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Antonia
in Yoruba attire
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A Welcome Message from Antonia Yétúndé
Folárìn Schleicher
Welcome to the National African
Language Resource Center (NALRC) Internet Web site!
I am very delighted you have chosen to visit our site.
Below is an overview of our mission. It’s important
to know that a Center such as this exists to promote
African languages and cultures in the US.
The National African Language Resource Center (NALRC),
housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now serves
as one of fourteen
national foreign language resource centers funded
by the US
Department of Education's International Education and
Graduate Programs Service.
The primary mission of the NALRC is to improve the accessibility
of African languages in the United States by strengthening
the field as a profession and by developing resources
for the teaching, learning and research of African languages.
The Center offers a fundamentally new approach to African
language programming in the United States. It does so
from a truly national perspective, as opposed to the
perspective of the individual National Resource Centers
(NRCs) or the general National Language Resource Centers
(NLRCs). Specifically, in contrast to both the NRCs
and the general NLRCs where program goals and objectives
are established by individuals at the home institution,
the NALRC solicits input from the field of African languages
in order to determine program offerings which address
the needs of all sectors. In addition, the NALRC has
its purpose and primary agenda in the development of
the field of African language teaching in this country
using the full expertise of the African language pedagogists
throughout the nation, rather than at a single institution.
Finally, because of the NALRC’s national focus, it is
able to more thoroughly address the specific needs of
African language teachers and learners than is possible
at the NLRCs, which are designed to support the field
of language teaching in general.
The Center belongs to all of us in the field of African
language pedagogy. Therefore, let us join hands together
to make it a success. The establishment of the NALRC
is a dream come true to those of us in the field of
African language pedagogy. So let’s make it a collaborative
effort.
I hope that this site will assist you in obtaining information,
answering questions quickly and providing you with links
to other helpful Web sites that will give you the information
and answers you seek.
We anticipate many more additions to our site and innovations
to make it even more user friendly and productive. We
do appreciate comments and questions. We hope your visit
to our site is as informative as it is enjoyable.
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