The UW-Madison Language Institute was awarded a $379,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Education Tuesday to support the Central Asian Interactive Listening Series project.

The project, funded for three years, is designed to further Americans’ language skills in Turkish languages of Central Asia and surrounding regions.

The CAILS project focuses on the languages of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, two major Central Asian countries. UW-Madison has one of the major programs in Central Asian Languages, and is one of a few universities nationwide to offer courses in Uzbek or Kazak.

Students may recognize Kazakhstan from the popular television series, “Da Ali G Show” and its accompanying movie, “Borat.”

The CAILS project provides the framework for being able to listen to and understand the languages at a more advanced level, through multimedia, current affairs, gender issues and history, according to Uli Schamiloglu, CAILS project director and UW-Madison professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia.

“It’s really difficult for people in this country and certainly in other countries to have access to instructional materials in these languages,” Schamiloglu said. “This grant will be very good for putting Wisconsin on the map in terms of developing materials for these languages.”