Visiting International Teachers from Spain during their orientation week in July, 2019. The guest teachers participate in professional development sessions to help them begin to adapt to their new home away from home. They also purchase cars, set up their homes and meet their community mentors this week.

Approximately 25 students spent four weeks on the University of Kansas campus this past summer to learn Swahili through the STARTALK initiative. STARTALK’s mission is to increase the number of U.S. citizens learning, speaking, and teaching critical need foreign languages. At the end of the four weeks, students performed skits, sang songs, and displayed the artwork they created from lessons on culture.

Professor Oleksandra Wallo of the University of Kansas teaches students some skills for studying abroad for a summer in Ukraine. The Open Language Resource Center at the University of Kansas is one of sixteen federally-funded National Foreign Language Resource Centers working to increase the nation's capacity to teach and learn world languages.  The World Languages Fair is envisioned as an annual event that brings together K-12 language students and teachers throughout the region. For more information, please see the Open Language Resource Center website at olrc.ku.edu.

Leigh Rysko is the 2020 Kansas World Languages Association Teacher of the Year. Leigh teaches Spanish at Shawnee Mission South High School. Their students participate in the Amigos de Las Americas program. This program enables students to travel to meet one another and to connect more deeply to the culture and community of amigos in other countries. Leigh also taught in Iquitos, Peru as a Fulbright Exchange Teacher.