MEDWAY — Medway High School Principal John Murray and Mandarin teacher Alice Cheng are pleased to announce that senior Rebecca Chleboski was recently awarded a scholarship from the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) to study Chinese this summer.
In non-pandemic times, this scholarship is an all-expenses paid trip to China for the summer for the student to be immersed in the language and culture. Due to COVID-19, Chleboski will be taking an intensive course virtually.
As part of the application process, Chleboski completed a rigorous and competitive interview process with the program, which included a writing and speaking test. The NSLI-Y program is selective with a 20% acceptance rate in 2019-20.
The U.S. Department of State’s NSLI-Y is part of a U.S. government initiative to foster international cooperation by ensuring that Americans have the necessary linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to effectively communicate globally. NSLI-Y provides overseas critical language study opportunities to American youth through merit-based scholarships to spark a lifetime interest in critical foreign languages and cultures. The Virtual Summer Intensive program aims to foster intensive language study and introduce participants to elements of the cultural life of the virtual host country.
“Rebecca is an outstanding student who is very well-deserving of this scholarship. She often seeks opportunities to learn Mandarin outside of the classroom and this is a tremendous and prestigious opportunity for her to take her Mandarin learning to the next level,” Cheng said. “By being completely immersed in the language for a few weeks, Rebecca will be able to progress her language learning by leaps and bounds in just a short period of time. Rebecca also loves the idea of becoming a diplomat or national security worker in the future, so participating in this global initiative through the Department of State is an excellent opportunity for her.”
NSLI-Y offers Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian (Tajiki), Russian and Turkish. Programs may take place inBelarus, China, Egypt, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, Latvia, Moldova, Morocco, Russia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine and other locations around the world, as conditions allow.
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