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Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow. Photo by Alvesgaspar

Critical Languages Institute

Arizona State University Critical Languages Institute is a national training institute for less commonly taught languages, offering summer intensive courses and study-abroad programs around the world.

Instruction in Arizona and abroad is practically focused and proficiency-based. Students not only study a language, but learn to live that language. Specially designed summer intensives on the ASU campus prepare students, even beginners, to function competently in their language when they go abroad. Once overseas, students live and breathe their language; they participate in family life, join sports and gaming clubs, sing in choirs, join theater groups, appear on television, give presentations and make speeches, participate in neighborhood projects, and otherwise actively immerse themselves in the culture of the language they are learning. 

Our students leave the program as multicultural, global citizens, comfortable living in new cultures and communicating in new languages.

For institute graduates wishing to deepen their understanding of their host culture, we provide study-abroad advising and grant mentoring. Our graduates have an exceptionally high success rate for competitive study-abroad awards and scholarships, such as the Boren and Fulbright.

The institute is a project of the Melikian Center: Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies.

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