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National Middle East Language Resource Center
In August of 2002 the U.S. Department of Education announced the creation of the National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC), the first Title VI Language Resource Center to focus solely on the languages of the Middle East. NMELRC is now in its second round of funding. Its mission is to both increase and improve opportunities for learning the languages of the Middle East. It does so through its own projects and by working with others to coordinate efforts.
NMELRC, with headquarters at Brigham Young University (BYU), represents a consortium of language experts from more than twenty universities. NMELRC works across the four major Middle East language groups (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish) to foster cooperation and joint utilization of expertise and resources. Kirk Belnap serves as the center's director. Maggie Nassif is the administrative director. Three associate directors oversee NMELRC 2006-2010 focus areas: Mahmoud Al-Batal (University of Texas at Austin) directs teacher development efforts; Shmuel Bolozky (University of Massachusetts - Amherst) directs infrastructure building activities, and Erika Gilson (Princeton University) directs language assessment projects.
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Understanding MLA's Enrollment Figures
The Modern Language Association announced the results of its survey of foreign language enrollments in higher education on November 13th (see http://www.mla.org/2006_flenrollmentsurvey). The results need some commentary if one is to better understand their implications, especially for Arabic but also for other languages of the Middle East. We (NMELRC) have done a good deal of research that is helpful in interpreting the MLA data and in seeing the bigger picture.
I include some details in the PowerPoint presentation provided here and which will have to suffice for now until we can publish our full report, Middle East Language Learning in Higher Education, which we plan to release by February. The file available here is a slightly updated version of a presentation I gave shortly after we received MLA’s enrollment data for our languages.
To download the file, click here.
For additional comments from NMELRC leadership and partners, please see: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/29/arabic.
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| Announcements |
Opportunities for high school students to study Arabic and Turkish
The US Department of State through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI for Youth) provides merit-based scholarships for eligible high school students to learn less commonly taught languages in summer, semester, and academic-year overseas immersion programs.
For more information on program visit http://nsliforyouth.org/ |
Assessment
NMELRC is producing reading and listening comprehension proficiency tests that will provide students and programs with useful feedback that will have a positive wash-back effect, motivating and reinforcing in students communicative language learning strategies which will lead to useful levels of language proficiency. Programs will finally be able to measure progress from year to year and compare results with other programs. To accomplish this goal, we are working with assessment experts to develop valid tests and commissioning ACTFL external reviewers to evaluate the outcome.
NMELRC is making a real difference. We have trained young talent to produce these tests and many more in the future, thereby building capacity in the Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish fields. The test development teams have finished phase one, the online reading comprehension tests for the Intermediate and Advanced levels for each of these languages which are currently being piloted on campuses across the United States. Inasmuch as the less-commonly taught languages (LCTLs) in general share many of the same challenges, this assessment project is resulting in a model for LCTL test development that will yield valid proficiency tests for languages with limited resources and typically smaller numbers of students. |
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