HS/College Articulation (MLA)

[Jerry Ervin]

The following announcement was just received by AATSEEL.  We are posting it to
SEELANGS so that interested readers will have more lead time than will be
available when this announcement appears in print (probably in the AATSEEL NL of
October).

     Participants Sought for High School to College Articulation Project

        On behalf of the Coalition of Foreign Language Associations, in
     which AATSEEL takes part, the Modern Language
     Association is organizing a two year project to promote articulation
     between high school and college foreign language programs.  The
     coalition bases its work on the conviction that to take advantage of
     student accomplishments at prior levels and to prepare students for
     the demands of advanced levels, secondary and postsecondary language
     teachers and program administrators must understand one another's
     practices and conditions, assessment measures, and projected outcomes.

      The project, known as High School to College, has three goals: to
     bring together leaders of ongoing local, state,  and regional
     articulation projects to learn from one another; to disseminate
     information about articulation, providing foreign language
     professionals with descriptions and discussion of  the variety and
     similarity of models, frameworks, philosophies, and applications; and
     to support new sites for articulation through mentoring and modest
     funding.

        High School to College will hold a conference in February 1998 that
     will bring together teams from twelve ongoing articulation projects
     and teams from eight start-up articulation projects to discuss their
     experiences and concerns, establish personal and professional
     connections that will form the basis of a national electronic network
     for continued communication and support, and create a pool of
     information that will in turn be a resource for other articulation
     efforts and a publication. In recent decades a number of secondary and
     postsecondary institutions have established articulation
     collaboratives, based on coherent curricula, professional development
     meetings and communication networks, and clearly formulated goals and
     standards.  But successful articulation is almost always local, so the
     conference High School to College will break ground in establishing a
     national discussion among locally focused projects.  Also in
     attendance will be representatives of the twenty member organizations
     of the Coalition of Foreign Language Associations, representing both
     high school and college teaching and a wide variety of languages.
     Conference sessions will focus on assessment, building working
     relationships between secondary and postsecondary professionals,
     revising the curriculum at all levels to support and reflect
     articulated sequences, formulating exemplary language-specific
     curricular modules (language specific break-out groups will meet to do
     this and then report pack to the full conference), testing and
     placement, and changing institutional structures to support
     articulation.

        Secondary or postsecondary faculty or administrators interested in
     organizing collaboratives or representing recently established
     collaboratives are invited to submit applications for the eight
     start-up project slots available. Effective articulation projects are
     usually concrete and practical, building contacts and connections
     between specific institutions or school systems.  Representatives of
     ongoing projects will serve as mentors during the project and are
     encouraged to assist particpants in start-up projects now in preparing
     their applications; applications prepared without the involvement of
     mentors from the ongoing projects will, however, receive unbiased
     consideration.  Care will also be taken to insure that diverse
     languages are represented among single language projects chosen to
     participate.  Mentoring relationships will support the new projects
     during their first year, through the application process, and
     continuing in reciprocal visits, electronic and traditional
     communication, and meetings during the February conference.  Mentors
     will also be encouraged to confer with one another at regular
     intervals to discuss the progress of the start-up projects with which
     they are involved as the year of mentoring progresses, and evaluations
     of the mentoring process will form the basis of a special section of
     the publication as a guide to future participants in mentoring
     relationships. Funding is currently being sought to underwrite a
     second conference in 1999, which will review progress and complete
     plans for the publication.  Applications for start-up articulation
     project teams must be received by 12 November 1997 in order to be
     considered.  Start-up teams are envisioned as comprised of a high
     school language teacher, a college or university language and
     literature teacher, and a college or university administrator, but
     applicants are encouraged to designate teams that will best suit their
     specific needs.

        Please write for application materials to Project
     Codirectors Elizabeth Welles (elizabeth.welles at mla.org) or David
     Goldberg (david.goldberg at mla.org), at the MLA Office of Foreign
     Language Programs, 10 Astor Place, New York, NY 10003, or for
     information or questions regarding the project call 212 614 6325.