What are the goals of the project?

This Fulbright-Hays NIU GPA long-term advanced overseas intensive language training project in the Philippines has five objectives:

1) to immerse participants from area studies and diverse disciplines in the Philippine rural culture in two provinces: southern Philippines where coffee production is revitalized, and in northern Philippines, where the use of Carabao in agriculture is maintained and related products are developed.

2) to promote participants' academic learning and experiential perspectives on the history, geography, political and ethno-religious diversity of Southeast Asia and the Philippines—a region that has served not only as a crossroads of Asian and Middle Eastern cultural influences, but as the gateway for European and later American colonial interactions;

3) to advance participants' immersion experiences of Tagalog language through instruction and practice in speaking, reading, listening and writing for 8 weeks through organized instruction, informal cultural experiences in communities, and during homestays on the weekends;

4) to provide participants with the opportunity to build relevant language lessons and instructional modules focused on culture, language and Philippines rural and agricultural topics through interviews and interactive experiences with community members, mentors, and organizations;

5) to foster interaction between Filipino and American students to compare strategies in learning a foreign language and culture, and 

6) to build effective and collaborative cross-cultural modules and digital media for cultural and language learning in the US and in the Philippines.