The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program is an intensive overseas language and cultural immersion program for American undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities. Students spend eight to ten weeks over the summer studying one of a dozen critical languages: Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu. The program provides intensive language instruction and structured cultural activities designed to promote rapid language gains.

CLS Spark, an initiative of CLS, provides opportunities for American undergraduate college and university students to study Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian virtually at the beginning level, as well as Japanese virtually at the advanced beginning level. We are delighted to expand CLS Spark offerings to include Japanese and Korean for the first time this summer. Designed to leverage best practices in online language learning, CLS Spark provides American undergraduate students the opportunity to study critical languages virtually when they may not have access to language learning on their campuses or the ability to study abroad.