In May 2022, Xiaoning Chen, assistant professor, and Jason Stegemoller, associate professor, received notice that NLU has been awarded the STARTALK year-round teacher training grant. STARTALK is a federal grant program funded by the National Security Agency.
Dr. Chen and Dr. Stegemoller serve as Co-Principal Investigators. The project is titled NLU Pathways to Teacher Certification. The grant provides alternative entries for individuals to obtain the Illinois Professional Educator’s License (PEL) and teach Chinese for K-12. This program will be conducted virtually which includes 135 hours of instruction. It will focus on ensuring that participants enter the teaching profession as effective Chinese language teachers with the pedagogy and strategies to plan, deliver, and assess instruction.
Another goal of the program is to help participants to apply STARTALK and TESOL principles in planning culturally responsive instruction and assessment, with opportunities to observe/analyze mentor teachers' teaching. The curriculum is designed and taught by NLU faculty and experienced Chinese language teachers with expertise on second language acquisition, visual literacy, world language education, teacher education training, and rich field experience. Participants will receive a 3-credit hour graduate level course that counts toward NLU's Master in Teaching degree, IL Professional Educator License & ESL/Bilingual Education endorsement upon completing the program.
The NLU StarTalk website has also officially launched. For more information, you can visit: https://sites.google.com/view/nlu-startalk/home
Original source can be found here.
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