The Applied Linguistic Program within the English department has received a $1.2 million grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the U.S. Department of State.

The grant, the largest received in the English department’s history, will be used to develop and revise materials used to train English language professionals and learners in foreign countries.

Twenty-six foreign professionals will take an online course followed by a face-to-face workshop here in Ames this coming summer. These professionals, coming from 13 countries including Afghanistan, Egypt, China, Togo and Brazil, will review the materials.

“For us it means visibility and being able to work with the Department of State,” said Volker Hegelheimer, the principal investigator for the grant.

“The grant shows how integral our department is to achieving the goals laid out in the university’s strategic plan for the next five years,” said Barbara Ching, chairwoman for the department of English.

Iowa State’s strategic plan says that, “It is imperative that the creation, sharing and application of knowledge be a global effort characterized by a profound respect for the diversity of people and ideas. These are the values that enrich our work.”

According to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs website, the U.S. Department of State “offers a range of resources and materials that support high-quality English language instruction worldwide. These resources are aimed at supporting teachers of English outside of the U.S.”

The materials that will be the end product of this grant will go toward what is known as public diplomacy, or the encouragement of educating and influencing foreign publics. However, all materials must meet the terms set in the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act, or as it is more commonly known, the Smith-Mundt Act, signed into law by President Truman in 1948.

Hegelheimer, along with two other applied linguistic faculty members Carol Chapelle and John Levis, previously applied for an $800,000 grant in 2008, but were turned down by the Department of State. “We got very encouraging feedback from them,” Hegelheimer said.

Hegelheimer heard of the current grant at the beginning of this year and submitted an application by early March. “Completing a grant application before helped us know about the time it would take.”

Upon hearing that the program received the grant, Hegelheimer said, “It was pretty amazing. We were delighted.”

Ching agreed, saying, “I was so proud because I knew how much work that the group had put into it and also because it shows that the expertise we have in creating technology for language learning will be used and recognized internationally.”

With the federal grant the Applied Linguistics Program will also be able to hire 18 graduate students to work on the project in the spring of 2012. The entire applied linguistics faculty will be working on different aspects of the grant as well.

This is a 23-month grant, and the Applied Linguistic Program will have until July 2013 to complete work on the materials.