The U.S. Department of State conducts the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program enabling U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to study critical foreign languages in less-traditional destinations like India, Indonesia, Tunisia and Turkey.
The program offers fully-funded opportunities for seven-to-ten week intensive language study at overseas institutes. Students are immersed in the local culture through program components such as living with host families or local roommates, meetings with peer tutors (host country university students) and participating in cultural excursions designed to enhance language learning.
CLS participants study diverse disciplines, including business, engineering, fine arts, international affairs, and public health. This diversity increases language capacity and strengthens U.S. and international connections in all professional areas.
In 2012, the CLS Program is offered in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Persian, Russian, Indic (Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu) and Turkic (Turkish and Azerbaijani) languages. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.
CLS Program participants are among the more than 40,000 academic and professional exchange program participants supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The CLS Program is administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and American Councils for International Education.
For further information, please visit http://www.clscholarship.org and http://exchanges.state.gov.
More details at: http://www.clscholarship.org