Jim Valentine, director of the American Language Institute, received his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles specializing in Psychological Studies in Education with a cognate in TESL/Applied Linguistics. He also holds a B.A. in French and Spanish from Dartmouth College. For seven years prior to his arrival at the University of Southern California, he served as language coordinator for the international business programs at the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management. His principal applied research interests are human motivation, the instructional design of language programs, organizational psychology, and educational anthropology.