Teacher Scholarship Program
Scholarship Sponsored by American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
As the inaugural initiative of the Lead with Languages Scholarship Fund, this award provides merit-based scholarships to graduating high school seniors committed to pursuing the language teaching profession in languages other than English.
The program provides recipients with an award of $1,500 per academic year. Scholarships may be renewed three times following the initial award, for a cumulative total of $6,000 per recipient.
Lead with Languages Teacher Scholars will also receive complimentary ACTFL membership—which includes access to the ACTFL Mentoring Program aimed at early-career language educators—during their participation in the program as well as for one year following graduation and entry into the teaching field.
Due to the urgent shortage currently in this field, deferrals will not be permitted and awardees who intend to renew their scholarships must do so in consecutive years.
Save the Date
The 2022 application period will reopen in early April; at that time, a link to the submission form will appear here. All applications must be submitted online no later than 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, May 27, 2022.
Should you have any questions about the Teacher Scholarship Program, please don't hesitate to email us at leadwithlanguages@actfl.org.
Eligibility Requirements
To be eligible for consideration, applicants must:
A) Be U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents attending secondary schools in the United States or a U.S. territory.
B) Be anticipating completion of a high school diploma at the time of application.
C) Be accepted and planning to pursue a degree at an accredited U.S. post-secondary institution, leading to credentialing as a language educator.
D) Have taken at least two years of the same language in high school, or present documentation of proficiency results from an ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), the ACTFL Assessment of Performance Toward Proficiency (AAPPL), or any comparable assessment.
E) Have maintained a 3.0 or higher GPA overall (on a 4.0 scale).