**INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH**

**AND STUDIES PROGRAM**

**(84.017A)**

![](media/image1.wmf){width="1.2805555555555554in" height="1.1875in"}

###### Fiscal Year 2007 New Grants

**Summary and Abstracts**

####### International Education Programs Service

####### US Department of Education

####### 6th Floor, 1990 K Street, NW

# Washington, DC 20006-8521 

+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| **Application No.,   | **Project     | ** | *  | ###  |      |      |
| Applicant**          | Title**       | Ty | *  |  Rec |      |      |
|                      |               | pe | ** | omme |      |      |
|                      |               | ** |    | nded |      |      |
|                      |               |    |    |  Fun |      |      |
|                      |               |    |    | ding |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| **and Project        | ** **         | *  | *  | **FY | **FY | **FY |
| Director**           |               | *I | *Y | 07** | 08** | 09** |
|                      |               | M/ | ea |      |      |      |
|                      |               | RE | rs |      |      |      |
|                      |               | ** | ** |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070007\         | Speak YOUR    | ** | 3  | *    | \    | \    |
| **Highline School    | Languages -   | IM |    | *\$1 | $135 | $131 |
| District 401\        | Translation   | ** |    | 36,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| **15675 Ambaum Blvd, | and           |    |    | 00** |      |      |
| SW\                  | I             |    |    |      |      |      |
| Seattle, WA 98166\   | nterpretation |    |    |      |      |      |
| David Cotlove        | Program       |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070019\         | Advanced      | ** | 2  | *    | \$76 |      |
| **University of      | Arabic        | IM |    | *\$1 | ,000 |      |
| Michigan\            | Communication | ** |    | 56,0 |      |      |
| **Near Eastern       | Media         |    |    | 00** |      |      |
| Studies\             | Curriculum    |    |    |      |      |      |
| 3003 S. State        |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Street\              |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Ann Arbor, MI 48128\ |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Raji Rammuny         |               |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070021\         | Introductory  | ** | 3  | **\$ | \$46 | \$43 |
| **Cornell            | Sinhala       | IM |    | 39,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| University**\        | Curriculum    | ** |    | 00** |      |      |
| South Asia Program\  | Project       |    |    |      |      |      |
| 120 Day Hall\        |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Ithaca, NY 14853\    |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Anne Blackburn       |               |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070039\         | Foreign       | ** | 3  | *    | \    | \    |
| **American Council   | Language      | RE |    | *\$1 | $135 | $137 |
| on the Teaching of   | Enrollments   | ** |    | 40,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| Foreign Languages**\ | in K-12       |    |    | 00** |      |      |
| 700 S. Washington    | Public        |    |    |      |      |      |
| St., Suite 210\      | Schools       |    |    |      |      |      |
| Alexandria, VA       |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| 22314\               |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Martha Abbott        |               |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070042\         | Digital       | ** | 3  | *    | \    | \    |
| **University of      | Chicago       | IM |    | *\$1 | $190 | $189 |
| Chicago**\           | Maya-Modern   | ** |    | 85,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| Center for Latin     | spoken        |    |    | 00** |      |      |
| American Studies\    | Yucatec and   |    |    |      |      |      |
| 5801 South Ellis     | K\'iche\',    |    |    |      |      |      |
| Avenue\              | revised and   |    |    |      |      |      |
| Chicago, IL 6063\    | online        |    |    |      |      |      |
| John Lucy            |               |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070062\         | China and     | ** | 3  | *    | \    | \    |
| **Asia Society \--   | G             | IM |    | *\$1 | $142 | $141 |
| Education\           | lobalization: | ** |    | 36,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| **725 Park Avenue\   | China and the |    |    | 00** |      |      |
| New York, NY 10021\  | World in      |    |    |      |      |      |
| Elizabeth Cole       | History and   |    |    |      |      |      |
|                      | Today         |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+
| P017A070075\         | Teaching      | ** | 3  | *    | \    | \    |
| **Georgia Tech       | Chinese for   | IM |    | *\$1 | $104 | $114 |
| Research             | the 21st      | ** |    | 11,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| Corporation\         | Century       |    |    | 00** |      |      |
| **School of Modern   |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Languages\           |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| 505 10th Street\     |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Atlanta, GA 30332\   |               |    |    |      |      |      |
| Xiaoliang Li         |               |    |    |      |      |      |
+----------------------+---------------+----+----+------+------+------+

#  

# 

  ----------------------- ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------------- ----------------- -----------------
  **Application No.,      **Project        **Type**    ** **       **Recommended                       
  Applicant**             Title**                                  Funding**                           

  **and Project           ** **            **IM/RE**   **Years**   **FY 07**         **FY 08**         **FY09**
  Director**                                                                                           

  P017A070076\            Tone Languages   **IM**      2           **\$97,000**      \$94,000           
  **University of         of China                                                                     
  Wisconsin, Madison\                                                                                  
  **Center for Southeast                                                                               
  Asian Studies\                                                                                       
  21 N. Park Street,                                                                                   
  Suite 6401\                                                                                          
  Madison, WI 53715\                                                                                   
  Marlys Macken                                                                                        

  P017A070078\            E Par Bangla O   **IM**      3           **\$76,000**      \$137,000         \$76,000
  **University of         Pr Bangla;                                                                   
  Washington\             Bangla Across                                                                
  **Language Learning     Borders, An                                                                  
  Center\                 Elementary                                                                   
  1100 NE 45th St., Suite Bangla Language                                                              
  300\                    Course                                                                       
  Seattle, WA 98105\                                                                                   
  Paul Aoki                                                                                            

  P017A070084\            Enhancing        **IM**      3           **\$105,000**     \$143,000         \$138,000
  **The University of     Proficiency and                                                              
  Montana\                Accuracy:                                                                    
  **Office of             Instructional                                                                
  International Programs\ Materials in the                                                             
  #32 Campus Drive, 4104\ Phonology of                                                                 
  Missoula, MT 59812\     Arabic                                                                       
  Mehrdad Kia                                                                                          

  P017A070085\            Bengali Online   **IM**      3           **\$51,000**      \$52,000          \$23,000
  **University of         Learning Modules                                                             
  Pennsylvania\           for Intermediate                                                             
  **South Asia Center\    and Advanced                                                                 
  3451 Walnut Street,     Learners                                                                     
  P-221\                                                                                               
  Philadelphia, PA 19104\                                                                              
  Haimanti Banerjee                                                                                    

  P017A070100\            Online           **IM**      3           **\$186,840**     \$191,000         \$191,000
  **American Councils for proficiency                                                                  
  International           testing in                                                                   
  Education\              reading and                                                                  
  **1776 Massachusetts    listening at the                                                             
  Avenue, NW, Suite 700\  2,2+,3, and 3+                                                               
  Washington, DC 20036\   range in Arabic,                                                             
  Dan Davidson            Central Asian                                                                
                          Turkic, Persian,                                                             
                          and Russian                                                                  

  P017A070102\            Web-based        **IM**      3           **\$108,000**     \$157,000         \$153,000
  **Trustees of Indiana   Multimedia Uzbek                                                             
  University\             Dialect                                                                      
  **CeLCAR\               Dictionary                                                                   
  P.O. Box 1847\                                                                                       
  Bloomington, IN 47402\                                                                               
  John Erickson                                                                                        

                                                                   **\$1,526,840**   **\$1,602,000**   **\$1,336,000**
  ----------------------- ---------------- ----------- ----------- ----------------- ----------------- -----------------

#  P017A070007

## Highline School District 401

15675 Ambaum Blvd, SW

Seattle, WA 98166

David Cotlove

**Speak YOUR Languages - Translation and Interpretation Program**

The Highline School District, an 18,000-student public school district
just south of Seattle, WA, has developed the "Speak YOUR Languages"
program which includes a Translation & Interpretation program for
high-school students and an associated Student Interpreter program where
students, after thorough training, apply their skills in the service of
the schools and community.

As a nation, we face the challenge of creating a pipeline of young
people with sufficient language skills to serve the needs of government
and industry. Heritage language speakers, those who have learned another
language before coming to the United States or learned it at home from
immigrant parents, represent a national linguistic resource. But
typically, such students feel tremendous social pressure to fit in to an
English-speaking environment and, as a result, their heritage language
skills are never fully developed and weaken from lack of use.

In our program, we offer students a vision of future careers where
language skills are important. We train students to use their language
skills as interpreters. And we provide opportunities for students to use
their language skills as interpreters for the benefit of their
community. Our students learn many ways to continually improve their
English and heritage language skills and, in a self-reinforcing process,
as their skills improve, they see themselves becoming increasingly
competent and useful, and they work to improve their language skills
even more.

By design, speakers of multiple languages participate in the program.
This makes the program available to students in critical and
seldom-taught languages. In just our school district, speakers of 17
languages have participated in the program: Amharic, Arabic, Bosnian,
Cambodian (Khmer), Cantonese, Farsi, Hindi, Japanese, Pashto,
Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Samoan, Somali, Spanish, Urdu and
Vietnamese.

With funds provided by this grant, we will produce materials (online and
via CD/DVD's) for teacher self-study training, curriculum, and student
self-study / review so that the Translation & Interpretation program and
the Student Interpreter program can be offered in other schools and
school districts throughout the United States.

Our program encourages students to direct their energies towards a
career utilizing their language ability and motivates them to continue
their language studies beyond high school. Expanded to schools across
the nation, this program has enormous potential significance for the
creation of a true language pipeline, to the security and economic
benefit of our nation.

P017A070019\
**University of Michigan\
**Near Eastern Studies\
3003 S. State Street\
Ann Arbor, MI 48128\
Raji Rammuny

**Advanced Arabic Communication Media Curriculum**

It has become quite evident, after September 11, 2001 that there is an
increasing demand now and in the foreseeable future for Americans with
advanced levels of functional linguistic and cultural proficiency in
Arabic. Pressures to expand the Arabic programs in major universities in
order to include advanced Arabic courses in communication media are
nowadays intense, coming from Arabic language and non-language graduate
programs, the federal government, and the international business sector

This proposal will respond to this challenge by developing a curriculum
for Advanced Arabic Communication Media (AACM) in order to expand and
enrich the already existing advanced Arabic language courses available
at UM, as well as in other major Arabic programs. The existence of such
a curriculum will encourage graduate students from a variety of
disciplines interested in Middle Eastern studies to enroll in the
advanced Arabic communication media courses that will be generated from
this project. Thus, we will build stronger connections among faculty and
students throughout the university, as well as between UM, the
government and the business sector.

The proposed curriculum will include authentic materials consisting of
video, audio and texts aiming to advance students' linguistic and
cultural proficiency to ACTFL 2+/3 levels. We have already started
collecting some of the materials from current publications available at
UM libraries and from Al-Jazeera and other Arab TV networks. The
selected materials will be integrated with modern learning technologies
(computer, web, etc.) in order to make them flexible for use in the
classroom, the computer lab, and for self-study. The AACM curriculum,
upon completion, will be available for distribution in print and
electronic versions.

The project director Raji Rammuny and investigator Waheed Samy have the
requisite experience for selecting and developing instructional
materials and in cooperation with UM Language Resource media experts to
determine the technologies suitable for the AACM project. They are
currently involved in developing a "pilot" module based on an Al-Jazeera
panel discussion dealing with the current political situation in the
Arab world.

The UM is particularly suited to house this project because of its
highly developed Arabic program which provides training in language,
literature, linguistics and culture at the BA, MA and PhD levels. We
have a significant percentage of graduate students taking advanced
Arabic language courses coming from a variety of disciplines besides
Arabic language and literature, such as Anthropology, Business, History,
International Law, Political Science, and Public Policy. In addition,
the UM has a wealth of textual and technological resources, an extensive
communications infrastructure, and several centers for evaluation of
media-based programs. The key personnel who will be involved in the
development of this project have the qualifications, expertise,
experience and thorough knowledge necessary to insure a successful
completion of the proposed Advanced Arabic Communication Media
curriculum.

We plan to complete this project in two years and seek \$245,724 from
the U.S. Department of Education and contribute \$54,054 cost sharing.

P017A070021\
**Cornell University**\
South Asia Program\
120 Day Hall\
Ithaca, NY 14853\
Anne Blackburn

**Introductory Sinhala Curriculum Project**

The South Asia Program at Cornell University requests \$134,222 to
develop language acquisition curriculum for introductory colloquial
Sinhala. The three-year project will produce pedagogically current and
culturally appropriate multi-media instructional materials for the study
of colloquial Sinhala (an Indic language, one of the two official
languages of Sri Lanka, spoken by the majority of the population) in
colleges and universities, and by American personnel involved in U.S.
governmental and non-governmental activities. The grant period runs from
August 2007 to August 2010. During this time the curriculum will be
developed, tested, refined, and published.

The proposed introductory curriculum is intended to provide a full set
of language learning materials, in print and audio-visual formats, for
use by teachers and students. There are four components to the
curriculum: a Student Textbook, a Teacher's Guide, a Student DVD/CD
package, and a Teacher's DVD/CD package. The curriculum will be suitable
for use in university classrooms, in other language teaching
environments, and be students working independently. It will cover two
semesters of introductory Sinhala, and may also be used in an intensive
6-8 week session. The proposed curriculum is intended to protect
U.S.-based instruction in the Less Commonly Taught Language of Sinhala.
The curriculum will be developed by two authors, both accomplished in
Sinhala and language instruction, in collaboration with the Principal
Investigator, a specialist in Sri Lankan religion, literature and
culture. One author is Cornell University's Sinhala Lecturer, the most
experiences Sinhala language instructor in the UnitedStates The second
author is a linguist from East Tennessee State University, one of the
few American language acquisition specialists train in Sinhala, and
familiar with Sri Lanka.

P017A070039\
**American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages**\
700 S. Washington St., Suite 210\
Alexandria, VA 22314\
Martha Abbott

**Foreign Language Enrollments in K-12 Public Schools**

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
proposes to conduct a comprehensive national survey of foreign language
enrollments in U.S. schools. This proposal is the continuation of
previous periodic surveys conducted by ACTFL that will provide a
comprehensive picture of foreign language enrollments in U.S. schools
for the K-12 level. Survey procedures used in prior studies will be
re-evaluated given the new technologies available but will retain
similar data so that comparisons may be made with previous enrollment
surveys. Additional data collection procedures will be used in order to
produce reliable and valid results.

The public school enrollment data collected by ACTFL in recent years
provide the only complete source of national enrollment figures on
foreign language education at the K-12 level. Without these data, there
would be no way to track the progress and trends of foreign language
study in the United States. Indeed, even the U.S. Department of
Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement relies on
these data for inclusion in its annual reports on educational
statistics. With the current initiatives regarding critical needs
languages, there are no baseline data from which to judge the success of
these initiatives. The Modern Language Association (MLA) has been funded
to conduct the next in their series of surveys of foreign language
enrollments at the higher education level. This K-12 survey is a
critical corollary to that information so that we can track growth and
trends across levels.

In addition to the standard written report and analysis produced by past
surveys, the current project will utilize technology to enhance both the
data collection process and the dissemination of results. The ongoing
availability of current national enrollment statistics that will result
from this project will allow for strategic planning and decision-making
in this area of growing importance to the nation's educational system
and national interest.

P017A070042\
**University of Chicago**\
Center for Latin American Studies\
5801 South Ellis Avenue\
Chicago, IL 6063\
John Lucy

**Digital Chicago Maya-Modern Spoken Yucatec and K\'iche\', Revised and
Online**

The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago
proposes to revise and enhance its widely used courses in Yucatec Maya
and K'iche' Maya. First developed at the University of Chicago in the
1960s with support from the then Office of Education, these courses have
since been widely distributed and form the basis of nearly all Yucatec
Maya and K'iche' Maya teaching programs in the U nited States As such
they are national resources that need to be preserved and developed if
they are to continue to serve this vital function. However, the courses
are showing their age: the orthographies used in the courses are
nonstandard and not well-suited for modern educational needs, the basic
course content, essentially unchanged over the past forty years, has
become increasingly outdated, and there is a need for providing modern
pedagogical guidance and resources. This current project, therefore, has
three main objectives:

• Modernize and extend the course presentation: this will include
updating the Maya materials to contemporary standard orthographies,
providing a Spanish translation, and formatting the entire course for
World Wide Web and other forms of electronic delivery;

• Revise and enhance the course content: this will include additional
recording of basic dialogues to provide dialect and gender variants,
updating the grammatical descriptions, adding cultural notes on usage,
and consolidating vocabulary lists into a searchable database;

• Improve and support course pedagogy: this will include providing a
supplemental learner's orthography to guide pronunciation, developing a
teacher's manual and materials to support targeted aural/oral activities
for each lesson, and creating a supporting set of authentic materials,
audio-video recordings, and other digital resources (e.g., digital
dictionaries).

The considerable experience and expertise of the key personnel along
with a well- developed plan for implementation and evaluation ensure
that the project's objectives will be met. Key staff are at the
forefront of linguistic and applied research on modern spoken Yucatec
Maya and K'iche' Maya. The project takes advantage of ample
institutional infrastructure and resources to ensure that digitization
of course materials and subsequent presentation in World Wide Web format
will conform to international standards. The project will be implemented
in stages, subject to ongoing and final evaluation including significant
classroom pre-testing in our own and other programs, and presentation at
conferences for critique and dissemination.

The *Digital Chicago Maya: Modern Spoken Yucatec and K'iche'* project is
one element in a larger effort to maximize access to cultural and
linguistic resources for Mesoamerican indigenous languages. In its final
format, this project will be leveraged by other projects that will
extend this project's impact and go a long way toward remedying the
current lack of high quality, accessible materials for learning these
languages.

P017A070062\
**Asia Society\
**725 Park Avenue\
New York, NY 10021\
Elizabeth Cole

### China and Globalization: China and the World in History and Today

The Asia Society's Education Division is requesting \$441,473 from the
United States Department of Education over three years to develop
Chinese language materials for K-12 learners entitled *China and
Globalization: China and the World in History and Today*.

This project will create standards- and content-based, thematically
organized language learning materials and resources that will be
available online. The materials will be articulated both for grade
clusters and language proficiency, so that they will be appropriate as
much for the young student beginning Chinese as for the high school
student who either may be beginning Chinese or continuing study begun in
earlier grades.

The goal of the project is to increase students' understanding of China
and globalization, defined as the interconnectedness of the world in
both the ancient and modern times, as a part of language learning. The
project will achieve this through infusing relevant content learning
into language development. Hence, the expected outcomes are meaningful
and rich units of study and assessment, based on the curricular
framework of *Understanding by Design* (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), that
will engage students in both social sciences and historical content as
an integral part of studying the Chinese language. Currently available
Chinese-language learning materials, by contrast, rarely provide
historical, socio-economic and arts content for students; rather, they
generally focus on the elements of language learning (vocabulary,
characters, grammatical patterns, and, to some extent, cultural
familiarity). It is this gap that the proposed project aims to fill.

Under the overarching theme of *China and Globalization*, Asia Society
will create three interdisciplinary language learning modules (nine
units per year) that will be available for teachers and students
nationwide on its educational website,
[AskAsia.org](http://www.AskAsia.org/). The modules, addressing
sub-themes of Environment, Trade and the Exchange of Ideas, will be
organized based on lessons that include Chinese language learning
materials, cultural resource materials, and teachers' guides. Web-based
technology will allow inclusion of audio-visual materials to aid
students in developing skills in various communicative modes, as well as
to make the units lively and engaging.

The globalization content will be created for the project, with some
cultural materials already created by Asia Society's Museum and
Performing Arts Programs to be adapted for use in the project,
particularly on the early process of globalization in history through
China's role in the Silk Road. It will also draw from Asia Society's
materials on environmental challenges created by its Center on
U.S.-China Relations. The holdings of its prize-winning educational Web
site, [AskAsia.org](http://www.AskAsia.org/), will also provide valuable
resources to adapt for language learners. Based on the theories of
second language acquisition, this rich array of content will be tailored
to age- and proficiency-level appropriate and engaging learning
materials for K-12 Chinese language learners.

Founded in 1956, Asia Society is the leading global pan Asian
organization working to strengthen relationships and promote
understanding among the people, leaders and institutions of the United
States and Asia.  We seek to increase knowledge and enhance dialogue,
encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across the fields
of policy, business, education, arts and culture. Asia Society's
Education Division, with its staff expertise and track record in leading
important initiatives in Chinese language and international education,
is uniquely placed to undertake and successfully complete this project.

P017A070075\
**Georgia Tech Research Corporation\
**School of Modern Languages\
505 10th Street\
Atlanta, GA 30332\
Xiaoliang Li

### Teaching Chinese for the 21st Century

China's meteoric rise has spotlighted a glaring gap between America's
growing need for language and culture specialists and the paucity of
trained personnel. The risk to national economic and security interests,
though incalculable, is nonetheless real. Equally alarming is the gap
between the burgeoning numbers of young Americans eager to equip
themselves linguistically and culturally to deal with the Chinese on
their own terms and the antiquated teaching methods used to train them.
Every year a new cadre of bright, highly motivated students enters our
Chinese programs, and every year massive numbers drop out before
attaining proficiency.

Georgia Tech proposes to meet this challenge with an innovative
three-year, six-course learning program, informed by state of the art
approaches to language teaching and enhanced by creative use of
multimedia materials. Delivered online and in DVD format, this program
promises to minimize the intimidating specter of Chinese exoticism,
maximize learning flexibility and effectiveness, and reach the broadest
possible audience.

Georgia Tech brings to its mission a strong team in Chinese pedagogy,
more than a decade of experience teaching non-Chinese majors, expertise
in multimedia design and development, instructional technology know-how;
21^st^ century technological recourses, and unflagging administrative
support. Situated in a cosmopolitan metropolitan area, Tech is
positioned to play a key role in equipping the new South to take its
place on the global stage. At the same time, its resources will be
available nationwide and worldwide to Americans anxious to engage
themselves with the new China.

P017A070076\
**University of Wisconsin, Madison\
**Center for Southest Asian Studies\
21 N. Park Street, Suite 6401\
Madison, WI 53715\
Marlys Macken

**Tone Languages of China.**

More than half the world's languages are tone languages. Asian tone
languages are structurally similar to one another and quite different
from African tone languages. The most widely spoken language in the
world is Mandarin, an East Asian tone language and the national language
of China. Of the more than 250 languages spoken in China, the main
languages are Mandarin (northern Chinese), Cantonese (a Yue language
spoken in southern China), and the southern Chinese Min (e.g. Xiamen)
and Wu (e.g. Shanghainese) languages. A major minority language of China
is Hmong, a classically East Asian tone language unrelated to but
remarkably similar to Mandarin and especially to the southern Min, Wu,
and Yue Chinese languages. Native speakers of English have considerable
difficulty learning tone languages. Chinese (all the Chinese languages)
is a class 4 language, meaning that educated English speakers require
about 1,300 hours to attain the native-like proficiency of an educated
native speaker of Chinese. In contrast, Spanish and French are class 1
languages, which means that educated English speakers require on average
480 hours to attain a comparable proficiency (Foreign Service Institute
index).

**Project.** This project develops materials and adaptable templates for
the teaching of Mandarin and Hmong, and any tone language of China at
the high school and college level: (i) Dictionary-dialogue template
system---an interactive Web-based dictionary linked bidirectionally to
dialogues and audio recordings, user template, Mandarin
dictionary-dialogues, and Hmong dictionary-dialogues; and (ii)
Audio-visual template system--- that delivers audio and video files with
commentary and cued text loaded from external files for thematic units,
user template, five software subcomponents, eight Mandarin thematic
units, and eight Hmong thematic units. These materials incorporate media
and technology to enhance language instruction, are technologically and
pedagogically innovative and unique and expected to be effective, and
have the additional merit of flexible use: they can be used
interactively by students at high school and college levels, heritage
and non-heritage student; can be adapted and expanded easily by teachers
to incorporate local authentic materials and thematic units---an
important non-textbook teaching tool; and can be easily and
straightforwardly adopted for any Chinese tone language (and with minor
extension to southeast Asian tone languages like Vietnamese, Thai, and
Lao). Mandarin Chinese is a critical language as e.g. identified by the
Department of Defense.

The work on Hmong complements and deepens that on Mandarin, provides a
direct foundation for implementation of any southern Chinese Min or Wu
language, and will provide critically needed teaching materials for a
significant minority language of Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and
North Carolina, and several countries in southeast Asia (Laos, Thailand,
Vietnam, and Myanmar) as well as the southern provinces of Guizhou,
Hunnan, Guanxi, and Yunnan, in China. Mandarin and Hmong are the two
less commonly taught Asian languages targeted for K-16 priorities by the
State of Wisconsin. The language structure content of the materials
focuses on those east Asian tone language structures particularly
difficult for speakers of English as a first language: tone, tone
sandhi, compounding, classifier systems, and verbal aspect. The work on
each language will directly contribute to the analysis of the other.
Effectiveness of the materials and templates will be evaluated through
formative and summative expert evaluation, student and teacher
evaluations, and linkages to ACTFL assessments. The dictionary-dialogue
template system is web-based and can be implemented in a distance
education course. The web-based audio-video template system can be
installed on any PC or MAC. The P.I. has developed working prototypes of
each of the two primary template systems, conducted research on east and
southeast Asian tone languages, has longstanding established
partnerships with high school and UW language teachers, and will work
with State Department of Public Instruction and national resource sites
to coordinate product development.

P017A070078\
**University of Washington\
**Language Learning Center\
1100 NE 45th St., Suite 300\
Seattle, WA 98105\
Paul Aoki

### E Par Bangla O Pr Bangla; Bangla Across Borders, An Elementary Bangla Language Course

We propose to develop a twelve-lesson interactive one-year elementary
Bangla language course at the post-secondary level. Bangla (also
Bengali) is the official language of Bangladesh, the world's third most
populous Muslim nation, and the state language of West Bengal, India.
With over 200 million speakers, Bangla ranks sixth among world
languages. It is one of twelve less commonly taught languages (LCTL)
identified by the U.S. State Department's Strategic Languages Initiative
as being of strategic importance to the United States. The number of
programs offering Bangla to American students both here and in South
Asia has been on the increase. Despite this new interest in its study
and despite its size and strategic importance, Bangla has lagged behind
most other major Indic languages in the development of teaching
materials. The project addresses the urgent need for language learning
materials in Indic languages, one of the critical language areas listed
in DOE invitational priority 1. It will build on material already
developed, funded by the South Asia Language Resource Center (SALRC)
between 2005-07.

This pioneering course will be the first in Bangla to take a
communicative/task-oriented approach emphasizing performance and
proficiency in the target language as well as understanding of Bangla
culture. It will include authentic materials such as audios of actual
conversations and videos shot on location. The course will integrate all
four skills, reading, writing, speaking and listening and present a
balance between Hindu and Muslim cultural contexts and between the
speech of educated Bengalis in both West Bengal and Bangladesh. A story
telling of a friendship between two young Bangladeshi women, one Hindu
and the other Muslim runs throughout the book and provides the unifying
thread. The story is set in Bangladesh and West Bengal.

The course will consist of four components: 1) a textbook with teacher's
notes 2) a workbook with grammar exercises 3) a multi-media compact disk
with videos and audios 4) an online component using Moodle, an open
source courseware tool as the delivery environment. In addition, all
materials will be available on a CD. Materials will be in standard
colloquial Bangla spoken by educated Bengalis in Bangladesh and West
Bengal and written in Bangla script using Mukti, a Unicode Bangla font.
This project will be conducted over three years and provide the
equivalent of a two-semester or three quarter university course in
elementary Bangla. It will target a mixed population of heritage
students and students with no previous background in Bangla language and
culture.

P017A070084\
**The University of Montana\
**Office of International Programs\
#32 Campus Drive, 4104\
Missoula, MT 59812\
Mehrdad Kia

### Enhancing Proficiency and Accuracy: Instructional Materials in the Phonology of Arabic

The College of Arts and Sciences and Office of International Programs at
The University of Montana request funds to support a project titled
"Enhancing Proficiency and Accuracy: Instructional Materials in the
Phonology of Arabic". Department of Education funds will support the
production of an integrated set of supplementary instructional materials
for teaching Modern Standard Arabic; the most widely understood Arabic
dialect, at the introductory, intermediate and advanced levels in
undergraduate language programs throughout the United States. Our
request is for \$406,090 over a period of three years.

The proposed materials will consist of three components: 1) the
manuscript for a textbook of 250 to 300 pages that provides a
comprehensive introduction into the sound systems of Arabic and English;
2) the manuscript for a teacher's manual of 50 to 75 pages to accompany
the textbook; and 3) a Web-based CD with detailed illustrations and
animated drawings demonstrating the positions and movements of speech
organs for how Arabic and English sounds are made. All three components
build on increasing research evidence that proficiency and accuracy in
learning a foreign language increases when students and adults are
taught greater phonological awareness and how the movement of speech
organs feels when the sounds of the target language are produced. The
student textbook and teacher's manual will be structured around twelve
topics devoted to the history, culture and dialects of the Arab World,
the production of Arabic and English consonants and vowels; contrasting
word-stress, intonation and rhythms; and rapid Arabic and English
speech, among others. The CD will provide illustrations, animated
drawings, and interactive exercises detailing the physical production of
Arabic and English sounds.

The materials development team will consist of experienced Arabic
teachers and curriculum specialists from The University of Montana, The
University of Texas at Austin, and West Point Military Academy. Student
and teacher responses from pilot tests at three field sites will provide
valuable feedback for making revisions and producing the final
manuscript. Our proposal responds to the Department of Education's 2007
Competitive Preference Priority One for material development projects
focusing on critical languages.

P017A070085\
**University of Pennsylvania\
**South Asia Center\
3451 Walnut Street, P-221\
Philadelphia, PA 19104\
Haimanti Banerjee

**Bengali Online Learning Modules for Intermediate and Advanced
Learners**

There is an urgent need to develop learners' communicative competence in
Bengali (or Bangla), which has been designated as a critical language by
the National Security Language Initiative. The South Asia Center at the
University of Pennsylvania proposes to create a set of 100 online
Bengali learning modules[^1] to move learners from the Intermediate-Low
level to the Advanced-Low level on ACTFL's[^2] proficiency scale. The
proposed materials will be developed over a period of three years.

The proposed modules will use authentic written and spoken materials to
help second-year and third-year learners develop their reading and
listening comprehension skills. The content will include topics relevant
to area studies and learners' interests, such as politics, the
environment, entertainment & media, history, religion, economics,
literature, society and culture, and women and gender issues. The
criteria for selection of texts and designing the accompanying exercises
for each module will be in keeping with the Standard 1.2[^3] that
focuses on the understanding and interpretation of written and spoken
language on a variety of topics.

The reading and listening activities for each module will focus on a
holistic comprehension of Bengali along with the syntactic and
sociolinguistic features. The proposed materials will fill the need for
pedagogically sound Bengali materials that will expose the learners to
written and spoken language as it is used in the target culture, and the
learners will be able to interact with the materials in linguistically
meaningful ways. This will be an important departure from the existing
Bengali materials that tend to use scripted texts with a focus on a few
pre-selected grammar points and contain mainly 'survival' language.

These modules will be readily accessible over the Internet, at no cost,
to all types of learners- -classroom learners, independent learners,
heritage learners and non-heritage learners. Easy accessibility of these
listening and reading modules will free classroom time to enable
instructors to do more face-to-face interactive communication.

The module developers are experienced Bengali teachers and they are
comfortable using the required technology. The South Asia Center will
collaborate with different institutions at different stages of the
project. The materials will be field tested at Penn, Cornell, and other
Bengali-teaching institutions in the U nited States They will be also
tested in the popular overseas Bengali immersion programs, such as
American Institute of Indian Studies and American Institute of
Bangladesh Studies.

P017A070100\
**American Councils for International Education\
**1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700\
Washington, DC 20036\
Dan Davidson

Online proficiency testing in reading and listening at the 2,2+,3, and
3+ range in Arabic, Central Asian Turkic, Persian, and Russian

American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS (American
Councils) has developed a Web-based testing system to successfully
administer online exams that are secure, reliable, cost-effective, and
able to reach more examinees throughout an extensive range of test
centers. The goal of this project is to expand on the existing
operational exam design and online delivery system to create and support
regularly available, operational online proficiency testing in reading
and listening at the 2, 2+, 3, and 3+ range in Arabic, Central Asian
Turkic, Persian, and Russian. The testing modules, which will be
supported and refreshed on an ongoing basis, will reflect standard
proficiency-based guidelines and modes of communication. This need for
critical foreign language testing is particularly vital given the
extensive level of training time required for an English-based language
learner to reach full professional competence. As learners progress,
assessing language skills at higher levels of proficiency becomes even
more imperative. American Councils' Web-based testing program will help
to address the current need for robust models for web-based language
assessment, which will inform language teaching and learning. To this
end, the online delivery system will provide access to the assessment
instrument in a variety of locales and will allow for customization in
order to meet the needs of stakeholder programs, institutions, and
individuals.

For the past 30 years, American Councils has remained committed to the
preparation of successive generations of U.S. students, teachers, and
professionals in the linguistic and cultural sophistication essential to
maintain American leadership in world affairs. The importance of this
mission has also re-emerged on the U.S. national security agenda, with
an emphasis on producing sufficient numbers of language-competent
citizens at higher levels of proficiency in Russian, Arabic, Persian,
and Central Turkic languages. Through this project, American Councils
will improve testing and assessment resources for these critical
languages.

P017A070102\
**Trustees of Indiana University\
**CeLCAR\
P.O. Box 1847\
Bloomington, IN 47402\
John Erickson

### Web-based Multimedia Uzbek Dialect Dictionary

This proposal seeks three years of funding to support a project to
develop a Web-based multimedia dialect dictionary for the critical
Turkic language of Uzbek, which can be used to train English speaking
students acquire advanced speaking and listening proficiency in Uzbek
dialects as they are spoken in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and other
countries of Central Asia, in addition to enabling them to attain
advanced reading and writing skills.

A major problem that English-speaking students confront in their study
of Uzbek is the significant difference between the standard literary
language, which they are primarily taught, and the wide range of
dialectal variation of the colloquial spoken language encountered in the
different regions of Uzbekistan, such as Tashkent, Samarkand, Khwarezm,
Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya, and the Ferghana Valley, as well as in
northern Afghanistan. This problem is further complicated by the lack of
instructional materials specifically designed to train English-speaking
students in such dialectal variation. As a result, it is often
exceedingly difficult for such students to achieve advanced levels of
proficiency in listening comprehension of Uzbek dialects without
spending a prolonged period of time in the field. The proposed project
aims to remedy this problem by creating a multimedia resource that can
be used as a self-learning tool by students to listen to, compare, and
study the linguistic variation of Uzbek dialects and the literary
language online.

The project builds on work for the Title VI Uzbek Dictionary Project at
Indiana University, scheduled to be completed in 2008. The Uzbek-English
and English-Uzbek dictionaries produced by the latter project will each
contain over 40,000 words, along with approximately 25,000 examples of
usage, making them the most comprehensive Uzbek dictionaries designed
for English speakers to date.

The Uzbek dialect dictionary project proposed here comprises four main
parts:

1)  A Web-based searchable multimedia application will be developed for
    a comparative Uzbek dialect dictionary, which will make the work of
    the Title VI Uzbek Dictionary Project available online and which can
    be expanded in stages to include new text data and audio recordings
    from various Uzbek dialects, as well as images of cultural objects.

2)  Audio recordings will be made of the words and expressions collected
    for the Uzbek Dictionary Project in the standard literary language
    and the Tashkent dialect (which can be supplemented by recordings in
    other Uzbek dialects as additional funding is obtained for future
    projects). They will then be processed into separate audio files and
    added to the online dictionary.

3)  Additional examples of complete sentences will be collected and
    recorded in the standard literary language and the Tashkent dialect
    to provide fuller comparative coverage of the phonological,
    morphological, semantic, lexical, and syntactic features of
    linguistic variation.

4)  An online interactive audio primer will be created to train students
    who have studied the Uzbek literary language to comprehend the
    different phonological and morphological features of the Tashkent
    dialect.

Finally, the multimedia Uzbek dialect dictionary will become an
essential online resource for students and instructors in Uzbek language
programs throughout the United States---especially for the three course
levels of Uzbek taught at Indiana University, the distance-education
program in Uzbek sponsored by the Title VI Center for Languages of the
Central Asian Region, as well as the courses offered at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, where it will undergo extensive pre-testing for
revision. The web-based multimedia dictionary will allow both students
and instructors to suggest changes and additions online, which can then
be incorporated into updated and expanded versions of the dictionary
database.

[^1]: Reading comprehension modules: 20 (Intermediate Low-Mid), 20
    (Intermediate-Mid-High) and 10 (Advanced-Low); Listening
    comprehension modules: 20 (Intermediate Low-Mid), 20 (Intermediate-
    Mid-High) and 10 (Advanced-Low).

[^2]: ACTFL: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

[^3]: *Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21^st^
    Century,* a collaborative project of ACTFL, AATF, AATG, AATI, AATSP,
    ACL/APA, ACTR, CLASS/CLTA, & NCSTJ/ATJ
    *\<http://www.actfl.org/files/public/execsumm.pdf\>*