Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Partnership

The Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Partnership, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is housed in CeLTA. This cross-university initiative utilizes the established and widely recognized strengths within the Big Ten Academic Alliance to collaboratively develop an online model of LCTL instruction reflecting best practices in proficiency-oriented instruction. The project includes research in LCTL proficiency assessment, goal setting, curricular and technological innovations, as well as teacher education and professional development.

Language Proficiency Flagship Initiative

The Language Proficiency Flagship Initiative, funded by the National Security Education Program within the Defense Language and National Security Education Office, is housed in CeLTA. The goal of this project is to introduce assessment practices to four of MSU’s foreign language programs (French, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish) to measure teaching and learning and to determine the impact of such practices on teaching and learning.  

Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program

The FLTA program brings teaching associates from around the world to U.S. colleges and universities to study and to teach foreign languages, assist in language language instruction, and serve as cultural ambassadors on campus. 

Okemos World Languages (OWL) Partnership

The Okemos World Languages (OWL) Partnership is a collaborative project between Okemos Public Schools and Michigan State University (MSU), specifically the Teacher Preparation Program and the Center for Language Teaching Advancement. OWL is a bi-weekly after-school program that introduces Okemos children in grades 1-4 to different languages and cultures. It is an introductory opportunity for students to practice basic communication skills in Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish. 

Language Advocacy Campaign

The aim of our #MSUlanguages campaign is to tell stories of the transformative power of language. As MSU faculty and students, we see this every day – Spartans discovering their passion and their purpose as they get exposed to new languages and cultures. Driven by a desire to make this experience known to the MSU community, we decided it was time to start telling stories of what it is like to live as a multilingual person in East Lansing, MI.

BEYOND Insights

BEYOND Insights is a collaborative project between various College of Arts and Letters units and Lansing Public Schools. The program engages 6th-grade Lansing Public Schools students in a wide range of activities surrounding creativity, global culture, and the arts and humanities.

The program runs for five weeks, offering one workshop per week. Developed as a two-session program, BEYOND Insights involves two different groups of children from Lansing Public Schools taking part in the experience.

Each weekly workshop has a centralized theme, evolving into a combination of insightful skills and lessons. Children have the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of activities including typography, creating videos, exploring creative writing, identifying diversity within everyday life, and partaking in cultural activities from around the world.

CeLTA’s workshop introduces the students to various world languages and cultures and allows them to make connections between their own and new contexts.