Advocacy Activities Menu

Ideas and Templates to Kickstart Your Efforts

Whether you have five minutes, 30 minutes, or a few hours, you and fellow advocates can take steps to enact meaningful change in sustaining and expanding language advocacy efforts at the local, state, and federal levels.

Explore the below steps along with our growing collection of sample materials, templates, and tools to inspire your next advocacy project!

Advocacy Idea Bank

Proactive projects to make the most of…

- Make a classroom post on social media: Highlight how your program benefits your students, school, and community! | Sample Social Media Post
- Establish a program-specific social media account. | Samples & Advice on Creating a Program Instagram
- Write an email to stakeholders/state representatives.
- Organize ideas for an advocacy blog post.
- Write a short message to administrators or other stakeholders about something positive in your class/program.
- Explore whether your state publishes a Foreign Direct Investment Report (see this example from Ohio) and pull out key findings about the countries investing in your state/county to leverage in outreach with regional businesses.
- Reach out to a language teacher candidate or undergrad to invite them to participate in an advocacy activity with you. Advocacy is one of the one of the ACTFL/CAEP Standards for world language teacher preparation programs, and aspiring teachers are great advocates!
- Create an informational flyer to distribute to parents and administrators about language education, the benefits of multilingualism, or your program.
- Create a flyer to promote your program at upcoming student orientations or enrollment drives. | Sample Student Orientation Flyer
- Design a series of hallway posters to catch student attention and promote enrollment in your program. | Sample Hallway Posters (German) | Sample Hallway Poster (Japanese)
- Research & create a poster highlighting the value of language skills to a specific industry or career opportunity. | Sample Career Posters
- Write a short article or post celebrating your language program, student achievements, graduates, or Seal of Biliteracy awardees for the school social media or school/district newspaper. | Sample School News Blurbs
- Have students write letters to the administration to share why the program matters to them.
- Create an advocacy newsletter. | Sample Classroom Newsletter
- Organize an advocacy webinar.
- Host monthly advocacy meetings with fellow champions and stakeholders.
- Reach out to local businesses to explain the importance of your program and to ask for partnership opportunities (think: donations, events, prizes). | Sample Donation Letter
- Bring in (via Zoom or live) a guest speaker. Ask them to post about the event on their social media.
- Make a video to promote language pathways to show students who are selecting their language courses (example: If language classes start in 6th grade, create the video for 5th graders).
- Attend a school board meeting and present success stories, awards, or student testimonials.
- Craft a digital brochure or slideshow about your programs to use at recruiting events and boost registration. | Sample Digital Brochure
- Set up a National Honor Society. | Sample NGHS Constitution & Bylaws | Sample Honor Society Application
- Post a hallway display or bulletin board, promoting the benefits of language learning and/or highlighting the work of your students.
- Attend parent night, open houses, or other opportunities to engage with families. | Sample Back-to-School Night Flyer
- Host a World Language Week during National Foreign Language Week in March. | Sample World Language Week Plans
- Work with feeder schools to share information about the program.
- Collaborate with teachers in other departments to establish interdisciplinary connections. | Sample German-Speaking Scientists Project
- Create a state one-pager and share the information with your network.
- Organize/establish an advocacy committee. | Sample Focus Group Flyer
- Visit a local representative to pitch the importance of World Languages.
- Participate in National Language Exams. | Sample Parent Permission Letter
- Collect data (Seal of Biliteracy, AAPPL scores, reflections) and compile the information into a report to show trends over time.
- Participate in a JNCL webinar or Hill event.
- Develop AP/dual credit programming. Consider partnering with your local university for dual credits in language courses. This example shows how one university offers dual enrollment credits in ASL, Chinese, Classics, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, as well as other content areas. 
- Participate in "Rising 6th" and "Rising 9th" programs in your district, where schools have an assembly to learn about world language options at the next level.
- Host a dance performance incorporating language and culture to engage your elementary students and their families in advocacy.
- Consider developing a parent advisory board to help plan International Nights, language fairs, field trips, travel abroad, and more—as well as expand your network of advocates & champions!
- Launch a program/club for future teachers at your K-12 school to start speaking with current language students about joining the profession. See ACTFL’s Educators Rising modules as a starting point.

Have original sample materials or templates that you’d like to share with fellow advocates? Email advocacy@actfl.org to connect.

Looking for more ways to kickstart advocacy efforts from your classroom or in your school? Explore even more actionable ways to generate support for local programs and the policies that bolster language education at all levels.

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