Teachers of Critical Languages Program

Program News

• Chinese teacher spending year in Hopkinton 08/20/10
  Pan Jiling is taking a break from teaching English in a Chinese high school with 3,000 students to help jump-start a new Chinese language program in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, thanks to the district winning one of just 15 Teachers of Critical Lanagues Program (TCLP) grants awarded nationally. "We're very fortunate that she is assigned to our school," Assistant Superintendent Mary Colombo said.
• Grant offers Berkeley High School students opportunity to learn Mandarin Chinese 08/17/10
  When Berkeley High School students in Moncks Corner, South Carolina arrive for the first day of classes today, dozens of them will have the opportunity to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese. The school was awarded a grant from the American Councils for International Education's Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP) to bring in a teacher from China for a year, said Berkeley High Principal Kim McLaren. Ru Yi, Berkeley's Chinese teacher, is excited not only about teaching students to speak her language, but also about helping them learn about her culture.
• Languages key to understanding 08/13/10
  "If a student knows three languages, they are trilingual. If a students knows two languages they are bilingual. If a student only knows one language, they are an American." Richard Dunshee, a Spanish teacher at Notre Dame High School, said this was a statement he heard while in China. But Notre Dame High School is changing all that by becoming the only school in Iowa to teach Arabic, thanks to teachers like Ezzat Gad Elmola, a participant in the Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP).
• Egyptian teacher looks to help reverse misconceptions about Muslim culture 08/13/10
  As a young man, Wael Salah Elkhateeb pummeled opponents with his fists as a boxer for the Egyptian national team. Today, as a 37-year-old participant in the Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP), he has a new opponent: people harboring ugly stereotypes born of ignorance. And that’s just his fellow Egyptians. “Some say that Americans are not helpful, that they don’t look at you and they don’t help you,” said Elkhateeb, who arrived in Missoula last weekend and is busy setting up shop at Hellgate High School, where he will teach in the fall. “But this doesn’t happen at all. When I’m walking on the street or in the supermarket or on a train, people are very friendly. They give me a hand. They are helpful.”
• TCLP Teachers Participate in the End of Program Leadership Workshop 06/04/10
  The exchange teachers of the 2009-2010 Teachers of Critical Languages Program convened in Washington DC for a two day Leadership Workshop from May 12-14, 2010. Throughout the workshop, Chinese and Egyptian teachers interacted in sessions where they acquired new leadership methods for sharing their experiences in the US with colleagues and students in China and Egypt. They completed their sessions on May 14 with the expertise to design and conduct a peer training workshop with colleagues in China and Egypt, a new bank of lesson plans and materials for teaching their students about American culture, and knowledge about the resources available to them as Department of State Alumni. Thoughtful reflections about their past year in the U.S. redirected their focus as they prepared to assume new responsibilities as leaders of their educational communities in China and Egypt.
• Chinese teacher nearly done with his year at Willmar Senior High 06/04/10
  Bai Jinguo was featured in the West Central Times in Willmar, MN, which has followed his arrival from China and now reflects on his year in Willmar High School and his approaching departure. In the article, Bai says: “I never expected this year to be so rewarding,” he said. “This was an amazing year for me.” His students reciprocate the feeling of a successful year, and a Willmar student senior called Bai “by far the coolest Chinese dude ever.”
• Cross cultural exchange: Chinese teacher adapts and thrives in Swain County 01/28/10
  "After making the journey to Western North Carolina from China, Niu Jun discovered Bryson City was nothing like she imagined. Driving through the town of about 1,300, a confused Niu Jun asked, “Bryson City? Where’s the city?”
• Foreign Languages Fade in Class — Except Chinese 01/28/10
  "WASHINGTON — Thousands of public schools stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade, according to a government-financed survey — dismal news for a nation that needs more linguists to conduct its global business and diplomacy...The State Department has paid for a smaller program — the Teachers of Critical Languages Program — to bring Chinese teachers to schools here, with each staying for a year."
• Chinese teachers, program receive positive eval 01/28/10
  The warm welcome Willmar extended to a visiting Chinese teacher Bai Jinguo has been noticed by the Teachers of Critical Languages Program.
• High schools receive academic awards from KSL Schools 10/26/09
  Provo High School was presented with an award for the way teachers prepare students for the global marketplace with language classes that include Arabic, Russian and Chinese. TCLP teacher Mohamed El Naggar and his mentor teacher Audry Bastian give greetings in Arabic and Chinese in a video clip taken during the award presentation on October 23, 2009.