What Will the Initiative Accomplish?

The need for an ambitious effort to promote the value of language learning is clear.  Such learning offers social, cultural, academic and workplace benefits that will serve students all their lives.  Americans live and compete in a world of diverse cultures and races, a world where competence in more than one language is an essential part of communication and understanding.  Our ability to understand and be understood by other nationalities can only enhance our own national security.  We do business with many countries and we rely on their citizens as consumers of U.S.-produced goods and services.  Just as important, our country welcomes new citizens from diverse cultures from many nations.  We live, work and play with such 'new Americans' and our ability to understand their diverse cultural and social backgrounds is key to our expanded role as citizens of the international community.  We must be able to communicate with and learn from all people for whom English is not a native language.  Finally, the disciplines learned during the study of languages and literature endow language learners with cognitive, analytical and communication skills that carry over into many other areas of their academic studies and future success.  That success, in fact, will deliver valuable dividends to the businesses and organizations for which they work.

American businesses will support this initiative because of their growing demand for multilingual employees at home and abroad, while young people as well as adults will discover that proficiency in other languages beyond English opens the door to broader educational options and vastly expanded career opportunities. 

In 2005,The Year of Languages initiative marked the first step in laying the foundation for the future of world language education in the United States.  The impact of national attention to this issue along with the thousands of celebrations around the country organized by language educators, served to start building the momentum toward a national call for more language programs in schools.

Beginning in 2006, the Discover Languages...Discover the World! campaign will continue the 2005 momentum with a sustained public awareness campaign that will continue for years to come.  To that end, the focus of the Discover Languages efforts will be in a number of areas:

• Launching a sustained media campaign that will yield continued attention and public awareness for years to come.  
• Promoting and participating in the development of a national policy on foreign language education, one that raises the visibility and importance of language learning.
• Encouraging and supporting research on all aspects of language learning.
• Establishing a national foundation for language education innovation, for scholarships for those seeking to be language educators, and to provide a forum for sharing important programs and ideas.
• Promoting and participating in curriculum change through collaboration between national, state and local educators and government leaders.
• Focusing on the recruitment and retention of highly qualified language teaching force.
• Building professional unity on national language issues, bringing together the various constituencies in language education and encouraging collaborative advocacy.

 The Discover Languages campaign will be highlighted by activities not only in schools across the country, but in legislative houses and community venues as well.  ACTFL and related organizations will offer guidelines and products for use by schools and local organizations to plan special events for the purpose of increasing interest in language programs throughout the school year.  Promotional kits containing in-school special event suggestions, prototypes for proclamations for local governments to officially recognize the celebration, and sample press releases for local media promotion will be sent to school administrators.  These activities will be conducted throughout the year but, in particular, during the month of February which has been designated as Discover Languages month.  ACTFL will promote the Discover Languages...Discover the World! campaign to national general interest and education media outlets.  ACTFL will also offer a variety of items and brochures to distribute to students and parents promoting the value of language learning.
 
The success and long-term impact of theDiscover Languages campaign will rely heavily on the support and involvement of local foreign language teachers, guidance counselors and school administrators.  These educators are on the front lines and have ready access to the students, parents and members of the broader community whom this effort is designed to reach.  The leadership of ACTFL will seek the help of all foreign language educators, both association members and non-members, to participate in this campaign that will benefit students and language programs throughout the United States.  No less important will be the support and sponsorship of those who will most benefit from the positive results of this campaign.  Companies that rely on foreign trade, businesses that need future employees with greater multi-lingual skills and multi-cultural understanding, and government organizations that must have greater communication skills with other countries all should play a role in ensuring the success of theDiscover Languages campaign.  But there are also substantial benefits that await members of the broader community.  All Americans can experience life-long learning not only through language study programs, but from interacting with the many diverse populations in our community whose backgrounds and cultures have roots throughout the world.