**INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH**

**AND STUDIES PROGRAM**

**(84.017A)**

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

###### Fiscal Year 2008 New Grants

**Summary and Abstracts**

####### International Education Programs Service

####### U.S. Department of Education

####### 6th Floor, 1990 K Street, N.W.

# Washington, DC 20006-8521

+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| **Application No.,    | **Project      | * | * | *    |      |      |
| Applicant**           | Title**        | * | * | *Rec |      |      |
|                       |                | T |   | omme |      |      |
| **and Project         | ** **          | y | * | nded |      |      |
| Director**            |                | p | * | F    |      |      |
|                       |                | e |   | undi |      |      |
|                       |                | * | * | ng** |      |      |
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|                       |                | * | a |      |      |      |
|                       |                | I | r |      |      |      |
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+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
|                       |                |   |   | **FY | **FY | **FY |
|                       |                |   |   | 08** | 09** | 10** |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080012\          | Listen and     | * | 3 | *    | \$95 | \$53 |
| **University of       | Learn:         | * |   | *\$1 | ,000 | ,000 |
| California, Los       | Teaching       | I |   | 48,0 |      |      |
| Angeles**\            | Arabic,        | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| Center for Near       | Persian, and   | * |   |      |      |      |
| Eastern Studies\      | Turkish in     | * |   |      |      |      |
| Los Angeles, CA       | America\'s     |   |   |      |      |      |
| 90095\                | Middle and     |   |   |      |      |      |
| Susan Slyomovics      | High Schools   |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080016\          | Initiative for | * | 2 | *    | \    |      |
| **California          | Model          | * |   | *\$1 | $193 |      |
| Commission on Teacher | Professional   | I |   | 72,0 | ,000 |      |
| Credentialing**\      | Activities and | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| 1900 Capitol Avenue\  | Capacity       | * |   |      |      |      |
| Sacramento, CA 95814\ | Building for   | * |   |      |      |      |
| Phyllis Jacobson      | Teachers of    |   |   |      |      |      |
|                       | Foreign        |   |   |      |      |      |
|                       | Languages      |   |   |      |      |      |
|                       | (IMPACTFL)     |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080037\          | A Decade of    | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **American Council on | Foreign        | * |   | *\$1 | $149 | $134 |
| the Teaching of       | Language       | R |   | 28,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| Foreign Languages**\  | Standards:     | E |   | 00** |      |      |
| 1001 N. Fairfax       | Influence,     | * |   |      |      |      |
| Street\               | Impact and     | * |   |      |      |      |
| Alexandria, VA 22314\ | Future         |   |   |      |      |      |
| Martha Abbott         | Directions     |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080038\          | A Deep         | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **University of       | Approach to    | * |   | *\$1 | $161 | $163 |
| Wisconsin, Madison\   | Turkish        | I |   | 47,2 | ,000 | ,000 |
| **21 North Park       | Teaching and   | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| Street, Suite 6401\   | Learning       | * |   |      |      |      |
| Madison, WI 53715\    |                | * |   |      |      |      |
| Francois Tochon       |                |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080044\          | Development of | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **University of       | Digital        | * |   | *\$1 | $179 | $185 |
| Pennsylvania\         | Dictionaries   | I |   | 65,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| **Linguistics Data    | for Iraqi,     | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| Consortium\           | Moroccan and   | * |   |      |      |      |
| 3451 Walnut Street\   | Syrian Arabic  | * |   |      |      |      |
| Philadelphia, PA      |                |   |   |      |      |      |
| 19104\                |                |   |   |      |      |      |
| Mohamed Maamouri      |                |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080050\          | SEAsite:       | * | 3 | **\$ | \    | \    |
| **Northern Illinois   | Website        | * |   | 91,0 | $102 | $105 |
| University**\         | Infrastructure | I |   | 00** | ,000 | ,000 |
| 301 Lowden Hall\      | Improvements   | M |   |      |      |      |
| DeKalb, IL 60115\     | for the Next   | * |   |      |      |      |
| George Henry          | Decade         | * |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080055\          | Project ChiLI: | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **San Francisco State | Chinese        | * |   | *\$1 | $195 | $195 |
| University**\         | Literacy       | I |   | 71,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| 1600 Holloway Avenue, | Instructional  | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| ADM469\               | Materials and  | * |   |      |      |      |
| San Francisco, CA     | Curriculum     | * |   |      |      |      |
| 94132\                | Development    |   |   |      |      |      |
| Christy Lao           |                |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080069\          | Development of | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **Boston Public       | Instructional  | * |   | *\$1 | $196 | $196 |
| Schools**\            | Materials in   | I |   | 72,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| 26 Court Street, 5th  | Arabic         | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| Floor\                |                | * |   |      |      |      |
| Boston, MA 02108\     |                | * |   |      |      |      |
| Monica Roberts        |                |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080071\          | Computerized   | * | 3 | **\$ | \    | \    |
| **Pennsylvania State  | Dynamic        | * |   | 96,0 | $112 | $113 |
| University\           | Assessment of  | I |   | 00** | ,000 | ,000 |
| CALPER**\             | Language       | M |   |      |      |      |
| 110 Technology Center | Proficiency in | * |   |      |      |      |
| Building\             | French,        | * |   |      |      |      |
| University Park, PA   | Russian, and   |   |   |      |      |      |
| 16802\                | Chinese        |   |   |      |      |      |
| James Lantolf         |                |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080078\          | Online         | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **Portland State      | Interpretati   | * |   | *\$1 | $177 | $185 |
| University**\         | on/Translation | I |   | 47,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| PO Box 751\           | S              | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| Portland, OR 97207\   | kills-Building | * |   |      |      |      |
| Patricia Wetzel       | Modules for    | * |   |      |      |      |
|                       | Japanese and   |   |   |      |      |      |
|                       | Arabic         |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
| P017A080083\          | Visualizing    | * | 3 | *    | \    | \    |
| **Massachusetts       | Culture:       | * |   | *\$1 | $194 | $195 |
| Institute of          | Exploring the  | I |   | 69,0 | ,000 | ,000 |
| Technology**\         | History and    | M |   | 00** |      |      |
| 77 Massachusetts      | Culture of     | * |   |      |      |      |
| Avenue, E19-750\      | Asia through   | * |   |      |      |      |
| Cambridge, MA 02139\  | Visuals        |   |   |      |      |      |
| Shigeru Miyagawa      |                |   |   |      |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+
|                       |                |   |   | **\  | \$1  | \$1  |
|                       |                |   |   | $1,6 | ,753 | ,471 |
|                       |                |   |   | 06,2 | ,000 | ,000 |
|                       |                |   |   | 00** |      |      |
+-----------------------+----------------+---+---+------+------+------+

P017A080012

**University of California, Los Angeles**

Center for Near Eastern Studies

Box 951406

Los Angeles, CA 90095

Susan Slyomovics

### Listen and Learn: Teaching Arabic, Persian, and Turkish in America\'s Middle and High Schools

This instructional materials project aims to develop, produce, and
widely disseminate a seven unit online tutorial module designed to
promote and encourage the study of Arabic (Modern Standard, plus four
dialects: Egyptian, Iraqi, Levantine, and Moroccan), Persian, and
Turkish.

The objective is to integrate the study of these languages into the
middle and high school history and social studies curriculum in
accordance with national and state instructional frameworks and
standards. The pedagogical focus is listening comprehension, a core but
insufficiently recognized language-learning skill. The target population
is American teenagers and their teachers.

Each language unit will enable students to speak and understand two
dozen phrases and several hundred words, and introduce the structure of
the language in its cultural context. Language and culture mutually
define one another in different linguistic communities worldwide. We
have chosen to focus on Iraqi and Levantine to represent the Arab East,
Moroccan for the Maghreb, and Egyptian as the most widely understood
dialect. Each tutorial exemplifies the rich variety of regional Arabic
dialects that are in fact distinct languages encompassed by the rubric
"Arabic" as part of a religious-political ideal. To give each dialect
its due is to understand and represent not merely their linguistic
differences but to highlight the disparate historical and cultural
trajectories and specificities of Iraq, Morocco, and Egypt. Moreover,
knowledge of Persian, Turkish, and four Arabic dialects serves the
national need and interest: to educate at a young age the rising
generation of American schoolchildren who will face the challenge of
communicating with their counterparts in the Middle East.

As studies have shown and as their conclusions have been reiterated by
government officials, foreign affairs specialists, and educators alike,
learning Middle Eastern languages accompanied by the expert tutorial
example of youth from the region provides a productive model of lived
experience that is both cross-cultural and age-related. The project will
use authentic dialogues articulated by teenage heritage speakers of
these languages who reside in cosmopolitan Los Angeles. At the outset,
we anticipate that 1,300 teachers and some 250,000 students will use the
online tutorials in the classroom. Our ultimate goal is to inspire
pre-collegiate learners to continue the study of these Less Commonly
Taught Languages in higher education, thus addressing national and
student needs and aspirations.

In addition to strengthening the core humanities, social sciences, and
language arts curricula, the study of these languages will also
inculcate student interest and direct their attention to Islam as a
pivotal religious-cultural realm that is part of the American experience
and that encompasses more than one-fifth of humanity. The integrative
approach and the productive and enjoyable learning experience will
enhance foreign language and international studies in the United States.

**University of California, Los Angeles** (UCLA) has particular strength
and expertise in these languages and area studies, and in K-12 outreach
and multimedia teaching and learning. While the project will be based at
the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, it will involve a network of
experts at a dozen other national sites who will assist in developing
and testing the tutorial units. Broad access to and diffusion of the
module and the excellent prospects for its replication will ensure its
success and sustainability.

P017A080016

**California Commission on Teacher Credentialing**

1900 Capitol Avenue

Sacramento, CA 95814

Phyllis Jacobson

Initiative for Model Professional Activities and Capacity Building

for Teachers of Foreign Languages (IMPACTFL)

The "IMPACTFL" project addresses the competitive preference priority for
"the development of specialized instructional materials for use by
students and teachers in foreign language and international studies that
are focused on one or more of the following critical language areas\...
" as well as the authorized activities under Section 605 (6) for "the
development and publication of specialized materials\...for training
foreign language, area, and other international specialists."

California is one of the most linguistic and culturally diverse states
in the nation, and has a need to assure the high quality of its foreign
language and international studies teacher work force. School districts
and postsecondary institutions in California, as well as throughout the
nation, need to implement a comprehensive, systematic, and collaborative
P-16 foreign language professional development model to support not only
foreign language teachers in general, but particularly those teachers in
the emerging critical language areas such as Arabic, Chinese, and
Japanese. Within California, the Foreign Language Project (CFLP) has
been providing a systematic, collaborative P-16 foreign language
professional development model that will focus additional efforts
through the proposed project to support to new Arabic, Chinese, and
Japanese language teachers. At the same time, however, the CFLP itself
is ready to scale up to the national level in terms of replicating this
model in other states, institutions, and local contexts. In taking the
CFLP model to national scale, the proposed project will be following the
example and the process of the National Writing Project, which started
in 1974 as the "Bay Area Writing Project," then became a sister project
to the CFLP in 1989, and subsequently went to scale in 1991, with the
help of federal funding, as the "National Writing Project" (NWP). The
NWP has pledged its assistance to the CFLP to help transition this
project to the national level as well.

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) is
California's independent teacher standards and licensing board, the
oldest such board in the nation. Reporting directly to the Governor's
office, the CCTC works primarily with postsecondary institutions that
prepare teachers and other school professionals. The CCTC will work with
the CFLP to develop three types of materials within the project: (1)
Manuals for replicating and implementing the CFLP professional
development model, including adapting the model to local contexts; (2)
Curriculum and instructional materials for the support of professional
development for new teachers of Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese; and (3)
Training materials for Professional Development Institutes for hands-on
training of key personnel across the nation in replicating the CFLP
model, including specific training to support Arabic, Chinese, and
Japanese teachers.

The project will use an external evaluator to provide formative
assessment information for ongoing program improvement, as detailed in
the Plan of Operation, and an annual summative report as to the degree
to which the project achieved its objectives, on time and on budget. The
cost-effectiveness of the project is enhanced by the extensive in-kind
contributions of personnel, foreign language content expertise, meeting
facilities, and other services to the project. In addition, the basic
CFLP model, including a "signature series" of three key 40-hour
trainings for foreign language teachers and teacher-leaders, has already
been developed and will form the basis for new adaptations for Arabic,
Chinese, and Japanese teachers.

P017A080037

**American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages**

1001 N. Fairfax Street

Suite 200

Alexandria, VA 22314

Martha Abbott

### A Decade of Foreign Language Standards: Influence, Impact and Future Directions

A collaboration of foreign language professional associations developed
*Standards for Foreign Language Learning* from 1993-1996. This effort
was funded under the *Goals 2000: Educate American Act*, and the
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) was the
lead organization. Since that time, there have been three editions of
the standards: The first volume, *Standards for Foreign Language
Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century* (1996) presented the
background for the five goal areas of: Communication, Cultures,
Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. The second volume, *Standards
for Foreign Language Learning in the 21^st^ Century* (2000) expanded the
original publication with language specific standards for Chinese,
Classical Languages, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese,
Russian, and Spanish. The latest edition (2006) includes standards
specific to the learning of Arabic. This grant will provide funding for
an in-depth look at the impact that the standards have had on the
foreign language profession, from research and publications to actual
classroom teaching.

As the standards were developed and presented to the profession, there
was an unusual amount of consensus as to the goal areas for language
education K-16 that has continued to this time. However, after a decade,
it is incumbent upon the profession to revisit the standards to assess
what influences (observable references) and impact (evidence of change
in pedagogy or programs) can be identified: (1) in the professional
literature; and (2) in institutional programs and practices.
Furthermore, interest is growing (3) in the development of standards for
the less commonly taught and critical languages. In order to implement
programs in critical needs languages, standards for these languages will
need to be developed. In addition, the important connection between K-12
and higher education is facilitated through the use of standards common
to both levels of instruction.

Several initiatives are underway and others await technical assistance
in understanding the content of the standards and the development
process. An additional factor for these groups is that the teaching
faculty, for the most part, are native/near native speakers but not
pedagogically trained. For influence to turn to impact, more needs to be
done (4) in the area of professional development for teachers at all
levels of instruction and to better articulate between the schools and
higher education. The proposed project intends to investigate the four
enumerated areas through a set of Task Forces charged with specific
research questions: a Literature Survey Task Force, an Institutional
Impact Task Force, an Expansion Task Force, and a Professional
Development Task Force. ACTFL and the Foreign Language Standards
Collaborative group will involve leaders in the profession to carry out
the series of surveys, literature reviews, interviews described in the
proposal and share that information with the profession and other
stakeholders through accessible data bases and new program initiatives.

P017A080038

**University of Wisconsin, Madison**

School of Education

21 North Park Street, Suite 6401

Madison, WI 53715

Francois Tochon

### A Deep Approach to Turkish Teaching and Learning

Modern Turkish counts more than 100 million speakers, and the strategic
importance of Turkey is widely acknowledged. These facts, together with
the integration of the Turkish Republic into the European Union and the
expanding Turkish population in Europe, underscore the importance of
teaching modern Turkish as a foreign language.

In this project addressing Competitive Preference Priority 1, we propose
to create instructional materials that take what we call a "deep
approach" to Turkish teaching, learning, and language acquisition. Ours
will be an immersive, learner-centered, technology-rich, and
project-based approach designed for institutions of higher education in
the United States, Turkey, and elsewhere that offer programs in Turkish
language and culture, Middle Eastern area studies, and international or
global studies. The materials will go beyond instruction in grammar and
vocabulary to support the acquisition of socio-cultural pragmatics,
intercultural learning and understanding of situated discourse.

After preliminary needs assessment, we will build intermediate and
advanced curricula with 12 thematic units each, designed for two
3-credit, 15-week college courses. The backbone of the units will be the
Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century, known as
the five C's (communication, culture, connections, comparisons,
communities), integrated with the Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages. The thematic units will inquire into Turkish
intellectual, artistic, scientific, public, and political life and
document it through video narratives, cases, interviews, and debates.
Units will incorporate topical readings, writing practice, listening
comprehension, and ongoing assessment. Some of the videos supporting the
units will be drawn and adapted from TV programs; others will be created
specifically for this project. Teacher handbooks (one for each
curriculum, intermediate and advanced) will present the thematic units
and provide ideas for use of video and Internet resources and for
student projects aligned with the standards.

The materials will be pilot-tested at three U.S. Research I
universities---the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the
University of Wisconsin--Madison---and at Yildiz Technical University
(YTU) in Istanbul. Other Language Centers might join later such as the
University of Pennsylvania. Partners from these universities will serve
on the project's advisory board. The project evaluation will incorporate
diagnostic, formative, and summative phases, using both qualitative and
quantitative methods.

Our interdisciplinary project team brings expertise in Turkish language
and history, anthropology, second language acquisition, foreign language
education and pedagogy, instructional materials development, and
educational technologies. In-person meetings, site visits, and online
and video conferencing will facilitate our international collaboration.
The project meets the purposes of Title VI international education
programs to: (a) develop a pool of international experts in Turkish and
meet national needs; (b) develop and validate specialized materials and
techniques for foreign language acquisition and fluency in the less
commonly taught languages; (c) promote access to research and training
overseas; and (d) advance the internationalization of a variety of
disciplines throughout undergraduate and graduate education.

P017A080044

**University of Pennsylvania**

Linguistics Data Consortium

3451 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Mohamed Maamouri

### Development of Digital Dictionaries for Iraqi, Moroccan and Syrian Arabic

This proposal is a collaboration between the Linguistic Data Consortium
(LDC) of the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University Press
(GUP) to create up-to-date lexical databases, with translations to and
from English, for three dialects of colloquial Arabic. The databases
will be used both for interactive computer access and for new print
publications of dictionaries in Iraqi, Syrian and Moroccan dialects.
This work will involve:

> \(1\) defining the structure of the lexical databases using current
> and emerging standards;
>
> \(2\) populating three instantiations of that structure with data from
> previously published GUP dictionaries;
>
> \(3\) adding fields for Arabic orthography and pronunciation;
>
> \(4\) adding entries for common vocabulary not present in the
> originals;
>
> \(5\) adding senses for common usage not present in the originals;
>
> \(6\) regularly checking coverage against corpora and otherwise
> evaluating;
>
> \(7\) publishing the database for research use;
>
> \(8\) projecting a version for print and distribution on media for
> learners; and
>
> \(9\) providing Internet based access.

The proposed databases will be based on the GUP source dictionaries: (1)
A Dictionary of Iraqi Arabic, English-Arabic, Arabic-English (Clarity,
et al. 2003 \[1965\]) (hereafter "GUP Iraqi Arabic Corpus"); (2) A
Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic (Stowasser and Ani 2004
\[1964\]) (hereafter "GUP Syrian Arabic Corpus"); and (3) A Dictionary
of Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan-English, English-Moroccan (Harrell and
Sobelman 2004 \[1966\]) (hereafter "GUP Moroccan Arabic Corpus").

The proposed work will use contemporary principles of computational
linguistics and current pedagogical requirements in order to: (a)
reflect current vocabulary and usage; (b) provide a standardized system
of transcription; and (c) use the Arabic script (both vocalized and
unvocalized, to show vowel pronunciation as well as standard
orthography). A searchable version on CD-ROM, will accompany each print
reference. Because of the obvious urgencies on the national scene, the
project will start with the Iraqi Arabic dictionary in Year 1, then
proceed to the Syrian/Levantine dictionary, and conclude with the
Moroccan Arabic dictionary.

Finally, the proposed dictionaries aim at providing United States
students and teachers of Arabic with current dialectal Arabic lexical
information to enable them to communicate orally with Arabs and other
non-native Arabic speakers. The scholarship used to create a modernized
transcription system and provide existing and new terms in Arabic script
(including diacritics) may also help integrate dialect and Moroccan and
Syrian Arabic (MSA) instruction by providing tools that curriculum
developers can use.

P017A080050

**Northern Illinois University**

301 Lowden Hall

DeKalb, IL 60115

George Henry

### SEAsite: Web site Infrastructure Improvements for the Next Decade

This proposal describes an ambitious initiative to standardize and
modernize the content of SEAsite
([www.seasite.niu.edu](http://www.seasite.niu.edu/)), a major Web-based
instructional resource for Southeast Asian languages and cultures that
many consider a national, even a world resource. It is found first in a
search for "Southeast Asian language instruction" by major search
engines such as Google.

Under continuous development since its inception in 1997, SEAsite
consists of an extensive set of language lessons and cultural materials
with copious pictures, interactive exercises, and integrated streaming
audio for seven Southeast Asian countries. The primary purpose of this
proposal is to seek support to undertake a major modernization of the
underlying web page encodings to bring SEAsite into compliance with
modern international web standards and to enhance its convenience of use
in several ways.

The modernization will consist most importantly of the creation of a
parallel version SEAsite for the re-encoded materials. In this new
version, all non-Latin script content will be re-encoded into Unicode,
the accepted standard for representing (on computers) the written
language system of all world languages. The software to do this will be
written by project personnel; successful prototypes for Thai have
already been developed. A second important modernization will be the
re-encoding of all audio in the now-standard mp3 format. A number of
other modifications are described in the proposal as well.

This modernization is vital to the continued usefulness of SEAsite for
users worldwide. Without it, large portions of the site which use
non-Latin scripts or proprietary audio formats are in danger of becoming
non-functional in the future. Other important changes are designed to
improve convenience and ease-of-use for SEAsite clients, and to enable
the creation of standalone DVDs for SEAsite content in the future.

P017A080055

**San Francisco State University**

1600 Holloway Avenue, ADM469

San Francisco, CA 94132

Christy Lao

**Project ChiLI: Chinese Literacy Instructional Materials and Curriculum
Development**

The biggest challenge teachers of Chinese in America encounter is the
lack of pedagogically, linguistically, and culturally appropriate
Chinese instructional materials. San Francisco State University, College
of Education addresses Competitive Priority 1, developing specialized
instructional materials for use by students and teachers in foreign
language and international studies focused on Chinese. We propose to
strengthen Chinese language instruction by developing Chinese literacy
instructional materials and curriculum for elementary school students as
follows:

Goal 1: To develop and propose Chinese language arts standards for
teaching and learning Chinese as a second language, or heritage language
with special focus on literacy in K-5 setting in the Unites States. This
goal will foster linkages between K-5, K-12 and postsecondary Chinese
language standards and Chinese language programs.

Goal 2: Develop, adopt, and adapt instructional materials for Chinese
literacy instruction. The outcomes of this project will serve as a basis
for further development of instructional materials at all levels.

Goal 3: Research, develop, and establish guidelines for developing
ongoing Chinese language arts assessment at the classroom level.

Goal 4: Integration of technology enhanced lessons as appropriate and
dissemination of models on the project Web site.

P017A080069

**Boston Public Schools**

26 Court Street

5th Floor

Boston, MA 02108

Monica Roberts

### Development of Instructional Materials in Arabic

The Marhaba! Program will design, field-test, and disseminate a fully
articulated curriculum for first year Arabic language studies for
secondary school students. Our schools lack the tools to produce a
generation of competent speakers of Arabic because there is no standard
curriculum for first year high school Arabic. Marhaba! will fill this
need in American secondary schooling. Materials will conform to the
National Standards for Foreign Language Education, and when completed
will be adopted by public and private secondary schools nationwide.
Arabic is the fourth most spoken language in the world and is a
critically important language for American students to learn in
preparation for participation in international politics.

##### Methodology

Year 1: Development: A multi-disciplinary team of researchers and
teachers will collect data and information on the requirements of the
National Standards for Foreign Language Education, gathering materials
appropriate to secondary school students to create lessons based on
those standards. The team will meet regularly, drafting and reviewing
lesson plans and supplementary materials. The team will map the progress
of student language acquisition based on the lessons and build a
curriculum that will graduate speakers at oral and written proficiency
levels equivalent to a semester of college-level study.

Year 2: Field-testing: To ensure that the curriculum is well suited to
secondary students in a variety of settings Marhaba! will be
field-tested in multiple settings varied by geography, student
demographics, and school size. Draft copies of all materials will be
distributed to six schools. The schools will use the curriculum as
intended, provide the applied skill opportunities (multiple learning
modality activities) as recommended by the curriculum, and gather
feedback throughout the pilot year in student journals, teacher
reflections, and other structured mechanisms. The findings will inform
the development of the final product.

Year 3: Dissemination: The final product will be distributed cost-free
to 25 high school programs, providing additional materials online
through the Arabic K-12 Teachers Network. High school programs will have
access to professional development offerings by the project team.
Methods and channels for curriculum dissemination and related
professional development include presentations at eight professional
conferences, a series of articles on Teaching Arabic to High School
Students published online and in print, and two major training events
including a two-day orientation to the curriculum and a mid-year retreat
for technical assistance.

##### Final Product

The curriculum will have three strands: written language, spoken
language, and culture, meeting ACTFL benchmarks. The writing strand will
include the alphabet, short words, and simple sentences. The speaking
strand will enable the student to describe himself/herself, family, and
surroundings. The culture strand will include geography, history, music,
and calligraphy.

Marhaba! will include a textbook with four major sections, a student
workbook, and teacher handbook with lesson plans to meet National
Standards for Foreign Language Education and the Standards for Learning
Arabic. The curriculum will build language skills in the context of
co-curricular activities highlighting the historical and cultural
backgrounds of the Arabic-speaking regions of the world. The teaching
guide will offer 36 lessons in 9 equally sized units, each with a theme.
The lessons will focus on language and social studies skills within that
theme, ending with a project. Weekly lessons will include instructions
and resources for implementing activities, including lesson guides, a
transparency book, and multimedia (e.g., CD). The student workbook of
in-class and homework exercises will help students organize their
assignments, take pride in their work, build Arabic language skills,
English writing skills, and social studies skills.

P017A080071

**The Pennsylvania State University \-- CALPER**

110 Technology Center Building

University Park, PA 16802

James Lantolf

### Computerized Dynamic Assessment of Language Proficiency in French, Russian and Chinese

The proposed project will develop formal assessments of language
proficiency for learners of Chinese, French, and Russian that provide a
more sensitive and fine-grained perspective of learner abilities than
other assessments by taking account of learner responsiveness to
mediating support. This approach is known as Dynamic Assessment (DA) and
is based on Vygotsky's theory of development, according to which
observation of learners' independent functioning reveals only a part of
their capabilities.

Specifically, solo performance indicates abilities that have already
fully formed while an individual's capacity to benefit from support
points to abilities that are still in the process of developing.
Learners who require relatively implicit mediation -- for instance, a
prompt to focus on an aspect of a task -- are closer to autonomous
functioning than learners who need more explicit support, such as
explanations of principles underlying task solution. By including
mediating hints and prompts during the assessment, DA expands the
evidential basis of learner abilities that can be used to make
instructional decisions, such as placing students in an appropriate
course and attuning pedagogy to their emergent abilities.

The proposed project begins with existing and recognized measures of
language proficiency -- the Advanced Placement (AP) Tests in Chinese and
French and the Test of Russian as a Foreign Language (TORFL) -- and
designs mediation to be included in the administration of the exams. To
achieve optimal standardization, the exams and accompanying mediation
will be computerized and made available through the CALPER website, Penn
State University's Title VI NFLRC. These computerized dynamic assessment
(C-DA) language exams will assess learner listening and reading
comprehension abilities through multiple-choice questions taken from
previously used versions of the AP and TORFL tests. In each language the
C-DA exam will include three reading and three listening sections, with
each section containing five questions for a total of thirty exam items.
As every exam item offers four choices, three mediating hints or prompts
will be scripted and made available to examinees in order from most
implicit to most explicit. Performance will be scored as follows: full
credit (three points) awarded if the item is correctly answered without
any mediating support; one point deducted for each prompt given; no
points awarded for the item if all prompts are used. The computerized
administration allows scoring to be carried out automatically. In
addition to a score on the C-DA exam, learners will also receive a
verbal profile detailing performance on each section, general level of
mediation required, and recommendations for continued pedagogical
support.

During Year 1, mediation for each exam item will be scripted by the
project team and the exams in each language will be programmed for
computerized administration. The C-DA exams will then be individually
administered to ten learners in each language in order to pre-test the
mediation and identify any user interface problems. Learners will also
be interviewed to obtain additional feedback. Following revisions, the
C-DA language exams will be made available in Year 2 to the language
programs at Penn State and SUNY Albany. In-depth interviews will be
conducted with the program directors as well as language instructors and
learners to better understand reactions to the exams and their impact on
pedagogical practices. Additional revisions will be made based on this
feedback, if necessary. In Year 3 the revised C-DA exams will be
publicly available on the CALPER Web site and will be advertised to
language professionals and programs nationwide.

P017A080078

**Portland State University**

P.O. Box 751

Portland, OR 97207

Patricia Wetzel

### Online Interpretation/Translation Skills-Building Modules for Japanese and Arabic

Over three years Portland State University (PSU) will create interactive
web-based instructional materials designed to build interpretation and
translation skills in two critical languages: Japanese and Arabic. The
plan is to develop, field-test, and refine high-quality online lesson
modules and resource materials that will: (1) enhance and support
language and culture studies across academic disciplines and
departments, including foreign languages, linguistics, international
relations, political science, social work, and education; (2) support
individual self-study in interpretation/translation theory and practice;
and (3) provide general access to information about career opportunities
in these fields (e.g., in health care, government, business, education,
the judicial system), professional standards and ethics (including
current status of accreditation and certification requirements), and
other relevant Web sites and resources.

The project addresses the acute national need for skilled interpreters
and translators across all sectors: government, industry, education, and
civic life. High rates of immigration to the United States coupled with
increasingly complex and interdependent global economic, political, and
cultural challenges underscore the importance of high-quality and
accessible materials in interpretation and translation. Medical clinics
and hospitals, government agencies, state and federal courts, law
enforcement agencies, non-governmental organizations, corporations and
small businesses, schools and universities -- all have growing needs for
routine and emergency interpretation services, assistance with
cross-cultural communication, translation of forms and documents,
adaptation of products or software, and/or additional training support
for bilingual personnel.

A faculty design team (including native Japanese and Arabic speakers)
will oversee production of a set of interactive web modules to be
piloted in PSU interpretation and translation courses. These materials
will be aligned with the Skill Level Descriptions for Interpretation and
Translation Performance scale developed by the federal Interagency
Language Roundtable (ILR) and with the ACTFL proficiency scale. Current
events will serve as an organizing focus. Brief, rich samples
illustrating particular interpretation and translation skills and
authentic aspects of the cultures will be integrated with practice
exercises that move from the simple to complex. Materials introducing
and building skills will be in English as well as Japanese and Arabic,
and will incorporate edited current events segments such as a 30-second
television news broadcast or an instructor interpreting for a visiting
scholar or dignitary. Basic practice techniques covered will include
shadowing and summarizing in interpretation and content check and
paraphrasing in translation. A Web designer and three graduate research
assistants (one fluent in Japanese and one in Arabic) will support
production, testing, and revision of the materials.

Local and national partners including Portland Community College,
Translations.com, Brigham Young University, and the National Foreign
Language Resource Centers will support initial research and evaluation
of the online instructional materials. Avenues for disseminating
information on the project's progress and results will include
professional conferences and listservs sponsored by organizations such
as the Association of Teachers of Japanese, American Association of
Teachers of Arabic, and American Translators Association. The expected
outcome is a multimedia, Web-based template for
interpretation/translation teaching and learning that can be easily
expanded and modified to include other critical languages (e.g.,
Russian, Vietnamese, Persian, Hindi-Urdu) taught at PSU and elsewhere.
The project will also inform PSU's long-term planning to establish an
interpretation/translation certificate program.

P017A080083

**Massachusetts Institute of Technology**

77 Massachusetts Avenue

E19-750

Cambridge, MA 02139

Shigeru Miyagawa

### Visualizing Culture: Exploring the History and Culture of Asia through Visuals

Visualizing Cultures is an innovative Web site that opens windows on
modern history by integrating graphic images, expert commentary, elegant
design, and substantial databases in ways that have only recently become
technologically possible. It can be accessed at
[http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu](http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/).
Launched at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002, the
site has focused topically to date on Japan and Asia in the modern
world. The principal investigators are MIT professors John W. Dower, a
Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian whose scholarship includes close
attention to visual materials, and Shigeru Miyagawa, who holds a joint
appointment in linguistics and Japanese language and culture and is a
pioneer in the production and use of digital media for education.

Visualizing Cultures presently contains thirteen elaborate units on
Japan covering topics that range from U.S. Naval Commodore Perry's
arrival in Japan in 1853 to Sino- and Russo-Wars, and the atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All units, including curriculum material, are
available openly and freely on the Web site. In the proposed project, we
will complete new units on "China in the Modern World," "'Modernity' in
Early 20th Century Japan," and "The Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945)." Our
task will include the following:

-   Cooperation with institutions holding artwork (Boston MFA, Sackler
    Gallery/Smithsonian, Peabody Essex Museum, etc.) that to date has
    been largely inaccessible to scholars of Asia or the general public
    in any systematic way;

-   Enlistment of outside scholars and curators to develop new units on
    China (not just Japan) in the modern world;

-   Dissemination of these sophisticated materials for public education
    and adaptation to pre-university classrooms through an alliance with
    professional curriculum planners who prepare detailed lesson plans
    and train teachers in workshops and conferences;

-   Creation of a Japanese language teaching component that uses
    original text provided by one of our collaborators; it will be built
    using an elaborate technological infrastructure and visual
    materials.

Visualizing Cultures is built on the OpenCourseWare (OCW) platform, an
MIT project initiated in 2001 with the goal of making materials from
virtually all Institute courses available freely on the Web. Over 1,800
courses are already up, and around 1.5 million users worldwide access
OCW each month. All materials on OCW come with copyright permission, so
that users can make free use of the material, as long as this is for
non-commercial purposes and attribution is clearly made. OCW has been
widely recognized as one of the major online educational innovations of
recent years. Visualizing Cultures has been in the top ten percent of
courses accessed in OCW.

We are now poised to: (1) significantly change understanding (and
teaching) of the modern history of Asia; (2) provide a sophisticated
online model for the use of images by scholars and educators in other
topical and disciplinary areas; and (3) develop new levels of
collaboration with museums, libraries, rare archives, and the like that
will make valuable visual materials widely accessible --- and encourage
other scholars and educators to establish comparable cooperative
projects.

7/30/2008