The following article is an adapted and abridged excerpt from The Language Immersion Life: A Guide for Families by Millie Park Mellgren (2017). This book features answers to the most common questions Dr. Mellgren was asked as an elementary immersion principal. The volume features commentary and data gleaned from surveys given to hundreds of former…

The job description for a homeschool Spanish teacher has many of the requirements one would expect. The candidate must be fluent in Spanish, love working with children, be willing to work with all kinds of learners, communicate well with parents and students, and have great enthusiasm for teaching. The Home School Assistance Program (HSAP) classes…

Certain aspects of the implementation of language immersion programs in Delaware are unique given the state's size, demographics, and role in national education initiatives including Race to the Top, Common Core, and Smarter Balance. The Delaware experience typifies what every state, district, or even school goes through as they try to provide…

The Dearborn Public Schools, with 18,300 students, is located in the Detroit urban area with the largest concentration of Arabic-speaking people in the United States. In order to prepare the students for the 21st century skills and global awareness and in response to parents' requests, the author in collaboration with the school principal and…

This article describes three big programs from Delaware where the less commonly taught languages find their home in Delaware elementary schools. Odyssey Charter School, located in Wilmington, is one of the very few Greek-language-focused public schools in the nation. The school began in 2006 as a Greek immersion program that concentrated on the…

Planning to start or expand a K-8 critical language program? Looking for support in doing so? There "may" be help at the federal level for great ideas and strong programs. While there have been various pools of federal dollars available to support world language programs for a number of years, the federal government's interest in…

In order to help teachers negotiate the changing contexts of foreign language education, the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at Iowa State University began offering summer institutes in 1994. The authors were surprised at the intense interest in the institutes focused on technology. Since then the NFLRC has offered 36…

Because interest in Chinese instruction, as well as in languages such as Arabic, Korean, Yoruba, Urdu, and Hindi, is new in the K-12 context, teacher educators do not have many established settings where teacher candidates can observe and engage in best practice. At Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with the support of grant funds from…

This article features the Foreign Language Assistance Program, also known as FLAP, which holds the distinction as the only federally funded program that exclusively targets foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools. Funded under Title V of No Child Left Behind, FLAP provides 3-year grants to states and local school districts…

Asia Society remains committed to promoting the teaching and learning of Chinese in American schools as an integral part of the broader agenda of building students' global competency, the key goal of its Partnership for Global Learning. Under the leadership of Asia Society's new Vice President for Education Tony Jackson and with continuing…

Six years ago Project Starship MIR, the Russian language "shuttle," launched at Turnagain Elementary, one of the Anchorage School District's 65 elementary schools. The MIR "peace" mission originated with encouragement from the local business community to prepare students for Alaska's future economic, social and political ties…

From 1969 to the late 1980's, most French programs in schools were based on a traditional foreign language instructional model, usually offering 30 minutes a day of French language instruction in elementary grades, increasing to 50 minutes a day in middle school. Contingent on funding and political swings over time, programs expanded from…

In June 2001, Asia Society's National Commission on Asia in the Schools released its report which concluded that "young Americans are dangerously uninformed about international matters" (National Commission on Asia in the Schools, 2001 p. 6). Since then, Asia Society has been leading a major national initiative to stimulate teaching and…