STARTALK Career Pathways: Connecting Heritage Learners to Federal Careers
STARTALK Career Pathways: Connecting Heritage Learners to Federal Careers is a project funded as part of the STARTALK initiative to increase the learning of critical languages in order to build workforce capacity in the federal government to meet national security needs.
This project provides resources that highlight federal career opportunities for heritage language learners of Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and Russian. We define a heritage language learner as someone with a cultural or family relationship to a language that is not the dominant language used outside of the home.Â
Our resources include podcasts, videos, interactive guides, and other materials to help you learn about different federal government jobs where you can use your language skills and how to prepare for and find these jobs. Although our materials feature specific languages and the strengths and experiences of heritage language learners, they are designed to help any language learner interested in federal career opportunities.
How should I move through these resources?
Click on the buttons below to view our Podcast Series, Video Series, and Guidance for Language Programs, or navigate through the menu on the left side of the screen.
For students, we recommend starting with the Podcast Series and then moving through the Video Series, but you can also jump around based on your interests.
For teachers, we recommend starting with the Guidance for Language Programs and then moving through the Podcast Series and Video Series to review specific resources to use in your classroom.
Podcast Series
The Language Pathways Podcast Series will help you understand the practical skills you need and steps to take to achieve your language goals and get hired by the federal government. It includes podcast episodes, resource lists for each episode, language learning guides, a pathways graphic, a checklist for each pathway, a goal setting sheet, and an interactive guide to the resources.
Video Series
The Career Opportunities Video Series will help you learn about diverse careers available in the federal government that use language skills. It includes video interviews, information gathered from a survey of our video guests, and an interactive guide to the resources.
Guidance for Language Programs
The Guidance for Language Programs is designed to help teachers learn more about our resources and how to use them in the classroom. It includes an interactive guide and a PDF to download/print with specific materials for educators and ideas for instruction.
