This program provides grants for establishing, strengthening, and operating centers that serve as resources for improving the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages through teacher training, research, materials development, and dissemination projects.

• Research and dissemination of new and improved teaching methods, including educational technology;
• Development and dissemination of new teaching materials;
• Development, application, and dissemination of performance testing;
• Training of teachers in the administration and interpretation of performance tests, the use of effective teaching strategies, and the use of new technologies;
• Significant focus on the needs of those who are teaching and learning the less commonly taught languages;
• Development and dissemination of materials designed to serve as a resource for foreign language teachers at the elementary school and secondary school levels; and
• Operation of intensive summer language institutes.

The LRC competition is held once every four years. The next anticipated competition will be in fiscal year 2014.

The grant provides four years of funding.

The average annual grant amount is $335,000.

There is no cost-sharing or matching requirement for this program.

Grant recipients are required to submit an interim report in the fall and an annual performance report in the spring through the International Resource Information System (IRIS). Grantees are expected to report on the following categories:

• Objectives and Accomplishments
• Adjustments to Project
• Exemplary Activities
• Priorities
• International Travel
• Budget – Use of Funds and Expected Use
• Projects Conducted
• Adoption of Outcomes
• Publications
• Outreach Activities
• Sources of Funding

All funded projects must have an evaluation plan for their grant and report on evaluation activities in accordance with that plan through the International Resource Information System (IRIS).

The evaluation plan should discuss goals, objectives, performance measures to monitor progress, data gathering techniques, funding, and personnel. Activities should focus on both formative and summative evaluation. The formative evaluation will provide feedback to you on your progress in meeting goals and objectives and reveal areas for improvement. The summative evaluation should focus on outcomes and should be completed by an independent evaluator that does not have a relationship with your project.

Yes. The Department will use the following measures to evaluate the success of the LRC program:

Performance Measure 1: Number of outreach activities that are adopted or disseminated within a year, divided by the total number of LRC outreach activities conducted in the current reporting period.

Performance Measure 2: Percentage of Language Resource Centers projects judged to be successful by the program officer, based on a review of information provided in annual performance reports.

Efficiency Measure: Cost per high-quality, successfully-completed Language Resource Centers project.

• Hosting teacher training workshops
• Hosting intensive summer language institutes
• Developing workbooks and text books for less commonly taught languages
• Creating and implementing online language-learning materials
• Developing new tools for language assessment and evaluation

Any announcements regarding the next competition will be posted on the LRC programmatic Web site at www.ed.gov/programs/iegpslrc/applicant.html. This information will likely become available in the fall or winter of 2013.

The LRCs are very tech-savvy centers that provide substantive information and resources via their center’s Web site. Many of the centers provide free online language-learning materials, as well as subscriptions to the centers’ newsletters. The most comprehensive place to learn more about the centers is the joint LRC Web site at http://nflrc.msu.edu/. This Web site provides links to all the centers, as well as information regarding products, resources, institutes, and workshops. Especially helpful is the interactive calendar that tracks activities such as conferences, symposiums, workshops, calls for papers, and presentations.

The LRC program contact is Cynthia Dudzinski. She can be reached via e-mail or telephone at cynthia.dudzinski@ed.gov or (202) 502-7589.

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