Dear Reader,

The five State Innovations grants that Washington state has received from Asia Society and Longview Foundation have had a transformational impact on our state. We are happy to announce that we have received our sixth State Innovations grant this year. We'd like to briefly share with you how we plan (in fact, have begun) to use this year's grant.

Enjoy your summer and anticipate change! This will be a big year for us all!

As always, please contact the editor, Aysha Haq, at intledwa@gmail.com if you have any questions or suggestions.

In 2007, we saw enormous growth in impact and reach of our "Expanding Chinese Language Capacity" initiative. This year the Coalition will work with the Chinese Language Teachers to develop a cadre of excellent teachers of Chinese from the local communities, as well as abroad.

To accomplish this goal the Chinese Language Teachers Network will:
--Hold two workshops on "Creating Chinese Language Programs," one outside of the Seattle area.
--Bring expert speakers in the field of Chinese language pedagogy to present workshops to visiting and current teachers of Chinese.
--Expand on the mentoring program begun in 2007 for visiting teachers from China.
--Develop a support network for existing teachers of Chinese, focusing on curricular support for Chinese language classes.
--Promote educational and cultural exchanges among students, teachers, and other professionals between our region and other Chinese-speaking regions.
--Support the development of certification programs for new Chinese language teachers.
--Participate in the planning and launch of the new Washington State Confucius Institute.
--Create a web presence for the Chinese Language Teachers Network to better disseminate information about the group and its activities. (The website is currently hosted at: http://www2.ups.edu/faculty/perry/CLTN/)

The concept of integrating international perspectives into other learning has made great progress in the last few years in our state. One member of our Coalition, Bridges to Understanding has developed a unique approach using digital storytelling (an art form and a technology) as the basis for developing relationships between students in classrooms across the world while addressing local and global issues (such as global warming and how it impacts different communities in the world).

We plan to:
--Partner with Bridges to Understanding, Seattle Public Schools, and a smaller district (such as Highline School District) to provide guidance to schools that want to internationalize their curriculum through technology. Bridges will work to train four middle school teachers to use digital storytelling in their classrooms to engage students in making global connections.
--Hold a public workshop where Bridges teachers can share their experiences with using technology and digital storytelling to connect their students to the world.
--Develop a workshop using the Asia Society's new guide to Internationalizing Curriculum (scheduled for publication by Summer 2008) and present it in Seattle and other venues, including State Superintendent of Public Instruction conferences, highlighting the role of technology.

The Mapping & Enhancing Language Learning (MELL) project, sponsored by the University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies Title VI Centers, is in a good position to provide leadership as Washington state begins to seriously develop essential language learning pathways. With MELL this year we will provide critical policy information about the state of world language learning and teaching in Washington state to educational agencies, committees, and policy makers by:

--Developing a series of policy briefs from the MELL data collected from high schools. Sample topics include:

   (1) High Schools that don't offer World Languages
(Contact the schools that reported NOT offering world languages and find out how their students are able to satisfy the 2-credit college admissions requirement. Do they take online courses or classes at the community college? What is keeping the schools from offering language classes (no available teachers)?)

   (2) Demographics of schools compared by number of languages   offered
(Do we have an equitable distribution of language programs in our state? Or do schools with a higher percentage of Caucasian students tend to offer more languages and/or for more years? Is there a difference between rural, urban, and suburban schools?)

   (3) Trends in languages offered
(We can see that German is decreasing. Contact the schools that say they currently offer German and ask them what they expect to happen in the future. Will they continue offering it? Are the classes full? If the current teacher retires, will they hire a new one? What makes their program popular/successful (or not)? For newer languages, like Chinese, how many classes are they offering? Is there student demand? Do they see the demand increasing?)

   (4) Years of language study offered
(For high schools that offer only one or two years of a language, what is keeping them from offering more? Is it lack of student enrollment? Teacher availability? What would happen if demand increased?)

   (5) Trends in World Language endorsements
(Between 2006 and 2007 there was a 68% drop in the number of world language endorsements issued by teachers' colleges and university programs in Washington state. Why was this? How can these programs be ramped up to meet a growing demand for language teachers?)
 
--Disseminating the briefs on the UW MELL website and distributing them to policy makers, legislators, and the education community.
 
--Organizing a World Languages Summit at the University of Washington to review the findings from the MELL project, including inviting a leading expert in World Languages to provide a national perspective.

For full details, visit the Calendar and Announcements pages on our website.