UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies is a member of the recently-established Southeast Asian Language Council (SEALC) consortium, funded by Luce Initiative on Southeast Asia.
In 2019, SEALC was awarded a five-year, $1.1 million grant by the Henry Luce Foundation through its Luce Initiative on Southeast Asia (LuceSEA) for the proposal “Professional and Materials Development to Strengthen Southeast Asian Language Instruction.” This project will professionalize the field of Southeast Asian language teaching in the U.S. by offering training workshops and materials development projects and by creating national standards, proficiency assessments, and instructional resources.
More broadly the objective of this project is to increase the expertise of instructors and create instructional and assessment materials for the following eight Southeast Asian languages: Burmese, Filipino, Hmong, Indonesian, Khmer, Lao, Thai, and Vietnamese. The institutional stakeholders of SEALC include the Southeast Asia NRCs and non-NRC institutions with Southeast Asian language programs.
The project will also support and coordinate language-related efforts at the national level by working with COTSEAL, SEASSI, language-specific organizations, the institutional stakeholders, and CORMOSEA to improve Southeast Asian language teaching programs nationally.
The proposed grant activities will specifically focus on the:
- development of instructional materials, including those for heritage learners,
- creation of materials for distance learners and flipped classes by expanding the use of technology,
- awarding of summer stipends for teachers to develop curricular materials,
- strengthening language-specific organizations,
- facilitating communication among stakeholders,
- coordination with CORMOSEA to ensure open access to SEALC-developed materials in the SE Asia digital library; and
- support for the COTSEAL website and annual conference.
The University of Wisconsin’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies is hosting SEALC. For more information, please contact SEALC Luce Project Director Ellen Rafferty.