The World Languages Framework Development Committee met from November 1995 through November 1996 to create this document. Participation took the form of committee work, individual authoring of portions of the document, reviewing and revising the work, and providing academic and technical expertise. We especially thank the development committee of the Massachusetts and Nebraska frameworks,. We anticipate aid and support from teachers across Alaska who, we hope, will critically examine our work and add their knowledge, experiences, and perceptions. We created this document in the hope that substantial use will take World Languages instruction in Alaska into the next century.

Laurel Derksen has taught Spanish for twenty years in the elementary, secondary, and university levels. During her years at St. Olaf College, she spent semesters abroad in Thailand and the Far East, and in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and continues to travel extensively throughout many Spanish speaking countries. She graduated in 1993 with a master’s degree in Spanish from Middlebury College in Vermont. Most recently, she has worked as on-site program coordinator for Project Exito, a Spanish two-way developmental bilingual program in the Anchorage School District.

Dr. Margritt Engel Dr. Margritt Engel came to Alaska from Germany to study English at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, but earned her undergraduate degree and graduate degrees in Illinois and Texas. Having returned to Alaska in 1966, she taught German and English language and literature at Alaska Methodist University in Anchorage and also participated in delivering courses off-campus all over Alaska through various federally funded programs. After Alaska Methodist University closed its doors, she joined ASS as an adjunct, teaching German and English as a second language (ESL) and receiving the Excellence in Teaching Award for Adjuncts in 1985. She is presently an Associate Professor in the University of Anchorage Department of Languages, teaching German, Women’s Studies courses, and occasionally methods of second-language instruction. She is active in faculty governance and Alaskans for Language Acquisition (AFLA).

Janice Gullickson has taught for twenty years at the junior high school, community school, and university levels and has been a district program coordinator for sixteen. Currently director of Project EXITO, a two-way developmental bilingual program in the Anchorage School District, Ms. Gullickson serves as consultant-trainer for world languages and bilingual programs throughout Alaska. Ms. Gullickson was an outstanding student a Bemidji State University, has a Masters of Education, and has completed graduate work at Iberoamericana University in Mexico City. She has been nominated as Adjunct Teacher of the Year at the University of Alaska Anchorage. As co-chair of the World Languages Standards Development Committee, she brought continuity as well as expertise to this framework development effort.

Dr. Elizabeth Hartley, a graduate of the University of Colorado in the field of social and multicultural foundations of bilingual education, worked and conducted her research on the Navajo reservation. She won national recognition for her doctoral dissertation in the 1990 National Association for Bilingual Education Conference. Dr. Hartley has served as a consultant in migrant and bilingual education in the Northwest and Alaska, developing curriculum and providing professional development. She has been a bilingual classroom teacher in a Spanish maintenance program in Colorado; and taught English as a second language in Mexico. Currently, she is a bilingual/English as a Second Language resource teacher in the Anchorage School District. Dr. Hartley has been consistent in her commitment to classroom based research, which is reflected in her numerous professional publications. She has served as secretary-treasurer and urban region representative for the Alaska Association for Bilingual Education. She is currently a steering board member for the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Bilingual Interest Section.

Nita Yurriiq Rearden, a Yup’ik Eskimo from the Lower Yukon village of Kotlik, graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and has been an elementary teacher for various parts of Alaska. She taught ten years in Lower Kuskokwim School District, at Mikelnquut Elitnaurviat, Bethel, in kindergarten and first grade classrooms, and later as a Yup’ik as a Second Language teacher for K-2 levels. She also taught four years in kindergarten and preschool at Kotzebue, Northwest Arctic Borough School District. Currently she is a language development specialist in the Biligual Curriculum Department in LKSD, Bethel. Nita has participated on Alaska 2000 Early Childhood Committees, A O T E Research Team, district curriculum development committees, and the Alaska, Science and Writing Consortium and presented at the Alaska State Bilingual Conference.

Judy Tolbert is a past president and long time member of the Alaska Foreign Language Association. She teaches French at Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, where she is chair of the Foreign Language Department and serves as the foreign language coordinator for the school district. Mme. Tolbert has been teaching French for thirty years. Besides holding a BA in French and history from Macalester College in St. Paul and an M.Ed. with a specialty in secondary French, she took a sabbatical leave in 1985-86 to live and study in eastern France with her family. In 1993 she received a National Endowment for the Humanities summer scholarship to study a the University of Cincinnati. Mme. Tolbert has served on both district and state curriculum writing committees and has helped plan foreign language programs in the elementary schools. She served on the World Languages Standards Development Committee and most recently is teaching the "Current Trends in World Languages" course to Fairbanks teachers. This summer she will take her ninth student group to France.

Mike Travis, Anchorage Site Coordinator for the Alaska Comprehensive Regional Assistance Center, has worked in multilingual/multicultural settings for many years. He has been an ESL teacher at the secondary and college levels, has trained teachers and administrators in ESL methodology and bilingual education, has been a program manager for bilingual/bicultural education and world languages for the Alaska Department of Education for seventeen years, and was the Department’s liaison to the Alaska World Languages Standards Committee. Mr. Travis is especially interested in immersion education, the restoration and maintenance of Alaska’s indigenous languages and developing family-school partnerships for language and culture learning.

Bev Williams holds a BA in Spanish and an MA in adult education and spent twelve years as a Spanish teacher and eight as an ESL teacher before becoming Bilingual Curriculum Coordinator for the Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD). She is committed to Native language retention and revival as well as English language development for Native students. Ms. Williams led the LKSD Language Arts Task Force in developing a curriculum designed to give limited English proficient students, primarily Yup’ik Eskimos, access to oral language development, literature, and writing in English, concurrently supporting the development of Yup’ik first language curriculum materials and training. As a board member of the Alaska State Writing Consortium, she worked with Lower Kuskokwim and other rural districts to develop distance delivery writing process Limited English Proficient (LEP) institutes for teachers and paraprofessionals. Her awards include LKSD recognition for leadership in bilingual education, Alaska Association for Bilingual Education recognition for administrative support of bilingual education, and, in 1993 and 1994, the Alaska First Lady’s Award for Excellence in Children’s Programming for satellite delivered professional development courses for rural Alaska.