingual Press began publishing books written by its founders as well as by others. They are listed under the Literature category.

About The Founders

Rita Wirkala

avatarRita Wirkala was born and raised in Argentina. She also lived in Brazil, and then moved to the United States, where she earned a doctorate in Spanish Literature.

With teaching experience ranging from elementary to college level, she knows the challenges and the benefits of learning a foreign language. As the mother of three trilingual daughters, Rita is keenly aware from personal experience that exposure to other languages early in life is the key to fluency.

Her determination to help other children acquire Spanish prompted her to develop, in cooperation with her three daughters, the present curriculum. For more details please see Rita’s website at: www.ritasturamwirkala.com

All Bilingual Press is a
registered, minority woman-owned company.

 

Karen Wirkala Gomes

Who has worked on the Microsoft thesaurus project, is a Spanish teacher and translator in combinations of Spanish, English and Portuguese. She provides the English portion of our texts, and her input on all levels of our curriculum draws on her multicultural background.

Clarice Wirkala

has a PhD in Educational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is a research associate at the Education for Thinking Institute at Columbia. Clarice oversees our teaching methodology.

Elisa Wirkala

is an experienced children’s Spanish teacher who applies and tests our methodology in real life classes. She is currently an instructor and language coordinator at Seattle’s Assumption-Saint Bridget School. Elisa provides constant feedback and ideas which are incorporated into our curriculum. She is also a co-author of our Teacher Resources publications.