"NCOLCTL'smission is to increase the number of Americans who choose to learn one or more of the less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) as a means of enhancing cross-cultural communication among citizens of the United States. NCOLCTL'swork focuses on the less commonly taught languages which are becoming increasingly vital to the security, economic, social and political welfare of the United States. NCOLCTLseeks to improve the teaching and learning of these languages and to make them more generally available. "

23 interesting maps and charts on language including: Indo-European language roots, The languages of Wikipedia, The language groups of the world, Romance languages, Linguistic diversity around the world, Countries mapped by number of languages, China's languages, Endangered languages, Who in Europe speaks English, How many languages Europeans speak, The second most popular language in US states, and others.

Source: VOX article by Dylan Matthews

About World Languages: "In 2005 as part of America’s celebration of the Year of Languages, The Technology Development Group initiated the development of a comprehensive website dedicated to the description of the world’s most populous and important languages as well as other relevant information about world languages and language study. The effort was led by Dr. Kathleen Egan and Dr. Irene Thompson and supported by (numerous) education and government agencies involved in foreign language initiatives. The project was intended to be part of an effort to educate the American public about the variety of the world’s languages, to get them excited about studying foreign languages, and to ultimately help create a more language-capable America ready to meet its pressing foreign language needs"

Click HEREto find the 2012 (current version) of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines for Speaking, Writing, Listening, and Reading made interactive through the inclusion of glossed terms and multimedia exemplars. 

You can explore the Guidelines by skill or by level, listen to and read samples in English that represent abilities at each of the major proficiency levels. - See more at: http://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/public/ACTFLProficiencyGuidelines2012_FINAL.pdf

See also the 

ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines - Language Samples

"American Association of Teachers of Arabic (AATA) aims to facilitate communication and cooperation between teachers of Arabic and to promote study, criticism, research and instruction in the field of Arabic language pedagogy, Arabic linguistics and Arabic literature. The information available here is a sampling of the materials available to AATA members. For information on joining, please click here"

 "The AATFis the only professional association devoted exclusively to the needs of French teachers at all levels. The mission of the AATFis to advance the study of the French language and French-speaking literatures and cultures both in schools and in the general public. Membership is open to anyone interested in the teaching of French who is over the age of 18."

The American Association of Teachers of German supports the teaching of the German language and German-speaking cultures in elementary, secondary and post-secondary education in the United States. The AATGpromotes the study of the German-speaking world in all its linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity, and endeavors to prepare students as transnational, transcultural learners and active, multilingual participants in a globalized world.

"The American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) is an international, non-profit, non-political organization of teachers, scholars, and students of Japanese language, literature, and linguistics, which works to promote study of the Japanese language at all levels of instruction in the field and to broaden and deepen knowledge and appreciation of Japan and its culture."

"The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese promotes the study and teaching of the Spanish and Portuguese languages and their corresponding Hispanic, Luso-Brazilian, and other related literatures and cultures at all levels of education."

The American Classical League was founded in 1919 for the purpose of fostering the study of classical languages in the United States and Canada. Membership is open to any person who is committed to the preservation and advancement of our classical inheritance from Greece and Rome.

Visit the ACL website for more information regarding: Teaching materials, job placement, scholarships, workshops, summer institutes, Classical Outlook (publication), ACL Newsletter, and sponsors other activities and instructor support.  Content from the American Classical League website.

Click herefor information on Cobb County School's Latin language program.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction. ACTFL is an individual membership organization of more than 12,000 language educators and administrators from elementary through graduate education, as well as government and industry.

- See more at: http://www.actfl.org/about-the-american-council-the-teaching-foreign-languages#sthash.F6LOHNdO.dpuf

"ASLTAis the only national organization dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching of ASL and Deaf Studies at all levels of instruction. ASLTAis an individual membership organization of more than 1,000 ASL and Deaf Studies educators from elementary through graduate education as well as agencies. The mission of the American Sign Language Teachers Association (ASLTA) is to preserve the integrity of American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Culture."

Student Self-Assessments

   The Student Self-Assessment documents provide students with a checklist of sample tasks that show how they can use language and how it is related to specific language skills.  The Student Self-Assessments are based on the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL) LinguaFolio® project. The Student Self-Assessment documents can be downloaded in two separate formats: by language mode and domain or by language proficiency level.   

 By Proficiency Level

Novice Low	Novice Mid	Novice High
Intermediate Low	Intermediate Mid	Intermediate High
Advanced Low	Advanced Mid	Advanced High

 Intercultural Competencies

Novice	Intermediate	Advanced

By Language mode and Domain

Interpersonal Communication	Presentational Speaking	Presentational Writing	Interpretive Listening	Interpretive Reading

Assessment Templates

 The assessment templates provide an easy framework to create assessment tasks for specific domains, proficiency levels, and topics.

Interpersonal Speaking	Interpersonal Writing	Interpretive Listening	Interpretive Reading	Presentational Speaking	Presentational Writing

Audacity is a great free audio recorder and editor. It is available in multiple languages and for various computer platforms. Audacity lets you record in multiple channels (stereo), import, export, mix, edit, and convert all of your audio files. Audacity is already installed on all CCSD teacher computers, click hereif you want to dowload it for your home computer.

Bilingual Vocabulary Quizzes: These quizzes are newly generated by the Internet TESL Journal's computer program from a list bilingual equivalents each time the quiz is taken. The program randomly chooses one word from the target language and randomly chooses one of the five choice locations to put the other language's equivalent. The remaining four choices are filled in randomly from other words on the list. Students can review the same vocabulary over and over without becoming bored since each time a quiz is taken the questions will be different.

The www.biography.com website provides teachers with a resource about the life of people from different cultures and countries. 

"The Center for Applied Linguistics is a private, nonprofit organization promoting access,
equity and mutual understanding for linguistically and culturally diverse people around the world."

For more information, visit: http://www.cal.org/

CULTRis a partnership of the Departments of Modern and Classical Languages and the Department of Applied Linguistics/ESL in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Division of Learning Technologies in the College of Education, in collaboration with the Center for Instructional Innovation.

The Title VI Center for Urban Language Teaching and Research at Georgia State University endeavors to enhance the opportunities of urban and underrepresented students to achieve the language proficiency and cultural competence required for success in the modern global marketplace.

CULTR is a National Language Resource Center focused on Professional development opportunities for teachers. Advocating for language opportunities for ALL learners. Creation and dissemination of innovative learning tools and methods. Research into retention of language teachers and development of targeted workshops.

"While Chinese language instruction has long been a part of the American education system, it has mainly been confined to the university and post undergraduate levels as part of special fields such as literature or history. It is only in the past two decades that instruction of Chinese has been extended to high schools, junior high schools, and even elementary schools. CLASSwas one of the principal organizations involved in the development of the national standards for foreign language learning. CLASSbears a primary responsibility to nurture and in-service K-12 Chinese teachers.CLASScontinues to forge collaborations and form new partnerships with other professional organizations."

“Chinese Tea: Elixir of the Orient” takes viewers to China to explore how tea became an integral part in forming the country’s culture as well as being thought of as its signature drink.

Es GPB Original and other producnjoy thitions at: http://www.gpb.org/

District Collaborative Communities

Cobb's District Collaborative Communities allow every Cobb World Language teacher to actively engage in participating in a content specific Collaborative Community no matter of their school location. Teachers are highly encouraged to participate in one of the district wide language specific CCCs based on your language and level. Each language team has a common repository of resources, chat platform, and a meeting platform. This resource allows teachers to communicate synchonously through Skype or asynchronously via chat.

Click on the on the language group’s name or following the hyperlink to access your specific team (Cobb Teachers only)

American Sign Language		Chinese	French	German	Japanese	Latin	Portuguese	Spanish	Dual Language Immersion
Cluster Teams
East
	Campbell	Hillgrove	Lassiter	Pebblebrook	Pope	Sprayberry	Walton	Wheeler
West
	Allatoona	McEachern	Harrison	North Cobb	Kell	Osborne	Kennesaw Mountain	South Cobb

This webinar presented by David S. Squires and sponsored by ISTEand Microsoft shows teachers how to build a collaborative classroom using Microsoft OneNote. 

For more information on how to use OneNote go to the OneNote for Teachers website

MultiTree is a digital library of language relatioships. "MultiTree presents scholarly hypotheses about language relationships and subgroupings in a user-friendly database that is integrated with other LINGUIST List projects, providing access to a wealth of information." Source: http://new.multitree.org/about

Draw.iois a web based diagramming application that allows users to create diagrams and export them to Google Drive ,OneDrive and Dropbox in multiple formats.

This Playlist is part of the Easy Languages channel on You tube that presents language usage in context.

Click here to see all the videos on the Easy Arabic Playlist.