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Feb. 1, 2018

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Dr. Moi Mooi Lew, faculty specialist I, social-cultural studies unit in the Teaching, Learning and Educational Studies department, Dr. James Muchmore, associate chair of the department and professor of socio-cultural studies, and Dr. Regena Nelson, chair of the department and professor of early childhood in the College of Education and Human Development 51������ Michigan University, have received a $112,458 grant to implement Chinese teacher and student academies. 

The teacher academy will include both online and intensive face-to-face learning that will support fifteen current and future Chinese teachers. The student academy will provide a four-week long linguistically and culturally enriched learning experience to fifty students in grades 6-12 in the Kalamazoo area. The program will take place during the summer of 2018.

Principal investigator, Dr. Lew, has more than twenty-five years of experience teaching Chinese in K-12 classrooms, and more than seven years of experience supervising and mentoring Chinese teachers’ practicums in K-12 classrooms and conducting professional development workshops to in-service teachers. Dr. Lew participated in a STARTALK teacher program in Maryland and has visited several other STARTALK sites around the country. 

Dr. Muchmore (Co-PI) and Dr. Nelson (Co-PI) each have over twenty years of experience as teacher educators at 51������ and have worked with local schools to prepare hundreds of teachers. 

STARTALK’s mission is, “to increase the number of U.S. citizens learning, speaking, and teaching critical need foreign languages. STARTALK offers students (K-16) and teachers of these languages creative and engaging summer experiences that strive to exemplify best practices in language education and in language teacher development.”