Research and Development

Research and development at the NFLC go hand in hand. The NFLC staff and its network of consultants draw upon existing studies, or carry out new studies, primarily in support of the following areas:

• Informing policy recommendations
• Planning and carrying out programs intended to address language needs in the U.S.
• Designing instructional materials intended for direct use by language professionals, language learners, or language instructors

By the same token, development of policy, projects, and products at the NFLC is always informed by the best available research and current theories from disciplines such as language acquisition and use, learning theory, demographics, sociology, communication, and anthropology.

Increasingly, the NFLC partners to meet its needs for basic research, and specializes in incorporating findings from research into policies, programs, and products that have the potential to effect change in U.S. language capacity, and to meet current needs for language services such as translation, interpretation, analysis, and instruction.