District News
School District receives Startalk grant to help expand critical languages
Seattle Public Schools has received a Startalk grant to continue its program of helping fluent speakers of the critical languages take courses to qualify for teaching certificates.
The critical languages are defined as: Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Farsi, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, and the Turkic languages.
Now in its 7th year, the program, through Pacific Lutheran University, has graduated 25 certificated teachers of Chinese, most of whom teach Chinese in various public and private schools throughout the state.
Startalk graduates teach Chinese at Franklin High School, Chief Sealth International High School, Denny International Middle School, West Seattle High School, and Beacon Hill International School.
The Startalk grant comes from the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland under the auspices of the National Security Language Initiative. The initiative seeks to expand and improve the teaching and learning of strategically important world languages that are not now widely taught in the United States.
Associated with this program is a half-day summer language camp for children. For more information, contact Betty Lau (belau@seattleschools.org).