California State University, Chico’s Center for Bilingual/Multicultural Studies in the School of Education has secured a $2,952,133 five-year grant from the United States Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA). The Community and Instruction for Expanding English Learners’ Opportunities (CIELO) Project seeks to improve instructional practice and educational outcomes for English Learners within Dual Language Immersion Programs.
Our partnership with the Orland Unified School District will increase the pool of bilingual educators, provide tuition support for bilingual student teachers, develop culturally responsive lessons for Dual Immersion and English Language Development settings, increase the target language proficiency of educators, and increase bilingual pre-service educators’ family-community engagement knowledge and skills.
OELA received 269 grant applications from Institutions of Higher Education across the United States and funded 42 of these proposed projects. Of all 269 applications, the CIELO Project received the highest ranking (https://www2.ed.gov/programs/nfdp/npd2017awards.pdf (PDF) and https://www2.ed.gov/programs/nfdp/2017awards/npdapps.pdf (PDF)). With receipt of this five-year grant (2017-2022), the Center will have a record of external funding from either federal or international sources for forty consecutive years (1982-2022).