Mission

MISSION

●      To support the learning, teaching, and researching of world languages on the UC Berkeley campus and beyond.

●      To support the continued professional development of language instructors, particularly lecturers.

VALUES

We serve a variety of community members, including senate faculty, lecturers, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff. Given our mission, we centrally focus on language lecturers.

In all our work, we strive to

●      recognize the needs, goals, and aspirations of all our community members.

●      create a community of belonging through a shared passion for languages and cultures.

●      cultivate global, transnational perspectives.

●      think of language expansively, from language as an instrument to language as symbolic action. 

OBJECTIVES

To support this mission, the BLC organizes its work around six primary objectives:

  1. Advocate for languages: Provide opportunities for language learners to explore and celebrate their multilingual and multicultural identities and experiences and provide support for instructors to maintain language program vitality.

  2. Provide access to new developments: Provide opportunities to language instructors and students to engage with new developments in language pedagogy, second language acquisition theory, applied linguistics, and sociolinguistics.

  3. Create opportunities for research and its dissemination:  Support applied language studies and world languages education research amongst language instructors and its dissemination at professional meetings and in professional journals and to the wider public.

  4. Design teaching materials and curricula: Produce new language/culture learning materials and innovative curricula and support instructors’ production of new materials and curricula.

  5. Maintain teaching and learning facilities and equipment: Provide state-of-the-art learning facilities and equipment to the language teaching community on campus.

  6. Maintain and provide access to resource archives: Provide preservation of / access to language and culture learning materials and resources.

To support the realization of these objectives, we collaborate with and maintain close connections to language departments, as well as numerous centers and programs across campus, including but not limited to: the Arts & Humanities Dean’s office, the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Department of Linguistics, the Romance Languages & Literatures Program, the Berkeley School of Education, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the GSI Teaching and Resource Center, the Center for African Studies, the Institute of European Studies, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and the Berkeley Translation Initiative.

For each objective of our mission, the table below highlights some of our key programming.

Berkeley Language Center Objectives

Programming Examples

1. Advocate for languages

Provide opportunities for language learners to explore and celebrate their multilingual and multicultural identities and experiences and provide support for instructors to maintain language program vitality

Exploring the Boundaries of Translation Contest: Undergraduates submit their untranslatable word entries in order to critically reflect on meaning making across languages.


Words in Action: An annual multilingual / multicultural student performance featuring songs, plays, dances, and poetry, directed and produced by Annamaria Bellezza.

2. Provide access to new developments in the field

Provide opportunities to language instructors and students to engage with new developments in language pedagogy, second language acquisition theory, applied linguistics, and sociolinguistics.

BLC Event Series: Lectures and workshops delivered by invited scholars to the entire BLC community, including graduate students, undergraduate students, and language instructors.

3. Create opportunities for research and its dissemination

Support applied language studies and world languages education research amongst language instructors and its dissemination at professional meetings and in professional journals and to the wider public. 

Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP): Undergraduates participate in the design and implementation of a research project while learning about applied language studies and its relevant methodologies.


L2 Journal: An open access, fully refereed, interdisciplinary journal that promotes the research and the practice of world language learning and teaching. It publishes articles on all aspects of applied linguistics broadly conceived, i.e., second language acquisition, second language pedagogy, bilingualism and multilingualism, language and technology, curriculum development and teacher training, testing and evaluation

4. Design teaching materials and curricula

Produce new language/culture learning materials and innovative curricula and support instructors’ production of new materials and curricula.

Language & AI: Resources for Instructors: Thanks to funding from a USDOE International Research & Studies grant, BLC directors have developed concrete pedagogical materials to support instructors in the critical and meaningful integration of AI into world language instruction across levels.

Lecturer and Graduate Fellowship Program: Language instructors and graduate students complete individually-designed instructional research projects and present these materials to the larger community at the end of the semester.


Fuel Your Language Teaching (FYLT): Informal gatherings of language instructors to explore a particular aspect of their teaching practice and/or to apply ideas from the event series.

5. Maintain teaching and learning facilities and equipment

Provide state-of-the-art learning facilities and equipment to the language teaching community on campus.

Classroom Technology: Support for distance learning courses, performance-based courses that use a drama as part of their pedagogy, and film courses, for example. Facilities include Zoom rooms.


Recording Studio: Offers professional quality audio and video production, analog media digitization, and technical media support to all language instructors and departments.

6. Maintain and provide access to resource archives

Provide preservation of / access to language and culture learning materials and resources.

OER Instructional Materials: The BLC website houses different types of open-access materials (e.g., using film in the language/culture classroom).


Lumière: This online library contains 20,742 clips drawn from 7,944 films in 191 languages. 


BOLT: The Berkeley Online Language Testing platform offers partial placement exams for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean and proficiency exams or Japanese.