K – College Collaboration
Creating Learning Communities
Collaboration among K-12 teachers, university language professors, and Colleges of Education, is key to creating new models and materials to use in multi-language enhancement and cultural awareness programs nationwide. Innovative, after school programming in a variety of heritage languages and cultures, particularly those less commonly taught, offers to reinforce literary skills in L1 and L2 and heighten interest and competency in foreign languages, area studies, and cultures.
LARC’s outreach program interacts with various language departments locally, regionally, and nationally, with professional organizations, and educational agencies outside San Diego State University. LARC assists community-based groups to establish after school programs for heritage language communities where instruction in their languages is unavialable in public education. LARC’s Director of Outreach, Norman Léonard, guides groups of voluteers through survey procedures, management, legal and financial issues, professional development opportunities, metodology and instructional materials development. The ongoing projects are in the following languages:
- Arabic – 3 sites
- Chinese – 1 sites
- Kurdish – 1 site
- Mixtec – 2 sites
- Persian – 3 sites – Dr. Atefeh Oliai
- Punjabi -1 site
- Vietnamese – 1 site