Amerispan Actfl Fair in Philadephia

ACTFL is an acronym that stands for American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. The aim of this organization is to provide a way of testing the ability of foreign language speakers. The language levels are broken down into four sections: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Superior. In turn, these four sections are subdivided into three smaller segments: Low, Mid and High. Students are tested on four different areas of study: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. Thus, some students may reach the advanced level in reading and writing while staying at a lower level in listening and speaking.
The latest ACTFL Annual Convention took place in Philadelphia, the largest city of Pennsylvania, between the 16th and the 18th November 2012. ACTFL has partnered with numerous foreign language schools in order to be able to offer a selection of study abroad scholarships to its members. For example, the IMAC Spanish Language Programs Scholarship consists of four weeks worth of Spanish language tuition in Guadalajara, Mexico while the Cemanhuac Educational Community Scholarship comprises two weeks worth of Spanish language tuition, housing, meals and one educational field trip.
STARTALK is part of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) as declared by former president of the United States, George W. Bush. The NSLI-Y provides scholarships for eligible high school students to learn less commonly taught languages in overseas immersion programs. STARTALK’s mission is to increase the number of Americans learning, speaking, and teaching foreign languages by offering teachers and students a partial scholarship to study one of the three languages listed below:
1. Russian – 5th most spoken language in the world with 277 million speakers
2. Arabic – 6th most spoken language in the world with 246 million speakers
3. Chinese – 1st most spoken language in the world with 1 billion + speakers
The upcoming ACTFL Annual Convention is taking place between the 22nd and the 24th November 2013 in Orlando, Florida. More than 250 companies will be displaying their most recent products and services for students and teachers of foreign languages. Harvard University graduate, Dr Wagner, will deliver the keynote speech to set the underlying tone of the convention and summarize the core message of the event. In the past, Dr Wagner has worked as a university professor and a high school teacher. Nowadays, he is a highly sought after educational advisor in the United States and beyond. Dr Wagner has written numerous articles and five books. He will be signing copies of his latest published works: “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” following his keynote speech.
Since its 2004 convention in Chicago, Illinois, ACTFL have declared its reason for existing is to provide “vision, leadership and support” for “quality teaching and learning of languages”.