About our centre

We help parents raise their children bilingually/multilingually.

Our mission is:

- to provide parents with knowledge about child bilingualism and multilingualism, and with tools that they need to help their children master all their languages;

- to provide heritage language teaching for children


Our recommendations to parents and our teaching methods for children are based on state-of-the-art research on child multilingualism (including our own research).

Our teachers and consultants

Dr. Marina Sherkina-Lieber, Ph.D.
Director, consultant, at-home programs consultant, teacher of Russian

Marina has a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Toronto. She authored a doctoral dissertation and several research articles about bilingualism and heritage languages, specializing in Russian in Canada and Inuktitut in the Canadian North. She is developing special programs and teaching materials for heritage Russian, and provides training for the centre’s teachers. Marina is also a parent of two multilingual children.

Sofia Kanibolotskaia, M.A.
Teacher of Russian

Sofia has a Master’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Toronto and a teacher’s diploma from OISE. She is also an artist, and illustrates her own teaching materials. In addition, she is raising a multilingual child.

Dr. Iryna Osadcha, Ph.D.
Teacher of Ukrainian

Iryna has a diploma of a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature, and Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Toronto. Like other teachers, she is also a parent of a multilingual child.

Our services

  • Group and individual language lessons for children (Russian, Ukrainian; we are looking for teachers of other languages)
  • Individual language lessons for adult heritage speakers
  • Workshops and seminars for parents on raising bilingual/multilingual children
  • Individual consultations
  • At-home programs (a plan and weekly recommendations for a parent to help their child learn the language)