NSSFL Day 3

The NSSFL delegation held a joint meeting with ACTL Assembly of delegates and NADSFL today. At the a.m. joint session a federal initiatives update was given on a variety of initiatives. Ray Clifford presented a session on "Putting our Profession’s pieces together: building the assessment framework." It is a general feeling that world language teachers need to have a deeper understanding of assessment as a whole to inform and improve. Small groups were then held to create updates on position statements.

A joint lunch was held with NADSFL to honor some key people. The state supervisor of the year award for world languages went to Ann Tollefson. She will retire from the state supervisor position for Wyoming in 14 days. Congrats to Ann.

In the afternoon, additional time was held to finalize drafts summaries on the critical issues round tables. Additional nssfl business was addressed, items such as dues, and the 2008 meeting times, and who would be submitting proposals to ACTFL next year for presentations.

There is a national project funded by DOE to conduct a National Foreign Language survey. The survey has been sent to random schools across the U.S. Please fill out the survey if your district received it. They so far have had a small return on it. http://www.cal.org/projects/flsurvey.html


Yesterday’s blog introduced a collaborative effort between collegeboard, hanban http://english.hanban.edu.cn/market/HanBanE/412360.htm and now NSSFL to centrally coordinate efforts to place guest Chinese teachers into American Schools to teach the Chinese language. Prior to the start of this collaborative effort, there were a couple of different programs going on to bring this resource to America. Both individual states, Hanban, and Collegeboard were conducting separate programs in the area. Now under the new collaboration Collegeboard would take the lead with the help of NSSFL, and HANBAN to promote recruit schools for the program, Conduct quality interviews and screening processes, provide visa’s and health insurance, compensation to, and orientation of the placed Chinese Teachers. This would help to build a national quality of standard for the program. Details are now starting to be worked out and agreed upon by all involved partners. Currently 31 states participate in the collegeboard program. Next April, Collegeboard is going to hold its first large scale Chinese instruction in the U.S. conference. More details will be forth coming. Interviews for next years Chinese instructors will be held in late February to early March.

Spanish Embassy’s Education program presented.

The French Embassy’s presented on American Assistants in France project. The French ministry of education offers 1500 teaching assistantship positions in French primary and secondary schools for American Citizens between 20 and 30 years of age, graduates and undergraduates with a proficiency in French. They spend 6-9 months in France with a stipend, have a privileged insight into contemporary France and gain valuable teaching experience. Applications will be open by the end of the month and will be due in around Feb 1, 2008. More information contact: assistant.washington-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr or www.frenchculture.org