National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs (NASILP)

As part of the Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program grant award, “Educating for a Global Community”, North Harris College will establish a partnership with the National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs [NASILP].

This partnership will permit North Harris College to expand the foreign language instruction to enable small numbers of students to pursue an elementary program in a less commonly taught language in which they have an interest.

This program will be coordinated by the Center for International Education and Languages [CIEL], and native-speakers of the targeted language will serve as course tutors. At the start of the term, the CIEL coordinator will conduct an orientation for all new students acquainting them with the basics. This includes the regularly scheduled meetings with the tutor at least twice a week, daily independent work with text and audio materials at the pace established by the program, periodic progress reports for the coordinator, and so forth. The coordinator will also screen students, locate native speakers, handle administrative responsibilities relating to the program, and help students who are having problems related to the structure or functioning of the course. During the semester, students are expected to spend an hour or two every day, working with the audio or video (tapes or CD-ROM), and with the text, manuals and workbooks. Once they have introduced themselves to new material, they will then engage in direct, live, oral interaction with a native-speaker tutor. Tutors are the best resource for oral practice and modeling of language use as they can monitor and correct the learner's speech as only a native-speaker can. They also provide the basis for using the language in culturally authentic, adult conversational situations. Tutors will be recruited from international students at the college or community members. Whereas a program can be offered for one student at a time, an effort will be made to gather small groups of students studying the same language, so that these small groups can benefit from mutual support and tutoring as they study the language. Grades will reflect students' ability to use the language skills they have learned. Hence, at the end of each semester, students will be rated by an examiner who is a language professional with extensive experience evaluating the performance of students in this type of program.

This system of examination guarantees the maintenance of NASILP standards, and the College will adhere strictly to the established procedures. North Harris College will acquire a tape library of the recordings that accompany the recommended texts from NASILP. Copies are provided for member institutions at a reduced rate and the tapes will be made available to students according to established College procedures. Students can use the tapes in the Learning Center, borrow them from the Library for their home use, or purchase them, at cost, from the college bookstore. The program will maintain several cassette recorders for use by the students. During the first year of the project, the college will offer language instruction in Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese. These courses will be articulated to continuing education units so that they can be offered to the general community as well as to academic students. These two languages have been identified as particularly relevant to the area’s business community, including local law enforcement agencies. In the second year of the project, it is expected that Arabic will be added to the offerings.