The United States Department of State is pleased to announce the scholarship competition for the 2011 Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program for overseas intensive summer language institutes in thirteen critical need foreign languages. CLS institutes provide fully-funded group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences for seven to ten weeks for U.S. citizen undergraduate and graduate students.

Interested applicants should review the full eligibility and application information on the CLS Program website atwww.clscholarship.org/applicants. Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Russian, and Japanese institutes have language prerequisites, described at
http://www.clscholarship.org/applicants.htm#prerequisites. The deadline to apply for the 2011 CLS Program is November 15, 2010.

Students in all disciplines, including business, engineering, law, medicine, sciences, and humanities are encouraged to apply. While there is no service requirement attached to CLS Program awards, participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

To access the online application, or for more information about the CLS Program, please visit the CLS website athttp://www.clscholarship.org or email cls@caorc.org.

Become famous reading Don Quixote!

The Real Academia Española wants to put the better part of Don Quixote up on YouTube.  To that end, it is enlisting the help of volunteers from around the world to sign up at their site to read pre-selected chunks and post them on the video site.  To find out more about it, read this article from the BBC.

** Bite-size Don Quixote on YouTube **
The Royal Spanish Academy invites the public to read a section from the 17th Century novel Don Quixote – and upload it to YouTube.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/world-europe-11449510 >

Entra a la Plaza

Come celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month on Friday night, September 24th at UP.

Spanish Language and Culture, Music, Traditional Food…

Hispanos Unidos

received this email from Vista Higher Learning, a foreign language book publisher.  If you are creative and have a talent for making videos, here is an opportunity to make some $$$.

Language Learning for Life

It’s that time of year again! Last year language students from colleges and universities around the country submitted fun and meaningful videos to Vista Higher Learning’s Language Learning for Life video contest.

Six lucky students won $500 to put toward things like study abroad opportunities and textbooks. Students, instructors, and the Vista team enjoyed the contest so much that we are holding it again this year! We will once again ask your students to make a video that demonstrates how they think language study will benefit their local community or the wider global community.

For contest details, and to watch last year’s winning videos, visit VistaHigherLearning.com/supportlanguages.

Best regards,
The Vista Higher Learning Team

Next Spring we are offering the following courses.  Click on the course number for more information.

• FLFR 440: ST France and the French, w/ Prof. Opsitch
• FLSP 353: Latin American Culture, w/ Dr. Walker
• FLSP 388: Advanced Spanish Conversation, w/ Dr. Brown
• FLSP 481: Hispanic Novel, w/ Dr. Walker
• INTS 499: International Studies Seminar, w/ Dr. Rall

Summer Spanish courses will be offered in Montevideo.

• FLSP 353: Latin American Culture, w/ Prof. Roggendorff
• FLSP 440: Literary Journey of the Southern Cone, w/ Prof. Roggendorff

Sigma Delta Pi

National Collegiate Hispanic

Honor Society

Omega Gamma Chapter

Abilene Christian University

Inauguration

^{Thursday, October 21st}

6:00 pm

Chapel on the Hill

Spanías Didagéi Proágomen

Prosigamos bajo la Inspiración de España

More info at the SPD blog

The Department of Foreign Languages is hosting the annual conference of the North American Christian Foreign Language Association (NACFLA).

Mark this date on your calendar: April 7-9, 2011. We are looking forward to having language professors from across the country on our campus to share their scholarship. We hope you students will join us in this time of learning and fellowship with other Christian scholars who have a love for languages and cultures.

There will be sessions for student presentations, so we encourage you to submit a proposal. The following link (http://nacfla.net/pConferences.aspx) contains a download link for the call for papers document and the abstract submission form. Please read the call for papers document carefully to see what the emphasis of the conference is and how to word your proposal.

Your professors will be glad to help you think about your ideas for a presentation and give you some guidance to help your proposal be accepted. Please ask us if you have any questions.

Here are some of the programs/resources for finding jobs abroad.  Many are teaching English, but there are others as well…

• The International School Service places educators all around the world.  Check out their link for teaching overseas.
• The Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages is an association for the teaching of English.   I’d check the links under their Career tab.
• The Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program helps place educators in Japan.  Looks like applications come out in October.
• The Jobsabroad.com website is a repository of links to programs that recruit and train people to work abroad.  Part of the goabroad.com website.
• Spain’s Consejería de educación recruits about 1,200 to 1,500 “Cultural Ambassadors” annually for a one year stint at a school teaching English and American culture.  Applications are posted in December, but you can log on at any time and start posting the required materials.

I will update this post if I find any new ones.  If you find other cool resources, please post them as a reply to this post.

Welcome!  ¡Bienvenidos!  Begrüßen Sie!!  Bienvenu! Benvenuto! 欢迎 добро пожаловать! ようこそ  Dê as boas-vindas! Welkom! 환영합니다 Ласкаво просимо!

This blog is for sharing information about anything which might be of interest to foreign language learning, international studies, and student and department news.  On the sidebar you can surf the site by category as well as get information on upcoming Dialektos and Advanced courses.

There are several things happening this year.

• Students are learning more languages this year than any other in recent memory: Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.  One student is even learning Farsi independently.
• Current students are in Montevideo, and alumni are living, working and even studying abroad in a variety of programs.
• The department will host the North American Christian Foreign Language Association’s Annual Conference, a retreat for majors, the founding of ACU’s chapter of Sigma Delta Pi (National Spanish Honors Society), and much more.

You can also find information on:

• Relevant study aids for the different languages and cultures
• Opportunities for service learning and volunteering
• Opportunities for presenting scholarly papers at conferences
• Membership for Sigma Delta Pi and professional associations
• The latest information and application forms for Dialektos, to study Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian.
• A forum for suggesting other languages the department should offer.
• And much, much more…

Announcements relevant to some of these things are already posted, while others are forthcoming.  Please bookmark this blog so you can come back regularly.