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Building High School Foreign Language Programs: The Illinois State University Outreach Project
Author(s) -
Pontillo James J.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
foreign language annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1944-9720
pISSN - 0015-718X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1944-9720.1983.tb01962.x
Subject(s) - outreach , foreign language , metropolitan area , state (computer science) , point (geometry) , mathematics education , work (physics) , order (exchange) , sociology , political science , pedagogy , psychology , business , geography , computer science , engineering , mathematics , archaeology , algorithm , finance , law , mechanical engineering , geometry
In order to strengthen foreign language instruction on all levels it is imperative that colleges and universities amplify their activities in order to help area elementary and secondary school foreign language teachers in their work. The direction that such outreach activities should take must be planned in cooperation with the teachers themselves, who, in the final analysis, are the best judges of what they need. Central Illinois contains a number of small, mainly rural, and fairly isolated, school districts. Even in the cities, the number of foreign language teachers is small, and contact with foreign culture relatively low in comparison with other areas of the country and even with the more densely populated metropolitan areas of the state. In 1981, the Department of Foreign Languages of Illinois State University, desiring to help raise the level of foreign language instruction in the region and to offer support and assistance to area foreign language teachers, instituted a six‐point outreach program. While some of the elements of this program are tailored to the regional situation, the method by which it was developed and the individual elements thereof may serve as a model for other institutions interested in instituting similar local programs.