The Foreign Language Program
at ICLS offers training and testing in over 93 languages at all
proficiency levels, in a range of class sizes, both on- and of-f site.
Although the majority of our students are government officials, business
professionals, diplomats, and employees of international organizations,
we welcome anyone who has a serious interest in learning and/or being
tested in a foreign language. ICLS offers a wide range of language
courses, including Familiarization Courses, Basic Courses, Advanced
Courses, Refresher Courses, and Conversion Courses. The curriculum of
these courses is based on the levels of the Interagency Language
Roundtable (ILR) scale. We also design classes to meet the specific
needs of our students. Such classes include, but are not restricted to
courses in Presentation Skills,
ICLS fosters a strong
student-centered and communicative approach to teaching. We recognize
and cater our language instruction to the different language styles of
our student body. Focusing on the communicative needs of our students,
we emphasize the active use of authentic language and view grammatical
knowledge not as an end in itself, but as a tool to convey and
comprehend intended meaning in the target language. Although we teach
all four language skills, developing proficiency in Speaking, Listening
and Reading are the goals of most of our students.
To facilitate an environment
conducive to achieving communicative competence, we cater to each
student's learning process. Working from the premise that students will
successfully acquire new knowledge and language skills by engaging in
the target language, we encourage them to speak from the very beginning
of instruction and to actively form new language structures. Instruction
is grounded in meaningful and context-based interactions and the verbal
exchanges between students and teachers are designed to ensure that new
structures are introduced and recycled.
The ICLS teaching staff of
over 250 individuals is a group of highly-trained and experienced native
speakers who have chosen teaching as their profession. Our teachers are
our greatest assets. Many of them have taught at ICLS for over 10 years
Language Testing
Our testing service offers
tests in a wide range of foreign languages. The tests are conducted by
qualified testers and administrators. We use the FSI format which is
designed to measure Speaking, Listening, and/or Reading according to the
ILR scale.
Individual Counseling
Our job as educators is to
help students define their language learning goals and to establish
realistic expectations. At ICLS we discuss your language needs before
you start your training; we give you an idea of how long it will take
you to reach your goals based on the difficulty of the language and the
number of hours you have available to devote to instruction.
Location
ICLS is conveniently located
in the heart of Washington, a few blocks away from the White House and
within walking distance of the McPherson Square and Farragut North
subway stations. Our custom-designed facility includes 37 tutorial and
group classrooms, student and faculty lounges, a conference room and
administrative offices. All of our classrooms and the 15-seat language
laboratory are fully equipped with Internet access and language-learning
software
ICLS invites individuals and
organizations needing foreign language instruction or testing to call or
visit our Center to discuss specific language goals. ICLS can tailor
instruction to small groups or individuals and can arrange for training
to be held off-site at client offices. Whether training is conducted for
500 hours or 30 hours, the ICLS mission of delivering excellence in
language training remains the same.
