I. Brief History of the Project: Since 1952, the Foreign Language Program of the Modern Language Association of America, responding to the national urgency with regard to foreign languages, has been engaged in a vigorous campaign aimed in large part at improving foreign-language teaching in our country.

In 1955, as one of its activities, the Steering Committee of the Foreign Language Program formulated the “Qualifications for Secondary School Teachers of Modern Foreign Languages,” a statement which was subsequently endorsed for publication by the MLA Executive Council, by the Modern Language Committee of the Secondary Education Board, by the Committee on the Language Program of the American Council of Learned Societies, and by the executive boards or councils of the following national and regional organizations: National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, American Association of Teachers of French, American Association of Teachers of German, American Association of Teachers of Italian, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, Central States Modern Language Teachers Association, Middle States Association of Modern Language Teachers, New England Modern Language Association, Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Northwest Conference on Foreign Language Teaching, Philological Association of the Pacific Coast, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, and South-Central Modern Language Association.