The Critical Languages Institute (CLI) at Arizona State University’s Melikian Center is a national training institute for less commonly taught languages, offering summer intensive courses and study-abroad programs around the world.

CLI instruction in Arizona and abroad is practically focused and proficiency-based. Students not only study a language, but learn to live that language. Specially designed summer intensives on the ASU campus prepare students, even beginners, to function competently in their language when they go abroad. Once overseas, students live and breathe their language; they participate in family life, join sports and gaming clubs, sing in choirs, join theater groups, appear on television, give presentations and make speeches, participate in neighborhood projects, and otherwise actively immerse themselves in the culture of the language they are learning.

Wherever they start their journey, CLI students travel on as multicultural, global citizens, comfortable living in new cultures and communicating in new languages.

The Melikian Center provides study-abroad advising, grant & career mentoring, and visits by federal agency recruiters during Tempe-based CLI programs. CLI graduates have an exceptionally high success rate for competitive study-abroad awards like the Boren and Fulbright.

CLI’s domestic and abroad programs are extremely affordable due to generous private institutional, and federal support; including a tuition waiver for both in-state and out-of-state participants. CLI charges a flat administrative fee for all participants in lieu of tuition. Private support includes scholarships and fellowships made available by the larger Melikian Center’s board members and donors.