Supporting Less-Commonly Taught Language Teaching in North Carolina

The Duke-UNC area studies centers and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction are delighted to host this panel discussion, as an aspect of our Learning-through-Languages celebration of teaching and learning.

Both to serve an increasingly diverse population in North Carolina, and to prepare students for global business and service, less-commonly-taught languages (LCTLs) are important to the future of language teaching in the state. However, supporting these kinds of languages requires creative thinking and different approaches from languages that have more teaching materials available, more trained instructors, and more integration across North Carolina’s schools and universities. This panel brings together experts from varying levels of education, diverse parts of the state, and different languages to discuss challenges and opportunities to support the teaching of LCTLs in North Carolina.

Our expert speakers are:

• Prof. Mike Turner, an Arabic instructor at UNC-Wilmington and on the NC Language Exchange
• Dr. Marta McCabe a founder and president at the Czech and Slovak School of North Carolina and program coordinator for English for International Students at Duke University
• Dr. Leslie Baldwin, World Languages Director at Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, and adjunct instructor at UNC-Greensboro
• Prof. Jacques Pierre, lecturing fellow in Haitian Creole at Duke University

This panel will be moderated by Prof. Ruth Gross, Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, NC State University.

This event is free and open to the public, and it will be conducted virtually over Zoom. Please register at the following link: go.unc.edu/LCTL