Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota (CARLA).(News From Sponsoring Organizations)(Brief

CARLA is one of several National Language Resource Centers whose role is to improve the nation's capacity to teach and learn foreign languages effectively. Launched in 1993 with funding from the national Title VI Language Resource Center program of the U.S. Department of Education, CARLA's mission is to study multilingualism and multiculturalism, develop knowledge of second language acquisition, and advance the quality of second language teaching, learning, and assessment by conducting research and action projects sharing research-based and other forms of knowledge across disciplines and education systems extending, exchanging, and applying this knowledge in the wider society.

CARLA's research and action initiatives include a focus on the articulation of language instruction, content-based language teaching through technology, culture and language studies, less commonly taught languages, language immersion education, second language assessment, second language learning strategies, research on pragmatics and speech acts, support for study abroad, and technology and second language learning.

To share its latest research and program opportunities with language teachers around the country, CARLA offers the following resources: an internationally acclaimed summer institute program for teachers; a database which lists where less commonly taught languages are taught throughout the country; listservs for teachers of less commonly taught languages and immersion educators; a working paper series; conferences and workshops; and a battery of instruments in French, German, and Spanish for assessing learners' proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening at two levels on the ACTFL scale. Check out these and other CARLA resources on the CARLA Web site at http://carla.acad.umn.edu.

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