New NYC Chancellor of schools, Cathleen Black, has already shown herself to be passionate about languages. During her first few days on the job, she articulated a desire for more language instruction, especially Chinese Mandarin.  Black sees Mandarin proficiency as a critical skill in our increasingly global economy and wants New York City students to be well prepared.  Her interests extend to other less commonly taught languages, and she is also enthusiastic about Korean programs running in Harlem schools: (New York Times article).

For a company like Transparent Language, the big question is: how do we best support these schools?  Certainly, there’s no substitute for learning language in-person from a native speaker, but technology can do amazing things.  We build high-quality language learning programs that can pair with live instruction or be used on its own.  And yet, many teachers shy away from technology.  Their plates are so full, they lack the bandwidth to explore a new technology.  Or the schools’ budgets are so tight, they don’t have enough computers.  Aside from building easy, user-friendly solutions, how do we help support goals like those named by Cathleen Black?  If you’re an educator or linguist, please help us help you.  Give us your ideas and feedback!