Brief History

The National Security Education Program (NSEP), located in Washington, DC, submitted a project proposal, the National Foreign Language Initiative (NFLI), to the US Congress for funding. The primary purpose of the NFLI is the production of a critical mass of advanced foreign language speakers with a proficiency at the Superior Level on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale or Level 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, defined as “professional working proficiency” in listening, reading, and speaking. The NSEP allocated seed money for pilot Flagship programs and designated four US institutions as pilot Flagship programs: Both the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) for Korean, Brigham Young University for Chinese, and University of Washington for Arabic. UHM was awarded approximately one million dollars to implement an innovative three-year pilot National Flagship Program in Korean. The pilot stage of the program has ended in fall 2004 and now it is a full-fledged program without the word “Pilot”. Back to Top