The Language Resource Center (LRC) Program of the

U.S. Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...

, administered by th
International Foreign Language Education Service
under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, funds

grants Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom *Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama *Grant, Inyo County, C ...

to American

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

for establishing, strengthening, and operating centers that serve as resources for improving the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages through

teacher training Teacher education or teacher training refers to programs, policies, procedures, and provision designed to equip (prospective) teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, approaches, methodologies and skills they require to perform their t ...

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

, materials development, and dissemination projects. The common goal of the Language Resource Centers (LRCs) is to promote the learning and teaching of

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at schoo ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

through improving language teacher education, developing improved assessment measures, and conducting research. The US Department of Education established the first LRCs at US universities in 1990 in response to the growing national need for expertise and competence in foreign languages.http://www.nflrc.org/lrc_broc_full.pdf PDF 14.1 MB Led by nationally and internationally recognized language professionals, LRCs create

language learning Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...

materials, offer

professional development Professional development is learning to earn or maintain professional credentials such as academic degrees to formal coursework, attending conferences, and informal learning Informal learning is characterized "by a low degree of planning and ...

workshops, and conduct research on foreign language learning. The Language Resource Centers created a commo
LRC Web Portal
which provides a searchable database to all of LRC the materials, resources, and professional development opportunities. ----

References

{{reflist Language education in the United States