IU gets a new national center for Central Asian languages

New resources for Pashto, Tajik, Turkmen, Uyghur and Uzbek to be developed initially

The center, to be funded under a Title VI grant totaling $1.5 million over a four-year period, has as its initial mission the development of proficiency-oriented language and culture curricular materials for five languages: Pashto (Afghanistan), Tajik (Tajikistan), Turkmen (Turkmenistan), Uyghur (Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xingjian Province, northwestern China) and Uzbek (Uzbekistan) at introductory and intermediate levels. The new center will be directed by William Fierman, associate professor and director of IU’s Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC).

The CAAALRC will assemble teams of native speakers with applied linguistics and language teaching experience to develop curricular materials in collaboration with second language acquisition researchers specialized in computer-assisted language learning. It also will draw upon IU resources in IAUNRC, applied linguistics, the IUB Department of Central Eurasian Studies, and the departments of Language Education and Instructional Systems Technology at the School of Education. Pashto and Uyghur are the two languages to be worked on in the first year of the grant. The goal is to produce integrated sets of language learning materials, including students’ manuals, teachers’ guides and interactive CD-ROMs for supplemental communicative language activities.

After the initial four years, the new IU center expects to apply for additional funding to develop materials for other languages such as Azeri (Azerbaijan), Kazakh (Kazakhstan), and Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstan).

Central Eurasia—home of some of the world’s greatest art, epic literature and fabled empires—is the vast heartland that extends from Central Europe to East Asia and from Siberia to the Himalayas. With this area now taking on vital national and global dimensions, Congress approved an unprecedented 26 percent increase in funding for 2002 to support international studies programs nationwide. Special funds were allocated to establish three new Title VI national language resource centers in addition to the nine currently administered by the U.S. Department of Education. Five of those already are located at IU. The new resource centers will be devoted to three regions deemed critical to national needs: Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia.

These highly competitive Title VI grants and fellowships have been crucial in helping U.S. institutions of higher education to establish and maintain national resource centers of excellence in foreign language and area or international studies.

“Title VI has been in the forefront of funding for international research and teaching,” said Patrick O’Meara, IU dean for international programs, “and continues to have a major influence on national thinking about strategic world areas.”

National defense during the Cold War spurred initial funding. In September 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the momentous national Defense Education Act (NDEA), a piece of legislation that forever bound together national security and global educational pursuit. The new funding infrastructure would set the stage for providing language acquisition and world area studies training to students, at the same time providing for the training of teachers of languages and cultures for future generations. In April 1998, the IU Office of International Programs brought together academics, ambassadors, legislators, international foundation executives and others for the 40th anniversary of the enactment of NDEA Title VI legislation. Many of the notables, including IU alumnus James Collins, U.S. ambassador to Russia, had benefitted from opportunities for international education during student years. Collins spoke to the assemblage in a live videocast and responded to conferee questions from his offices in Moscow. Read more at this HP archival site:

http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/homepages/050898/text/title6.htm