From the Foreword by Milton Chen
Once every few decades, an education leader comes along to fundamentally change how we think about teaching and learning. He or she leads us to think in much more expansive ways about education, a field notorious for its narrow conceptions of teaching and learning.

In the 2000s, enter Chris Livaccari, with similarly bold—indeed, revolutionary—ideas for both educational theory and practice. His rich professional and personal life, as a student, diplomat, teacher, and school administrator, informs this publication with the tantalizing title, “New Ways of Seeing.” His ability to speak three languages beyond English—Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (and toss in some Russian, too)—gives him unusual standing as an American to reveal a broader and deeper view of language learning.

I first met Chris when he was working at the Asia Society as associate director of education. While his facility with multiple languages is striking, his ability to teach them is infectious. Just check out his online videos, as I have. Students who have studied with him are fortunate, indeed, to learn Chinese or Japanese in an entirely new way. Now, in this book, he shares his approach. Read more from the foreword »

From the Preface by Chris Livaccari
As a language educator who has worked with students from preschool through graduate school, a former U.S. diplomat who has had to use multiple foreign languages in a variety of real-world contexts, and a member of a household that regularly uses four different languages, I’ve often had occasion to reflect on the delights and challenges of becoming multilingual. Over the years, as I myself have become more multilingual, a paradox has emerged: I often struggle to find the right words to express myself in my native tongue, English.

The Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi—often hailed as the greatest Italian poet since Dante—described this phenomenon in his gargantuan work Zibaldone, completed in 1832: “Knowing several languages affords some greater facility and clarity in the way we formulate our thoughts, for it is through language that we think. Now, perhaps no language has enough words and phrases to correspond to and express all the infinite subtleties of thought.” Read more from the preface »

Chris, pictured above with students, in his current role as Chinese program director and elementary school principal at International School of the Peninsula in Palo Alto, CA.

English is fast becoming the world's universal language, and instant translation technology is improving every year. So why bother learning a foreign language? In this TED Talk, linguist and Columbia professor John McWhorter shares four alluring benefits of learning an unfamiliar tongue.

We are now fully into fall! We are all grateful for the cooler weather, but at the same time our hearts are with your friends and colleagues in North Carolina, with closed schools and huge damage to clean up. We wish you a safe and smooth recovery.

This month we feature the Chinese language programs established and run by the Confucius Institute (CI) at Arizona State University (ASU), which partners with 14 elementary and secondary schools in five school districts in Arizona. More than 4,000 students in grades K–12 are studying Chinese in these programs. Four elementary schools within this partnership are Dual Language Immersion Programs that are also designated as Confucius Classrooms. Each of these four programs is described in this month’s program profile and included in the CELIN program directory.

We were happy to see some of you at the Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts, in Minneapolis, MN, October 20–22. CELIN presented on “Curricular Tools for Chinese Language and Immersion Programs” on Saturday, October 22, 11:15-12:15 AM, featuring the information presented in our CELIN Briefs. The slides from the session are posted on the CELIN web pages. November 17–20, we will be at ACTFL 2016 (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages), in Boston, Massachusetts. On Saturday, November 19, CELIN staff and colleagues will present on “Effective Study Abroad Programs for Students in Elementary to High School,” with very interesting and informative presentations by leaders of study abroad programs in elementary, middle, and high school (8–9:00 AM, Westin Boston Waterfront, Commonwealth Ballroom A). We hope to see many of you there. We would love to share with you and hear your input on where we are going with study abroad in Chinese language programs.

Recently we added a few programs to the CELIN program directory. Please check them out and make sure that your program is included. It's easy to document your program and update its information! Just send an email to Ethan Pan at ethan.celin@gmail.com; include your program name and contact information, and we will follow up with you.

In September, the International School of Tucson—one of two Asia Society Confucius Classrooms to be awarded 2015 CC of the year by the Confucius Institute Headquarters—participated in the Chinese Language Day Competition, which was organized by the Confucius Institute at the University of Arizona. The competition was open to all ages. IST came first overall and took second place in the drama section, and was named the best school for the entire competition. Our warm congrats to the students and teachers at IST!

#Pengyou Day is November 17, 2016. In conjunction with the U.S. State Department's International Education Week, Project Pengyou Campus Chapters and Asia Society Confucius Classrooms across all fifty states will simultaneously launch events and social media campaigns to celebrate U.S.-China study, engagement, and friendship. The "We are all #Pengyou" campaign seeks to empower students of Chinese to spread their knowledge to other Americans, starting with simple conversations like the teaching of one word in Chinese to a friend. Learn how to join the campaign.

NSLI-Y Scholarships to Study Abroad: The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, offers merit-based scholarships for students to study a less commonly taught language. Application deadline: October 29, 2016.

Franklin R. Buchanan Prize: The Association for Asian Studies invites submissions for the Franklin R. Buchanan Prize, awarded annually to recognize an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia designed for any educational level, elementary through university. Submission deadline: November 1, 2016.

The Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Program: Participants in this three- to six- month program for U.S. teachers (or four-month program for international teachers) are based at university-level schools of education. They take courses, lead master classes and seminars, visit local schools, collaborate with each other online and in person, and complete an inquiry project of their design. Application deadline for U.S. teachers: December 1, 2016.

TCLP Host Schools: Are you interested in increasing the global competency of your students by hosting a guest Mandarin or Arabic teacher at your school? Learn more about hosting a fully-funded teacher with the Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP) during an online chat with an alumni host and TCLP staff members. Application deadline: January 23, 2017.

Global Education Conference: The 7th annual Global Education Conference takes place November 13–16, 2016. The call for proposals for this virtual event is open. RFP Deadline: November 1, 2016.

Global Competence Certificate: Applications are open to join the next cohort of the premier, online, graduate-level certificate program in competence education for in-service educators. Deadline: December 18, 2016. Single-course registration is open until January 10, 2017.

#GlobalEdChat: Join us weekly on Twitter for #GlobalEdChat, an hour-long discussion on current issues in global education. Thursdays at 8 pm Eastern time.