Summer Language Opportunities

Wed Jan 15 17:08:32 UTC 2003

Dear discussion group members:

Drawing upon the interest of this discussion group in our target languages, we are taking the liberty to inform you about the special language learning opportunities for you and your students offered in the summer of 2003 by the Arizona State University Critical Languages Institute (CLI). The CLI (http://www.asu.edu/cli) offers annual summer language courses for less-commonly taught languages, follow-up three-week immersion practicums at our affiliated institutions in the target countries, and a semester or annual study abroad program at our partner universities.

This summer we will offer introductory Albanian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Macedonian, Armenian, and Tatar at the Arizona State University main campus (Tempe, AZ), from June 2 to August 1, 2003, with summer practicums in August and study abroad opportunities in the academic year 2003/4.

[In the summer of 2004, we plan to offer intermediate level Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian while at the same time adding Polish to the CLI language offerings.]

CLI eight-credit-hour intensive courses come with a generous tuition waiver which generates more than a thousand dollars in savings for each enrolling CLI student. CLI students pay only a modest $300 application fee. Both the length and content of our courses enable FLAS, Fulbright, and other fellowships support funds to be used by graduate students pursuing summer language training in the CLI. A limited number of fellowships are available for Armenian and Tatar. We have simplified the CLI application procedures. Just go to http://www.asu.edu/clas/reesc/cli/onreg.htm and register.

As a regular feature of its summer session, the CLI also features topical workshops and one-on-one tutorials for those preparing grant proposals for study and research abroad.  For dozens of CLI graduates, these tutorials have yielded remarkable success in NSEP, Fulbright, Marshall, and other fellowship competitions. Other CLI graduates have now joined the U.S. Foreign Service or have taken international positions with major corporations.

The following features make CLI summer programming competitive with the finest national centers offering intensive summer language institutes:

  1.. Sound methodological background
  2.. Utilization of the state-of-the art instructional technology
  3.. Highly qualified language personnel
  4.. Rich cultural content
  5.. Rigorous and comprehensive oversight and quality control
  6.. Strong ties with institutions in target countries

We have been using the Interagency Linguistic Roundtable scale with our introductory courses bringing CLI participants to level 1+ in reading with other skills remaining between 1 and 1+ and our intermediate courses reaching level 2 in reading with other skills remaining between 1+ and 2. 

Our Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian course features a strong on-line component (http://www.public.asu.edu/~dsipka/syl1.htm), and its entirely on-line version will be made available to our students as a refresher intended to alleviate the problem of retention in the period between the introductory and the intermediate course. A sample lesson one can be perused at: http://www.asu.edu/clas/reesc/scr101, using the password 'scr1'. The full course is available at http://cli.la.asu.edu/scr101 - student's social security number is required to log in. All CLI courses will follow suit shortly and we will keep adding new hybrid components for our courses through our server services page: http://cli.la.asu.edu. 

CLI faculty are drawn from highly qualified linguists with years of teaching experience and a strong record of publications in the field (see http://www.public.asu.edu/~dsipka as an example). Short information about our instructors and their syllabi are available at: http://www.asu.edu/clas/reesc/cli/ltrain.htm.

In addition to the cultural content (complementing traditional grammar, vocabulary, communicative skills, and linguistic norms) of CLI courses, CLI summer sessions include the annual lecture series, movie showings, and social events rich in cultural content. Take a look at some pictures of our classes and social events (visiting ethnic restaurants) at: http://www.public.asu.edu/~dsipka/sylpct.htm.

Finally, we have established partnerships with key institutions in target countries securing the most favorable summer practicum and study abroad arrangements for our students.

If you have any further questions about our courses, please do not hesitate to contact us at cli at asu.edu or by phone at 480-965-7706.

Sincerely,

Danko Sipka, Associate Director

Critical Languages Institute

http://www.public.asu.edu/~dsipka

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