Alliance for Language Immersion receives $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Liz Fackelman
Alliance for Language Immersion
Phone: 877.242.5050, E-mail: [email protected]
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Alliance for Language Immersion (ALI), a local language immersion education advocacy group, has received a $100,000 multi-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant will be used to create a digital resource center to optimize and preserve educational resources used by language immersion teachers in Charlotte and around the globe.
There are currently more than 40 language immersion teachers and staff in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ French, German, Japanese and Spanish language immersion magnet programs and nearly 900 K-11 immersion students.
“We are thrilled to have the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” said ALI President Liz Pitser. “With this grant, the foundation is supporting our mission to promote learning. The digital resource center will improve the lives of thousands of students by collecting, storing and sharing information in a format accessible to teachers and educators worldwide.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to bringing innovations in learning to the global community and is working to provide public and private schools access to quality leadership development focused on systems change and technology integration.
Native language immersion teachers are generally in the United States for one to three years before returning to their home country. Many teachers create their own teaching materials to meet the needs of local and state curriculum guidelines. When the teacher returns home, the knowledge and materials return with them, leaving incoming immersion teachers with little to build on. The resource center will capture these materials and knowledge making them available to incoming teachers before they arrive in the U.S.
The Alliance for Language Immersion is a parent-based, nonprofit corporation formed in 1996 to promote language immersion education. Charlotte-based, ALI operates independent of traditional physical, political and financial entities associated with public education.
On the Internet:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, www.gatesfoundation.org
Alliance for Language Immersion, www.ali-center.org