The Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston Chinese heritage Schools and the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Texas (CLTA-Texas) have been awarded a StarTalk grant to provide Student Chinese Programs and Chinese Teacher Workshops in Texas in 2008. Both of the Student and Teacher Programs are supported by Texas Education Agency. This is the first time that Texas has received a StarTalk grant, one of the programs of the National Security Language Initiative announced by President Bush in 2006. StarTalk funding, administrated by the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland, aims at increasing the number and expertise of students and teachers in critical languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Hindi and Urdu.

The grant will be used to sponsor Ice Breaking Programs for middle and high students in Dallas and Houston. Each program offers a five week Chinese language and culture course in June 2008 and is free for students. The goal of the Ice Breaking Programs is to engage students in an exciting and culturally enriched Chinese learning experience while enabling them to gain a proficiency in Chinese. Texas StarTalk Programs follows the successful model developed by the Southern California Council of Chinese Schools (SCCCS), which was awarded the StarTalk grant in 2007. SCCCS has provided assistance to Texas StarTalk programs.

StarTalk funding will also sponsor the Chinese Teacher Professional Workshop to improve K-12 teachers' pedagogical skills. The workshop provides 90-hour instruction on topics, such as Teaching Chinese as a Second Language: Methods and Approaches, Curriculum Design, Language Assessment and Chinese Language Structure. In addition, the trainees can participate in a teaching internship during the Ice Breaking Programs to implement their lesson plans and thematic units designed in the workshop. The courses offered in the workshop are free for the participants and are recognized as subject credits for entering teacher certification programs. Texas StarTalk programs plan to recruit 150 students and 40 teachers in Dallas and Houston, according to Mr. Ardon Chang, Program Manager of the StarTalk Program and Principal of the Fort Worth Chinese School.