California’s Critical Language Program gets Federal Boost

SACRAMENTO – The Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) received a $561,000, three-year federal grant from the United States Department of Education to help the California Foreign Language Project (CFLP) expand to the national level by 2011. The Commission will collaborate with CFLP to implement the Initiative for Model Professional Activities and Capacity Building for Teachers of Foreign Languages (IMPACTFL) project, an expansion of the already successful CFLP model to enhance professional development of foreign language teachers. Project coordinators plan to help other states and institutions replicate the IMPACTFL project model across the nation. The United States Congress has recognized the need for Americans to have greater expertise and knowledge of world languages and cultures. CFLP, initiated in 1989 and hosted by regional campuses of the University of California, California State University and independent colleges of California, seeks to broaden, deepen and sustain professional growth and development of foreign language teachers over a lifetime of teaching. Between 2000 and 2008, CFLP served over 6,000 classroom foreign language teachers in California. The CFLP model includes a “signature series” of three key 40-hour trainings for the professional development of foreign language teachers and teacher-leaders in grades P – 16. This model will form the basis for the IMPACTFL project.

IMPACTFL serves as a comprehensive, systematic and collaborative model for grades P – 16 foreign language professional support and development. The project goal is to encourage and foster a high quality foreign language and international studies teacher work force in California and the nation. This model will support not only foreign language teachers in general, but particularly those teachers in the emerging critical language areas of Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese, as identified by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Commission and CFLP will work together to develop three types of materials within the IMPACTFL project: (1) manuals for replicating and implementing the CFLP professional development model, including adapting the model to the needs of local communities; (2) curriculum and instructional materials to support professional development for new teachers of Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese; and (3) hands-on training materials for key state and local foreign language personnel across the nation for replicating the CFLP model, including specific training to support Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese teachers.

An external evaluator will provide assessment information for ongoing program improvement and an annual report to determine the degree to which the project achieves its objectives. The project’s cost-effectiveness is enhanced by the extensive in-kind contributions of personnel, foreign language content expertise, meeting facilities, and other services to the project by local and state agencies and educational institutions.