Richard Lambert is editor of a special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science entitled “New Directions in International Education.”

“The Tongue-Tied American:Confronting the Foreign Language Crisis”, written by Rep. Paul Simon, galvanizes American educators by presenting “a convincing case for strengthening our national security as well as our economy by eliminating our linguistic wasteland.” [Publisher’s Weekly.]

Points of Leverage: An Agenda for a National Foundation for International Studies is published by Richard Lambert. This publication presented the argument for establishing the NFLC.

The NFLC is established at the School for Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, with Richard Lambert as its founding director.

The NFLC’s Institute of Advanced Studies is established, made possible by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to support research to improve the teaching of foreign languages.

Cultural Literacy by E. D. Hirsch is published as an attempt to specify core knowledge for educated American citizens. The book stimulates controversy but sets off an energetic rethinking of language and area studies training for State Department foreign service officers.

Richard Lambert is editor of a special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science entitled “Foreign Language Instruction:A National Agenda.”

The National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages is established under the auspices of the NFLC with support from the Ford Foundation.

Richard Lambert and Sarah J. Moore edit a special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science entitled “Foreign Language in the Workplace.”

“Foreign Language Planning in the United States,” an NFLC occasional paper, is published by Richard Lambert, arguing for more centralized policy-making decisions in US language education.

“Expanding the Vision of Foreign Language Education:Enter the Less Commonly Taught Languages,” an NFLC occasional paper, is published by A. Ronald Walton to advocate a broadened focus for world language education in the United States.

The NFLC hosts a discussion forum to address foreign language planning and to examine how the United States can meet the growing requirements in this area. This forum resulted in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, “Scaling the Language Barrier.”

“National Strategic Planning in the Less Commonly Taught Languages,” an NFLC occasional paper, is published by Richard Brecht and A. Ronald Walton calling for a shift away from the almost exclusive focus on Western European languages in the nation’s schools to a new policy emphasizing the development of substantive capacity in less commonly taught languages.

Language Planning around the World:Contexts and Systemic Change is published by the NFLC. Richard Lambert is the editor.

Richard Lambert is special editor of Vol. 532 of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on “Foreign Language Policy:An Agenda for Change.”

The Mellon Adjunct Fellows program is established by the NFLC. Former Mellon fellows extend their relationship with the NFLC by working on NFLC activities.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages coordinates the development and publication of the first edition of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning:Preparing for the 21st Century.

The Language Mission Project is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation to reevaluate the objectives and practices of language teaching and learning at the undergraduate level.

The Evaluation of Exchange, Language, and International Area Studies is funded by the US Department of Education, leading to the development of a web-based data reporting and tracking system for Title VI grantees.

Content-Based Instruction:Defining Terms, Making Decisions, is published by Myriam Met in an NFLC report on advances in K–12 language education.

The LangSource project is funded by the US Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. LangSource is a searchable, annotated bibliographic database of language and culture resources.

The NFLC affiliates with the University of Maryland and moves its offices to College Park, MD.

The monograph Language and National Security in the 21st Century: The Role of Title VI/Fulbright-Hays in Supporting National Language Capacity is published by Richard Brecht and William Rivers. The publication is supported by a Department of Education grant.

The LangNet program is developed by the NFLC as part of a federal interagency initiative. LangNet is a state-of-the-art online foreign language learning and maintenance system for advanced language learners.

Language and National Security: The Federal Role in Building Language Capacity in the U.S. is published by Richard Brecht and William Rivers.

The first Heritage Language Conference is held in Long Beach, CA, with sponsorship by the NFLC and the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Recursos para la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje de las Culturas Hispanas (REACH), a language and culture project for heritage learners of Spanish, is completed by the NFLC.

The second Heritage Language Conference is held in Vienna, VA, with sponsorship by the NFLC and the Center for Applied Linguistics.

The NFLC’s Language Access Initiative commences, ultimately leading to the establishment in 2013 of a masters degree program in Interpreting and Translation at the University of Maryland.

LangSource expansion is funded by the US Department of Education to expand the database materials for students in grades K–12.

The NFLC receives a US Department of Education International Research and Studies grant to develop and publish online collections of LangNet-based learning modules to develop novice and intermediate level reading skills among high school learners of Mandarin Chinese.

The NFLC begins the initial planning phase for the STARTALK program.

The report National Capacity in Language and Area Studies, Post 9/11: An Evaluation of the Impact of Title VI/Fulbright-Hays of the Higher Education Act is published by the NFLC in collaboration with staff at the Center for Advanced Study of Language.

The STARTALK program, an NSA-funded initiative, is launched by the NFLC; it is designed to increase the number of K–16 students learning Arabic and Chinese and to provide professional development opportunities to teachers of Arabic and Chinese.

STARTALK continues funding summer K–12 language learning programs, with the addition of Hindi, Persian, and Urdu.

A new Title-VI International Research and Studies grant is funded by the US Department of Education to develop and publish online collections of modules for the development of novice and intermediate reading skills among high school learners of Modern Standard Arabic and to add to the previously developed Read Chinese! materials.

The NFLC receives a five-year contract to continue administration of the STARTALK program; two new languages are added: Swahili and Turkish.

Chaired by NFLC Director Catherine Ingold, a Maryland governor’s task force prepares a report entitled Preservation of Heritage Language Skills in Maryland.

NFLC is awarded the Analyst Learning Link contract to continue developing language maintenance materials and for the first time non-language related materials.

The report Building the Foreign Language Capacity We Need:Toward a Comprehensive Strategy for a National Language Framework is published by Frederick Jackson from the NFLC and Margaret Malone from the Center for Applied Linguistics.

A national conference entitled Alternative Routes to World Language Teacher Certification is hosted by the NFLC.

Dari and Russian are added to the STARTALK program, bringing the total number of STARTALK languages to nine.

NFLC Director Catherine Ingold and Director of Outreach Betsy Hart contribute “Taking the ‘L’ out of LCTLs:The STARTALK Experience” to a special edition of the Russian Language Journal honoring Richard Brecht. 

The white paper “The Teachers We Need:Transforming World Language Education in the United States” is published by Catherine Ingold and Shuhan Wang of the National Foreign Language Center; Resource Guide to Developing Linguistic and Cultural Competency in the United States is published online.

The NFLC celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary with an all-day conference of leaders in language education and training, representing state, local, and national government agencies; business and commerce; and academic institutions.

Portuguese becomes the 10th language added to the STARTALK program.

The NFLC begins delivering thousands of items used in high stakes language proficiency tests.

With the support of the National Security Education Program (NESP), the portal gathers together all of the language content developed by the NFLC in over 100 languages and dialects.

Korean is the 11th language added to the STARTALK program.

STARTALK ONLINE PROGRAMS HELP INFORMATION EVENTS

The custom-built application manages proposal submission and review, program curriculum development, site visits, reports, and more.

The NFLC celebrates 10 years of administering the STARTALK program.

The NFLC is awarded the Lemonzest contract that support continued language maintenance materials.

The NFLC completes development of its first mobile application targeting smartphones and tablets with modern web technologies.

The NFLC develops a series of classroom activities as a free online resource for language teachers.

Professionals in Education Advancing Research and Language Learning (PEARLL), a Title VI Center, seeks to create a common vision for high-quality world language learning and develop new models of professional development and support materials for language educators.

The NFLC begins developing virtual reality applications designed to support language practice in Russian. 

In partnership with a Maryland small business, the NFLC begins development of ODYSSea, a virtual reality experience for novice-level secondary school students of foreign languages, conceptualized as an immersive escape room-inspired adventure quest.

The NFLC begins face-to-face advanced language training.

The three-day event brought together over 7,000 world language educators from all over the US and the world to participate in a variety of professional learning experiences designed to challenge current mindsets while exploring new content and gaining insights on what is possible in today’s world language classrooms. The archived recordings from the featured speakers, the student panels and the recorded sessions from the five regionals CSCTFL, NECTFL, PNCFL, SCOLT, SWCOLT as well as ACTFL are available on the NFLC YouTube channel.

The NFLC launches four new teacher program types. Programs postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic are delivered in a mix of on-site, online, and hybrid formats.

Lectia, a free language learning app is released in the Apple app store. The initial release includes lessons in Arabic, Chinese, French, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Spanish.