Seattle Language Academy

About School

Mission Statement
Seattle Language Academy seeks to promote both language-learning among the residents of the Puget Sound region, and thereby to promote both individual growth and the growth of understanding among the citizens both of the region and of the world.

History
Seattle Language Academy was founded in September of 1996 and originally occupied offices in Capitol Hill. In its ten plus years, it has grown from 60 students, five instructors and three staff members to its current size of nearly 500 students, 40 instructors, and 10 full and part-time staff members, making it the premier provider of foreign language instruction in the region and one of the largest on the West Coast. In 2002 Seattle Language Academy became a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and in 2003 relocated to Fremont. In 2004 it became fully accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools (NAAS).

Curriculum
French class Each quarter, SLA offers classes at various levels in Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, German, French, Ancient Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Modern Greek, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. Its special summer offerings include accelerated five-week courses and immersion courses (“Series Intensives”), which compress an entire year of study into ten weeks. In addition to regularly scheduled classes, SLA arranges private language programs for individuals, small groups and organizations (see Custom Language Programs), and offers a complete English Language Program for foreign learners.

SLA's student body includes high school students preparing for college; college students preparing for study abroad; adults of all ages preparing to travel oversees, exploring family history and heritage, or studying for personal enrichment; and professionals motivated by the demands of the global workplace.

Facility
In the summer of 2003, SLA relocated to its current facility, the Canal Centre, on the Lake Washington Ship Canal west of the Fremont Bridge. The Canal Centre features spacious and well-equipped classrooms, a language and computer lab, and lovely views of the Ship Canal. On foot, it is less than ten minutes to the heart of Fremont's business district.

The Logo
The Seattle Language Academy emblem is adapted from the heraldic device of the Italian della Rovere family, which produced two famous Renaissance popes: Sixtus IV, who ordered the construction of the Sistine Chapel in the 1480s, and Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to decorate it some decades later. For the della Rovere family, the oak tree alluded to their name (rovere is an Italian word for ‘oak’); to the founders of SLA the emblem recommended itself both for its beauty and because – like an oak tree – the learning of a new language is characterized by small beginnings but great promise.

• Website: http://www.sealang.org
• Phone: (206) 325-4109