IU to teach Afghan languages

IU is slated to receive approximately $1.5 million from August 2002 to July 2006 to develop language learning materials for five languages spoken in or near Afghanistan. The languages include Pashto (Afghanistan), Tajik (Tajikistan), Turkmen (Turkmenistan), Uyghur (Uyghur autonomous region of Xiangjian province, northwestern China) and Uzbek (Uzbekistan).\nThe introductory and intermediate language materials will be developed under the auspices of the new Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan Language Resource Center, which will be funded by a Title VI U.S. Department of Education grant.\nThe grant might increase student interest in Central Asian languages on campus even further than has already occurred, according to Martha Nyikos, associate professor and language education chair.\nIndeed, enrollments in Central Asian languages in the Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European and Central Asian Languages (SWSEEL) have increased by 100 percent, said Jerzy Kolodziej, SWSEEL director and slavic languages and literatures assistant professor. \n"In fact, for the first time in our history of teaching the languages of Central Asia, we have been put into the position of putting a cap on first-year Uzbek enrollments at 15," Kolodziej said.\nThe reasons for the increase, Kolodziej said, can only be speculated.\n"Basically I would say that the areas in which these languages are spoken have been very prominent in the news," he said. "The areas are remote, largely unknown to Americans, and, like Russia a few decades ago, exotic. This is an exciting region for curious students, both undergraduates and graduates, to investigate."\nThe other factor sparking the raise in enrollment, Kolodziej attributes to economic factors.\n"As our government and businesses increase their operations in these areas, the need for speakers of the languages spoken in the Central Asian region and for trained specialists increases dramatically," he said.\n25 institutions applied, and 12 institutions received the grant. The grant is part of the Department of Education Language Resource Centers Program, which "provides assistance to establish, strengthen and operate centers that serve as resources for improving the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages."\n"I think if you look around the country, there are no other universities that have centers specialized for Central Asia," said Roxanna Newman, language resource coordinator for the grant and assistant dean of international programs. "There are other universities with programs studying those regions, but no specialized centers."\nThe center will assemble teams of native speakers with applied linguistics and language teaching experience to develop curricular materials in collaboration with second-language acquisition researchers specialized in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Newman said. \n"We want to provide both book materials and CD-ROM materials, which are a richer, more interactive teaching environment than books alone," she said.\nNo formal appointments have been made yet, said Bill Johnston, chief applied linguist for the grant and assistant professor of applied linguistics. But the center will eventually draw upon resources in the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, applied linguistics, Central Eurasian studies (CEUS), language education and instructional systems technology. \nFor example, Anna Jacobson, graduate student in language education, will work as a CALL specialist with teachers creating materials for the center. \n"Eventually, my dissertation topic will be related to the grant, but as I haven't solidified my dissertation plans, I really am at a very early stage in my involvement with this grant all around," she said.\nThe languages to be worked on in the first year of the grant will be Pashto and Uyghur. \n"We're starting with the most difficult situations," Johnston said. "Those two languages have the least amount of material available. We thought it would be good to start with a clean slate, to be able to develop language materials without being restricted by what already exists."\nThe center will be directed by William Fierman, CEUS associate professor and director of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center.\nThe grant is a very prestigious award, Johnston said. \n"In many ways, it validates the work that has already been done here (at IU) at a time when the region was not so prominent in world politics," he said.