Wisconsin

Wisconsin continues to expand its international education initiatives based on its 2008 Strategic Plan. Recommendations were developed in the areas of advocacy, curriculum infusion, and building bridges with partner regions around the world and approved by the Statewide International Education Council. http://www.dpi.wi.gov/cal/interntled.html

Recent activities include planning work to guide curriculum infusion; student and teacher exchange programs with Germany and Thailand; teacher professional development with international partners with Germany and France, and work with international partner regions to open doors for more school partnerships with Germany, Japan, France, China, Mexico and with Thailand’s Department of Education.

The Critical Language Fellows Project (FLAP) has trained over 25 future teachers of Chinese to build Wisconsin-based capacity for growing demand for teaching Chinese K-12. The Heritage Language Speaker Credit Project (FLAP) will launch in 2009-10 to provide high school credit for native speakers of Chinese and Arabic through a pre-assessment of proficiency, online development of language skill through course work and collaborative projects, and a final proficiency assessment to award up to three credits. Wisconsin will again host teachers from Japan for three months in the fall of 2009.

Contact Information:     

Gerhard Fischer gerhard.fischer@dpi.wi.gov for international education

Pam Delfosse pamela.delfosse@dpi.wi.gov for world languages.