Overview and History
The Dual Language & Multilingual Alliance (DLM Alliance) brings together educational leaders and partners across education systems worldwide to promote multilingualism for all.
Established in 2011 by the US Department of Defense as the Flagship Chinese Acquisition Pipeline (F-CAP), the initiative has evolved into an international alliance. Avant has sponsored the Alliance since 2022. Its founding partners include independent school districts, university researchers and international schools representing a diverse range of educational settings.
Mission and Goals
The Alliance is a network of K–16 practitioners, education researchers, and educational partners working to improve quality and build capacity in dual language and multilingual education (DL/M). Its work focuses on identifying the core program features and implementation factors that support effective multilingual learning.
The Alliance’s goals are to:
- Strengthen the quality and implementation of multilingual programs.
- Help programs prepare students to be bilingual, biliterate, bicultural, and ready for college and careers.
- Address research and policy issues that affect the long-term success of multilingual education.
Why Multilingual Education Matters
Dual language and immersion (DL/I) programs serve urban and rural communities across the United States. As schools become more linguistically diverse, these programs treat students’ existing language abilities as assets and support multilingual learning alongside native English-speaking students.
Dual language and multilingual programs have been found to improve core-subject achievement for English learners and native English speakers and to reduce achievement gaps between student groups. These findings support the case for educational equity, but they do not establish that every program will produce the same results or eliminate achievement gaps.
Partner Commitments and Shared Expertise
Each partner has agreed, in principle, to contribute to the Alliance’s collaborative work by:
- Identifying and raising issues that affect the success of two-way and one-way dual language and immersion programs, as well as international multilingual programs.
- Participating in specific research efforts by contributing expertise and student-level data.
- Providing access to teachers, administrators, and parents to support collaborative work.
The Alliance connects expertise from schools, programs, teachers, administrators, and students across diverse education systems worldwide. As participation grows, the network can draw on a broader pool of experience. Its value lies in sharing knowledge across systems rather than relying on the experience of any single school or program.