K-College Collaboration: Creating Learning Communities
Collaboration among K-12 teachers, university language professors, and Colleges of Education, is key in creating new models and materials to use in multi-language enhancement and cultural awareness programs nationwide. Innovative, after school programming in a variety of heritage languages and cultures, particularly those less commonly taught, offers to reinforce literary skills in L1 and/or L2 and heighten interest and competency in foreign languages, area studies, and cultures. Profiled projects for this area include:
Center for the Advancement of Distinguished Language Proficiency
The mission of the Center for the Advancement of Distinguished Language Proficiency is to help students move from Level 3 to Level 4 (ILR scale) proficiency, as well as to train a cadre of teachers capable of doing this.
Cultures in Conflict
The goal of the Cultures in Conflict Project is the publication of descriptive, interdisciplinary curricular models showing how learning tasks associated with the same authentic source materials can be modified to meet learner needs at different levels of instruction.
After-School Programs
As a component of LARC's program to preserve Heritage Languages, LARC is cooperating with a group of community volunteers to establish schools where students K-12 might learn languages and cultures.
Heritage Language Learning Project
The goal of the Heritage Language Learning Project is to produce a mythological heritage language website based on a variety of heritage mythologies and other educational resources, and train teachers how to use it with their heritage language students.