STARTALK Grant Announced by Dr. Chen and Dr. Stegemoller

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 will serve as Co-Principal Investigators. The project is titled NLU Pathways to Teacher Certification. The grant provides alternative entries for individuals who are interested in obtaining the Illinois Professional Educator License (PEL) and teaching Chinese in Grades K-12 settings.
 
In alignment with the STARTALK goal to increase highly effective critical language teachers, NLU’s project plans to recruit and support up to 20 prospective teachers to address the critical need for Chinese language programs in the U.S. The program will be conducted as a virtual program, which includes 135 hours of instruction in pre-, during, and post-institute from Spring 2023 to Spring 2024. Participants will receive a 3-credit hour graduate level course that counts toward the NCE’s MAT programs and IL ESL/Bilingual Education endorsement coursework upon completing the program. The program 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.