The U.S. government is hoping to increase the number of Americans studying and mastering certain foreign languages, and it offers a highly competitive scholarship to help students study abroad while learning the language.
The effort, called the Critical Language Scholarship Program (CLS), gives students the opportunity to master a foreign language at summer language institutes. Some of the institutes for summer 2013 will be held in Azerbaijan, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Morocco, Oman, Russia, Tunisia, and Turkey.
The deadline to apply for the summer 2013 session is November 15. Students from diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply.
The program applies to several languages and skill levels:
- Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Punjabi, Turkish, and Urdu: Beginning, advanced beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels
- Arabic and Persian: Advanced beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels
- Chinese, Japanese, and Russian: Intermediate and advanced levels
Participants in the CLS program are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.
CLS is a program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and has been in existence since 2006. The scholarships cover all costs of the summer session, including travel, room and board, and the educational program.
Students interested in applying for the program should contact the Frederik Meijer Office of Fellowships at (616) 331-2543 or [email protected]. For more information, visit http://clscholarship.org/
