International Education

Goal for International Education in Delaware: Produce better informed, more engaged, and more internationally competent citizens in our communities. Such engagement comes through education. International Education provides the information, perspective and decision-making tools needed in an increasingly interdependent world. ( K-20 International Education Capacity Study)

Delaware Department of Education Framework for International Education International Education provides Delaware students with a developmentally appropriate set of experiences and a broader context in which to actively participate in a multicultural society and global workforce. International Education in Delaware inspires students to explore beyond their state and country by providing them with:

1. Knowledge of world regions and international issues;
2. Skills in communicating in languages other than English and working with information from a variety of world-wide sources;
3. Cultural perspectives for comparison of worldviews, dispositions and attitudes;
4. International experiences to exchange information with peers around the world.

Governor’s World Language Expansion Initiative – 2012 (COHORT 2)

World language capacity is crucial to Delaware in order for the state to maintain and strengthen its domestic economy. Governor Jack Markell has spoken publicly about the importance of young Delawareans learning a world language, saying that Delaware graduates who enter the job market without the ability to speak a world language other than English are at a significant disadvantage. The Governor’s World Language Expansion Initiative proposes an aggressive world language education plan that prepares Delaware students with the language skills to compete in an ever-changing global economy at home and around the world. In essence, Delaware will begin to graduate globally-competent students with advanced-level proficiency in languages, giving them an economic advantage in the multilingual and multicultural workforce of the 21st century. A part of this initiative involves beginning immersion programs in kindergarten in elementary schools across the state. Schools interested in being a part of this initiative in Cohort 2 should complete an application to the Delaware Department of Education. The due date is Friday, October 26.

How Delaware School Districts and Charter Schools Can Prepare a Globally-Competent Workforce

Building global competence into all K-12 schools throughout a district is a complex process that requires the engagement of the education, government, and business sectors, in addition to nonprofit, community, and parent organizations. But it can—and has—been done in districts throughout the country. The specific shape of any international education initiative will depend on the district’s education structures and resources. Here is some advice from districts that have already gone global to help you build a foundation with district and community stakeholders, as well as ensure you have the teacher support to make it happen.

Summer Overseas Language Immersion Programs for High School Students

The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) is part of a broader government-wide presidential initiative that prepares American citizens to be leaders in a global world. NSLI-Y, sponsored by the US Department of State, provides merit-based scholarships for eligible American high school students to learn less commonly taught languages (Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian and Turkish) in summer overseas immersion programs. NSLI-Y encourages young Americans with a passion for learning languages to apply for this program. Start your application now.

Which Languages are Most Valuable for Delaware Students to Learn to be Globally Economically Competitive?

Mandarin, China’s official tongue, is also the top language worldwide for business other than English, according to Bloomberg Rankings. Mandarin, spoken by 845 million people, scored highest in a ranking of languages, excluding English, based on business usefulness. The ranking scored languages according to the number of speakers, number of countries where the language is official, along with those nations’ populations, financial power, educational and literacy rates, and related measures. French, spoken by 68 million people worldwide and the official language of 27 countries, was ranked second, followed by Arabic, which is spoken by 221 million people and is official in 23 nations. Mandarin is unlikely to supplant English soon as the primary language of business, said Leigh Hafrey, a senior lecturer in communications and ethics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. Download a copy of the Bloomberg’s Most Useful Business Languages.

National Imperative for World Language Learning

Delaware, like other states across the US, understands that having advanced-level world language skills is crucial for economic competitiveness. The best school systems in the world focus on learning other languages. They know that this investment translates into future success in the global economy.

Building International Partnerships

A goal of the DDOE’s International Education Framework is to promote opportunities for all Delaware students to have international experiences to exchange information with their peers around the world. One excellent example of this type of international exchange of information is happening at William Penn High School where three teachers in three very different subjects have organized exchanges with three different schools in France. Ms. Andea LaCombe, William Penn’s French teacher, has been working with le Lycée François Ier in Fontainbleau, France on physical student exchanges to provide real-life opportunities for her students to speak French with native French speakers. The art teacher, Ms. Kim Davis, has developed a partnership with the art teacher at le Lycée Mathelin Berthelot that allows their students to create works of art, scan them and critique each others’ creations using the elements of art and principles of design. Mr. Christopher Welborn, physics teacher, has partnered with members of the science department at the Lycée Jehan de Chelles so that their physics students could collaborate in a project to measure the earth while completing complex lab experiences via Skype. For more information on how to build your own exchange program, click here. For additional steps for students, teachers, and school leaders on how to build successful school-to-school partnerships, click here.

Preparing Delaware Students for Jobs in the Global Age

In Delaware, World Language learning is about jobs! How do we prepare students for jobs that may not exist yet? Heidi Hayes Jacobs discusses what this may look like in terms of developing digital literacy and global literacy. Click the following for a free download of Educating for Global Competence: Preparing our Youth to Engage in the World.

What’s Global about the Common Core?

See how the skill development and acquisition of core content needed to develop globally competent citizens comes together with the rigorous skills and core content needed for college and careers. For free downloads of the following documents, click on Educating For Global Competence, Global Competence and English Language Artsand Global Competency and Math.

Career and Technical Education for a Global Age

The need for global competence is increasing in all career clusters. Through career and technical education, students are able to pursue areas of interest, earn technical credentials and licenses, and often earn college credit for much of the advanced coursework. This is no longer vocational education that was considered a pathway for the non-college bound. It is now a cutting-edge program, often linked to state workforce trends and offering post-secondary pathways for students to both colleges and technical training institutes. International competencies and multilingual skills are becoming more important to students in all career pathways.

Delaware Lighthouse Chinese Partnership: A STARTALK Summer Program for Teachers of Early Language Learners 2012

The Cape Henlopen School District in partnership with the University of Delaware College of Education, the Delaware Department of Education and the Chinese School of Delaware are pleased to present the Delaware Lighthouse Chinese Partnership: A STARTALK Summer Program of Early Language Learning. This opportunity offers the optimal setting for learning the methods and instructional strategies that promote high levels of proficiency in early language learning and for the observation of these Chinese best practices under the guidance of expert teachers and nationally recognized world language experts. A two week children’s camp is also offered at Shields Elementary in the Cape Henlopen School District, July 30-August 10: Cape’s Chinese Summer Camp for grades K-8.

US Schools Forge International Connections Online

American students are teaming up via the web with classrooms around the world to learn valuable lessons about current events, economic trends, and cultural norms.

Chinese to become a commonly taught language across the US

In the 1980s and 1990s, in an effort to define the territory of our field, language educators created the idea of the “less commonly taught languages,” or LCTL. What is peculiar about this notion is that it includes just about every single one of the more than 5,000 languages spoken on Planet Earth, with the exception of English and just three other languages: Spanish, French, and German. For many years, these “big three” languages were just about the only choices available to language learners in the U.S., especially at the K-12 level.

ePals Global Community

Discover ways for you and your students to communicate with peers from around the world and to collaborate with them on curriculum-based projects. ePals is a leading provider of safe collaborative technology for schools to connect and learn in a protected, project-based learning network. With classrooms in 200 countries and territories, ePals makes it easy to connect learners locally, nationally or internationally. Many services such as the ePals Global community ePals School email accounts are provided free of charge, while other services such as enhanced student email and digitally-based Learning Space are provided at nominal costs. ePals currently partners with National Geographic and the Smithsonian to provide rich curriculum content to enhance any classroom collaborative project.

Delaware STARTALK Hindi Language and Culture Camp

Univeristy of Pennsylvania, STARTALK trained Hindi teachers and faculty members join with Delaware Technical and Community College to bring the Delaware STARTALK Hindi Language and Culture Camp to Newark, DE, July 28-August 6. Students in grades 6-12 may participate in this federally-support program to to speak one of the world’s oldest languages – and a language deemed critical for Americans to learn for economic competitiveness by the US government. For more information, contact Ms. Dolley Chatterjee, rubudas0056@yahoo.com.

Italian Language Summer Camp for Children2011

This summer camp experience will expose Delaware children to the Italian language and culture. They will learn to communicate in basic Italian expressions and explore Italy’s culture through its history, music, art and cuisine. Each day of the camp will focus on La Piazza, or town square, in five different Italian cities: Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples and Palermo. The curriculum for the camp is based on the Delaware Recommended Curriculum for World Languages.

See the New Resource List compiled by the Asia Society, Longview Foundation, and the States Network on International Education in the Schools, February 2011

The Teacher Development Continuum in the United States and China – Summary of a Workshop (2010)

Held in Newport Beach, California, on July 31-August 2, 2009, the workshop brought together about 40 mathematics educators, mathematicians, education researchers, and other mathematics education specialists from the two countries. There were participants from three regions of China – Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiangsu Province (north of Shanghai), as well as several Chinese scholars who now work in the United States. These experts on mathematics education discussed professional development methods and techniques commonly used in their countries. The workshop summary report features invited presentations and discussions that focus on the teacher development process used in the U.S. and China, and how the professional lives of teachers are structured to receive ongoing professional development.

DOE and Peace Corps Partnership Project 2010: Facing the World’s Challenges One Village at a Time

DOE partnered with the Peace Corps Coverdell World Wise Schools (Washington, DC) to devise a four-week long summer online collaboration experience for Delaware high school students and their peers in five countries with which the DOE already has existing Memoranda of Understanding for international student exchanges (China, France, Italy, Japan and Spain). This online collaboration experience combined the knowledge and skills designated as essential 21st Century Skills with the real-life experience of dealing with world-wide challenges faced daily by Peace Corps volunteers. Delaware high school students became parts of an International Peace Corps Team with their peers in the MOU partner countries. Each team consisted of one Delawarean, one Chinese, one French, one Italian, one Japanese and one Spanish student who worked together to develop solutions for a variety of real-world challenges. The teams researched current challenges, collaborated using a variety of available technologies, decided on a possible solution, and presented the solution. All of this work was completed in the context of working as an International Peace Corps Volunteer Team that has been assigned to a virtual village suffering from a plethora of challenges. The teams were responsible for presenting their solutions to the project director and the Regional Ministry of the virtual village.

Cape Henolopen’s STARTALK Summer Chinese Program is like a Field Trip to China

Read the News Journal article about the two-week Chinese language and cultural immersion experience on Delaware’s beaches

Asia Society Information to Build Strong, International Partnerships

Creating a strong, internationally focused school does not necessarily require additional funds. Teachers can begin to integrate international content into their courses by using free curricular materials on the web and by making use of existing information technology.

International Education Decree from Governor, 2008

International Education Summit (April 27, 2006) K-20 International Education Capacity Study

Delaware’s International Education Partnerships Peace Corps Coverdell World Wise Schools To help internationalize Delaware’s schools and our curriculum.

International Education in the Schools

Asia Society

Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning

January Issue

Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs)

International Delaware K-12 School Partnerships

• AppoquiniminkAppoquinimink High School – Lycée La Tour des Dames, Rozay-en-Brie, France
• BrandywineBrandywine High School – Lycée Camille Claudel, Pontault-Combault, France
• Caesar RodneyW Reilly Brown Elementary School – Ecole élémentaire d’application Jacques Dubus, Pontault-Combault, France Caesar Rodney High School – Lycée Emily Bronte, Lognes, France
• Cape HenlopenMilton Elementary School – Ecole Internationale Leonard da Vinci, Fontainebleau, France
• CapitalBooker T Washington Elementary – Ecole élémentaire Pont de l’Union, Aulnay-Sous-Bois, France East Dover Elementary School– Ecole élémentaire Varlin, Aubervilliers, France Dover High School– Lycée François 1er, Fontainebleau, France
• ChristinaGlasgow High School – Lycée professionnel Paul le Rolland, Drancy, France Shue-Medill Middle School – Collège Henri Barbusse, Alfortville, France
• ColonialWilliam Penn High School – Lycée Etienne Bezout, Nemours, France Delmar
• Indian RiverEast Millsboro Elementary School – Ecole élémentaire Barbeuf, Aubervilliers, France
• Lake ForestLake Forest Central Middle School– Ecole élémentaire Pierre et Marie Curie, Chevilly-la-Rue, France
• Red ClayHighlands Elementary School – Ecole élémentaire les Violennes, Bussy-Saint-Georges, France

  Cab Calloway School of the Arts – Lycée Sonia Delaunay, Cesson, France

  McKean High School – Lycée Jacques Brel, La Courneuve, France

  Dickinson High School – Lycée Etienne Bézout, Nemours, France [Wilmington-Nemours Sister City Sponsored Partnership]

• Sussex TechSussex Technical High School – Lycée professionnel Théodore Monod, France

International Visiting Teacher Programs