Critical Language Scholarship

Award Details

Awarded for 8-10 weeks fully-funded overseas foreign language instruction and cultural enrichment experience in 15 critical need languages for U.S. students in higher education. 

Eligibility

• U.S. citizenship
• Undergraduate or graduate student
• No previous language study required for Azerbaijani, Bangla, Hindi, Indonesian, Persian, Punjabi, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu
• One year of previous language study required for Arabic, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian
• Two years of previous language study required for Chinese, and Japanese

Application Timeline

Deadline: November 15th, 2024

Critical Language Scholarship- Spark

Website:

https://clscholarship.org/about/spark

Award details:

CLS Spark is a virtual initiative for U.S. undergraduate students to learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world. Designed to leverage best practices in online language learning developed by the CLS Program during the pandemic, CLS Spark provides American students the opportunity to study critical languages virtually when they may not have access to studying these languages on their campuses. Participants will spend the summer learning either Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Russian through online classes and activities facilitated by native speakers at a host institution abroad.

CLS Spark participants spend approximately 8 weeks during the summer learning either Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Russian through online classes and activities facilitated by native speakers at a CLS partner institution abroad.   

• 10 hours of intensive live group instruction a week; 
• Cultural activities and individual consultations with language instructors at host institute; and 
• Monthly professional development workshops and inclusive support.

Participants in CLS Spark will receive automatic consideration as semifinalists for the CLS Program’s upcoming overseas summer institutes, if they choose to apply. 

A program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program and CLS Spark are part of a U.S. government initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering foreign languages that are critical to national security and economic prosperity.

Eligibility:

• Be a U.S. citizen or national at the time of their application.
• Be at least 18 years old
• Be enrolled in an accredited U.S. degree-granting program at the undergraduate (associate, bachelor's) level at the time of their application. Students who are graduating seniors at the time of application are eligible to apply.
• Applicants must be enrolled in a program that results in a degree. Applicants in a dual- or joint-degree program in which they earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree will be considered an undergraduate if the bachelor’s degree has not yet been conferred at the time of application, even if the student has already taken one or more graduate-level courses. If the bachelor’s degree has already been conferred, the applicant will be considered a master’s student. Only undergraduate students are eligible to apply for CLS Spark. Applicants who are taking stand-alone or continuing education classes or who are pursuing a certificate are not eligible.
• Applicants must be enrolled at an accredited U.S. institution. Students earning degrees at foreign institutions that are not based in the U.S. or its territories are not eligible, even if those institutions are accredited by a recognized U.S. accrediting agency. For students enrolled in dual-degree programs in which they take some courses at a U.S. institution and some courses at an international institution, students who can produce a transcript from the U.S. institution will be considered eligible.
• Applicants must be enrolled in at least one credit-bearing class at or through their home institution in the fall term of 2024. There are limited exceptions to the enrollment requirement; please read the following information carefully:
• If applicants are enrolled in a degree-granting program but taking a leave of absence to participate in an organized term- or year-long study abroad program; national scholarship program; or to participate in a substantive internship program, they may request an exception to the enrollment requirement. Exceptions may only be granted in these three cases, and decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis beginning in late January.
• If applicants are not taking classes at or through their home institution in the fall term, they must submit a CLS Enrollment Confirmation form completed by their home registrar in the U.S. Applicants must also submit a signed letter from the study abroad or internship program provider explaining the opportunity and confirming their participation. American Councils will provide the CLS Enrollment Confirmation form and further instructions to applicants selected as semi-finalists on how to submit documentation. If selected as a finalist, American Councils may ask the finalist to submit updated documentation from the program provider confirming their successful completion of the program.
• Applicants must successfully complete academic requirements for the fall term in order to remain eligible for the CLS Program. Applicants who withdraw or fail to maintain a passing grade average are not eligible to participate in the program.
• Complete at least one full year of study (two semesters or three quarters) by the beginning of the CLS Program in Summer.
• Have no more than one semester of formal classroom training in the language they want to study at the beginner level (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, or Arabic) OR, if applying for Japanese at the advanced beginner level, have no more than one year of formal classroom experience.
• Applicants may only apply once, for one language and for one of CLS’ models (i.e., Overseas or Spark), each year. Applicants who submit multiple applications will be considered ineligible.

Application timeline:

Deadline: November 19th, 2024